Alta California

Christianizing Economic Reforms

Native Peoples

• Diverse climate, geography, culture, and language

• Europeans create more diversity and conflict

• Europeans diverse themselves-mix of European Indian African

• 1769-1776-1821 expanding nations

Franciscan Missions

• Powerful influence on California’s historical identity

• ignores Native voice and history until approximately 1970’s

• Written narratives, letters and records of missionaries, soldiers, settlers,

• Failure to acknowledge and interpret Native and women’s records

Historiography

• Two opposing camps of scholars

• Good vs. evil polarized based on Spanish accounts not the central experience of Indian-1980’s Father Serra

• Lack of Native Voice

• Lack of Women’s Voice

• Information available but overlooked

Women’s History

• European view• Again until 1970’s Mexican and Spanish

women relegated to good and bad• Hubert Bancroft, considered Spanish

Mexican Californians “a race halfway between the proud Castilian and the lowly root digger

• “Halfway between savagery and civilization.” only Indian lower

• Discussions by scholars in regards to mistreatment of women cursory if at all

• Bancroft treated sexual violence and other forms as the moral degeneration of mix of soldier settler

• Spanish woman romanticized as tempestuous yet beyond reproach

• Mexican of loose character

Historians

• Herbert Eugene Bolton• James J Rawls• Walton Bean• Sherburne Cook• Robert Jackson and Castillo• Stephen W. Hackel• Antonia Casteneda• Vicki Ruiz

Diverse Indians

• Looked on as pre stone age

• Geography and climate

• Origins

• Dynamic change and adaptation

• Everything had name each mountain river hill etc

• European wilderness-Native sacred, work, gathering, villages hunting,

Survival of Stone Age

• Misunderstood-persistence of primitive ideas about nature of people and racism-which we know is not biological, but social and cultural

• Historian Suchen Chang noted “Most scholars today would that what ‘race’ signifies is changeable

• Socially and historically determined

Regional Adaptation

• Until recently anthropologists classified them as hunter gatherers or agriculturists

• Now realize participate in wide variety of management practices so to enhance yield

• Burning ground cover, pruning plants and trees, hand weeding, culled animal and insect population

Early California

• Not product of hereditary biological limitations but geographical isolation from outside world and each other.

• But on other hand California supported more than any other region of comparable size in North America and North of Mexico

• Successful adaptation and did not destroy each other.

Food

• Diverse and ingenious• Staple acorn-very complex process• Transplanted preferred varieties of plants and

animals• Field Biologists-Repeated appearance of native

tobacco, elderberry, jimsonweed, black walnut trees near ancient villages

• Geographer William Preston “one of most altered pre-colonial landscapes in Americas

Basket Technology

• Cooking utensils shaped for use

• Caulked with pitch or tar or so tight it would hold boiling water

• Pottery not necessary or useful

• Pottery only in Southwest and influenced by other SW Indians

Work Distribution

• Men hunt with bows and arrows as well as knives made of obsidian harpoons for salmon

• Gathering of plants and cooking women• But overlaps so European view cannot be

applied• Women hunted small game and fish• Men sometimes aid in plant collection-

acorns from trees

European view

• Lazy but misunderstood division of hard work

• Digger-lived by digging roots-not aware women wanted roots for basket making

• Persisted perhaps because deprivation of land easier to justify if Indians are viewed as miserable and subhuman

• Population more than 300,000 or more but more concentrated than any other area

Pomo Basket

Dwellings

• Conical or dome shaped

• Northwest solid frame redwood rectangular

• Poles and brush sometimes underground or banked with earth for insulation

Sweatlodge

• Confined to men-women have gathering moon lodges

• Not called Temescal which is Nahuatl• Open fire-smoke in upper area-men on

floor-sweat then run to stream-ritual clean and healthy

• Women had other cleaning areas both sexes sometimes prefer to sleep and eat in these separate areas

Language families

• Determined by geographic isolation of water and food

• Language is isolating • Knew would live and die on bank of cettain

stream or river• Knew other people and intermarried but

did not infringe on rights to area• Exchange of good common-obsidian, fish,

etc

Social Characteristics

• Universal rare

• Diversity is rule

• Scholars had divided into six areas of culture-dress, housing, manufacturing methods, and other routine areas

• Has passed out of fashion it is useful to know

Six areas

• Southern, Central, Northwestern Northeastern Great Basin, and Colorado River Culture

• Exceptions to every rule-Colorado area bore resemblance to eastern tribes-go general rule is always flexible.

• Except for tribes along C. river mainly not aggressive

• Suspicion and wars not uncommon-trespassing poaching abductions and resources

• Person and family more common than tribal warfare

• Murder most common then retribution would be preferred option

• Small battles might erupt but payment was often offered to alleviate and if continued payment for damages

• Northwest more materially driven and slavery based on debt

• Gambling widespread beads on string common

Family

• Most important and very effective

• Marriage formal mutual commitment-divorce possible but hard. Prostitution unknown

• Kinship laws-not talk to mother in law-sacred and respect

Women

• Women essential pass on knowledge, food storage and production, storage facilities, central areas 15 ft high

• Ritual activities-rise in status through dancing and signing

• Cupeno women had “enemy songs” in which they chastised villagers who were not conforming group norms.

• Chumash often ruled one or more villages• NW spiritual leaders

Wise

• Religious and medical in one person

• Herbs

• Plants

• Communicated with the spirits

• Political, economic, and legal authority through this position

• Religious differences Southern Toaloache is jimson tea and vision

Nature

• Interconnected and sacred power

• Every drink killing of animal considered sacred

• Singing while making acorn mash

• Historiography reflects European idea of Americas not having history before arrival.

Early venture

• Hernando Cortes-1533 sent expedition to Baja following tales of Amazons and magnificent wealth-El Dorado

• 1542 Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo Straits of Anian poorly built ships and conscripts

• San Miguel later changed by Vizcaino• Earliest descriptions of Chumash and

other Indians mainland friendly Island not• As far north as Oregon-return to Navidad

Francis Drake and Nova Albion

• Generation later 1579 upper California

• Accident in 3 year voyage around world

• Open English trade with Spice Islands and partly to annoy Spanish in his “Indyes”

• Northwest Passage

• Elizabeth and Philip she suspected him

• Carrying 30 tons of captured Spanish gold

Sir Francis Drake, "English-born navigator who set out to sail around the world, got stuck while looking for the Strait of Anián, and docked somewhere along the coast near San Francisco; he claimed the land for England and then continued sailing westward. His California exploits led the Spanish to more seriously consider the region for settlement.“ (California Faces: Selections from the Bancroft Library Portrait Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley)

• Emergency repair hull was splitting open• June 17 1759 found “convenient and fit” harbor

stayed 5 weeks Point Reyes but disputed• Most interesting is accounts of Indians-described

feather baskets, homes, ceremonies, Coast Miwok

• Misinterpret putting feather in Drakes hair as turning over country to him

• Cried and tore cheeks as sifgn of mourning not loyalty

Arthur Quinn

• Interprets the mourning as dark prophesy Of Indian white relations in California

• he saw it as dead generations but future

Viscaino

• After Cermeno fails to find port to aid Manila Galleons as supply stop

• Entrusted to Sebastian Viscaino• Left Acapulco in November 10 1602• Recorded impressions of Kumeyaay

friendly in their rancherias• Goes to Monterrey and lies about the size

and suitability-Cermeno had seen it-describes timber and sheltered from winds

Political Change

• Viceroy Monterrey promoted to Peru

• New Viceroy Monteclaros ridicules California port

• Said winds would send ships southward

• He right Galleons never stopped there

• 167 years before settlement why? Isolation and low regard for economic

• Travel too dangerous and not worth it

Essie Parrish

• 20th century Kashaya Pomo

• Ancestors told story of first ships. They thought it was a bird-an omen of the end of their world

Native voice

• In the old days, before the white people came up here, there a boat sailing on the ocean from the south. Because we had never seen a boat, they said “Our world must be coming to an end.” Couldn’t we do something? This big bird floating on the ocean is from somewhere, probably from on high. Let us plan a feast. Let us have a dance.” They followed its course with their eyes…saying that destruction was upon them.

Spain’s Indian Policies

• No money or manpower for the northern settlement and unprofitable as we saw

• Ingenious plan as we saw in the Valley to transform Indians into colonists

• Interesting blend of religious, political, and economic reasons

• As subjects and humans with souls had rights to protection

• In return for Christianization give labor

Essential key

• Make Indians Spanish political religious and economic and by blood

• Different than English colonists as we saw• No comparable plan for assimilation• English plan displacement or sometimes

extermination• British could bring wives attractive• Spanish women not attracted to Spanish

America

Mission as Tool

• Roots in long struggle against Moors

• Cross and sword in forcible conversion

• Reconquista to conquista of Americas

• Missions had missionaries in charge of Indian neophytes

• Soldiers and garrison at presidio

• Soldiers and priest not cordial but cooperate

Tensions

• Women

• Harry Crosby said missions crux of the conquest

• Abolition of pre conquest practices

• Integrate into greater Spanish economy

• Crosby argued largely economic venture

• Theoretically temporary 10 years

Other tensions

• Pueblos and Indians

• Church grounds where there was 100’s and 1000’s Indians in dormitory like buildings

• Women

• New studies show infanticide, abortions, suicides, female children

Plan

• Original pueblos near church• Secularize after founding, 4 square

leagues all fields and other property given out to Indians and community government would pass to local native officials who were trained

• Mission given to parish priests• Missionaries move on to other area to

begin again

Reality

• Continued for decades • How to secularize is issue debated by

government and locals• Laws of Indies called for training in local

management but never given• Missionary fathers Indian children not able to

govern-turned them into helpless dependents and kept them that way. Says Bean and Rawls

• Really? Is that always true?

Artist unknown, portrait of Indian girl, handwritten title "Indienne Californienne du Sud, 1850s (Robert B. Honeyman, Jr. Collection of Early Californian and Western American Pictorial Material, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley) (cc111/u3p203)

José Cardero, The reception of Jean-Francois de la Perouse at Mission Carmel in 1786 (Robert B. Honeyman, Jr. Collection of Early Californian and Western American Pictorial Material, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley)

Detail of vc10030: José Cardero, The reception of Jean-Francois de la Perouse at Mission Carmel in 1786 (Robert B. Honeyman, Jr. Collection of Early Californian and Western American Pictorial Material, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley)

What do you think?

Wilhelm Gottlief Tilesius von Tilenau: Dance of Indians at Mission in San Jose, New California, c. 1803 to 1807 (Robert B. Honeyman, Jr. Collection of Early Californian and Western American Pictorial Material, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley)

Ludwig Choris, Dance of native Californians at San Francisco de Assis Mission, California, 1816 (Robert B. Honeyman, Jr. Collection of Early Californian and Western American Pictorial Material, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley)

Ludwig Choris, War dance costumes of the inhabitants of California, 1816 (Robert B. Honeyman, Jr. Collection of Early Californian and Western American Pictorial Material, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley)

Outskirts of the town San Luis Obispo. Barrio del Tigre (Tiger-town). (Haunts of the native and Indian population in the old mission outbuildings.) Date: 1865" (Mission Era: California Under Spain and Mexico and Reminiscences, ca. 1850-1878, Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley)

San Gabriel Revolt• 1785 reinterpretation of documents• Toypurina native woman, Nicolas Jose, and

others• Testimony of Native eye witnesses• Birth death and marriage records• Indians angry over suppression of tradition• Concentration of Indians in mission and threat to

boundaries• Stress not on Spanish Indian relations but

interactions between individuals and Indians themselves

Indian Testimony

• Shows multiple Indian perspective• Over time Indians oscillate between

acceptance and rejection of missions• Spanish legal system-treated them as

children but had rights to legal system• Eye witness self defense both against

Spaniards and other Indians• True occupation of King is to do justice in

his kingdom

San Gabriel 1771

• On banks of Rio Hondo near southern edge of San Gabriel Valley

• 1775 moved several miles north to present location

• Land of peoples named Kumivet renamed Gabrieleno

• Territory of over 1500 sq miles• Over 50 independent t and competing

Indian communities

October 1785

• Over 1200 Indians baptized

• 843 at mission

• Some in mission allied with as many as eight villages outside to attack mission

• Corporal warned and arrested 21 without bloodshed

• January 1786 four interrogated

• Governor Fages has list of 10 questions

Thomas Workman II

• Wrote interpretation and brings Toypurina in as major player

• Toypurina the Witch and the Indian Uprising at San Gabriel 1958

• Most influential report of the event

• Toypurina symbol of women’s resistance to mission system

Problems

• Explore the documents when it comes to interpretations and add to your Blackboard discussion.

Toypurina and Nicolas Jose

• In Bb discussion discuss Toypurina’s part in the rebellion and her testimony. What are the problems of Temple’s account? What does the author say about her role as an Indian women in the village and in the mission.

• Using the mission’s sacramental records, What does the author say we can understand about Nicholas Jose and his role as a village and mission Indian?

• How does the author contradict Temple’s account and lead the historian to a better view of the rebellion?

Presidios

• San Diego

• Sonoma

• San Francisco

• Spanish woman good character-prototype

Eulalia Callis high born Catalan wife “la Gobernadora” refused her bed when husband not leave office and return family to Mexico.

Dona Concepcion Arguello

• Famous love story told in Russia

• Daughter of Commandante in SF presidio