California Indian History Key Terms

Federally Recognized Tribes

Tribes that have a federal designation and are accepted as sovereign entities under US law with certain rights and benefits, including access to federal funding and programs.

Non-Federally Recognized Tribes

Tribes that have no relationship with the U.S government. Many tribes aren’t recognized because the government doesn’t believe they have enough physical history to prove they existed.

Creation Stories vs. Settler Narratives

Living understandings of how the land and people came to be. Usually unique to every tribe. They were also used as instructions for how to treat the land and others. California Indians used creation stories to articulate Indigenous identity and land

Settler Narratives

Euro centric narratives based around the idea that the settlers founded the land and that the land was better off because of the colonization. Often start with the Gold Rush in 1849 in northern California or the arrival of the Spanish in 1769 in southern California.

Creation "myths"

Native Americans use them to explain how the world was formed and how they came into being

-stories that have reality-based events

-invalidates history

- rooted in historical facts

-crater lake

Salvage Anthropology/Ethnography

Refers specifically to the collection of cultural artifacts and human remains rather than the general collection of data and images. It gained a lot of traction due to the idea that Indigenous peoples were “vanishing.” Didn't work to save Natives, only their items.

Alfred Kroeber

An anthropologist who was regarded for a long time as leading the forefront of knowledge on Native American history. Much of what Kroeber said suggested that Natives were excessively primitive. Collected California Indian material culture.

Mission Mythology

Sanitizes history in order to convey a manipulated narrative about Natives. Glorifies enslavement. The violence from the mission imposed silence and erasure.

Historical silence

Miranda writes about the violence of imposed silence and erasure. Many parts of California Indian history are not talked about, both through the denialism of settler colonial society and schooling and through historical trauma within Native communities. This creates periods that people don’t speak about or know about due to the erasure of culture and history and the suppression of documentation and stories

Historical Anachronism

Related to the concept of the Vanishing Indian, and the idea that Native peoples are relics of the past and “[not relevant to our modern world]” (Lightfoot & Parrish). About Native peoples continue extinction narratives that erase all of the Indigenous people who are still here, as well as all of the ways that Indigenous societies shaped and changed the world

Hunter- gatherer

Describes peoples who live off of subsistence hunting and gathering. Indigenous Californian societies defy this stereotype in their complexity and high population density. Native nations across the state were shaping ecosystems and foodways, and had incredibly complex linguistic and cultural diversity and political organization (“sophisticated polities”)

Neophytes or neofitos

Baptized Natives, expected to perform labor at the missions.

Discipline and Punishment

The methods used to control and abuse Mission Indians, being regularly flogged and whipped. Common punishment devices included things like the Cat-o’-Nine Tails, a whip with nine ropes that sometimes had barbed wire or steel balls on the ends, flogging, a corma, which was a wooden device that latched Indian’s feet together so they could still work while being punished, and cudgels.

Presidarios

Prisoners/convict laborers who performed forced labor in the presidios (Spanish military forts)

Gentiles

Natives that refused baptism, non-converted/non-Christian Natives

"Free" and "unfree" labor

“Free” labor was labor voluntarily or freely given. “Unfree” labor is a term used by some scholars to describe coerced or forced labor, oftentimes “unfree” labor amounts to slavery.

Genealogy of Violence

Theory of how violence is passed down through generations. The mission gave them the idea of violence.

Missionization

The process of establishing outposts in order to exploit and convert California Indians

Patriarchal Social Order

Introduced through the mission system, a social network that places importance and lineage through men

Sexual Violence

It was common for women and children to suffer sexual assault from soldiers, priests, and padres in the missions. This act of violence was used to humiliate them and make them feel powerless.

Monjerias

Quarters within a colonial Spanish mission; developed to house unmarried Indigenous women and girls.

Alcalde

Natives that had power over other Natives in the mission. This was often given to people who would have already had some influence in the community. This made Native people fight amongst themselves, and therefore less likely to rebel against the padres.

The Sierra Report

Canonized Fransiscan priest Serra as a saint. He was extremely abusive to the native people. He was commonly seen as someone who was positively serving the native people despite this.

Mission Apologists

Historians who believe the missions were a good system

Colonization Act of 1824

Created avenues through which private individuals, Mexican nationals, foreign immigrants, and a select number of Indians, could obtain land. Mission land could not be colonized.

Decree of Emancipation in favor of the neophytes 1826

Granted Indians the right to separate themselves from the missions and limited Franciscans authority over Natives

Licenciados

Those who were granted freedom under the decree of 1826; legally emancipated

Secularization Act of 1834

Swept away the initial qualifications of the Colonization Act and opened up prime mission lands for settlement.

Californios

Descendents of Spanish and Mexican conquerors; Spanish speaking inhabitants of California they were culture of Mexico carried to California.

Native Land Tenure

Neophytes received land in the vicinity of the missions by two ways:

1. Petitioned for ranchos-- gained ownership and title

2. Got land through secularization- modest plots with no title

Wa She Shu/ Washo people

A Native tribe in Northern California/Nevada

Da Ow a ga

Washo name for Lake Tahoe which they considered to be the giver of life, as it fed fish animals, and humans

John Sutter

Swiss entrepreneur, under the mexican rule to conquer land, also known as New Helvetia. Known for being power hungry, enslaving Indians, and was highly involved in the Native slave trafficking.

New Helvetia

Sutter's for meaning "New Switzerland". Known for trafficking Indian children with an implied "sexual dimension".

Rancheria

Multiple tribal nations within one tribal nation

Mariano Vallejo

A Mexican general and the owner of Rancho Petaluma Adobe. Held captive during Bear Flag Revolt, his land/property pillaged.

Rancho Petaluma Adobe

Under secularization, Vallejo transferred Mission San Francisco Solano and its land to his own Rancho Petaluma Adobe

1846 Vagrancy and Surveillance Act

Proclamation by Capt. John B. Montgomery warned against regarding Natives as slaves but states that saw California Natives "wandering about in idle and dissolute manner will be forced into employment"- setting up a system of peonage/slavery in California under U.S rule (Resendez 263).

1847 Certificate and Pass System

Made California Natives required to carry certificates from their employers and passes for any travel- forcing more people into the labor force- placing systems that enslave Natives into law.

1850 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians

Legalized peonage (debt/enslavement system) that existed under Mexican rule, expanded martial law, custodianship, and enslavement. Put extreme limitations on California Indians such as outlawing Indigenous testimony against white Americans, indentured California Indian children, and more.

1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Ended the Mexican- American war and Mexico ceded 55% of its territory to the U.S

Gold Rush

January 24, 1848. Huge migration of labor and people looking to find gold. Completely restructured California, creating a foundation for contemporary California and its affluence.

Anglo-American Sentiments

Different from Mexico and Spain, Anglos regarded California Indians as disposable and unable to live in harmony with. Very violent rhetoric resulting in mass genocide of Natives

Genocide

The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.

Settler colonialism

Settler colonialism is a long-term structure which seeks to destroy and replace the original population

State sanctioned murder

The state offered monetary compensation for any dead Indian, whether man, woman or child

Unratified treaties

Unratified treaties are agreements made between parties that have not been formally approved by the necessary authority (in this case the U.S Senate). In Heizer’s Treaties, these agreements were made between the United States and California Indian tribes in 1851-1852 to secure land rights and reduce conflicts. The Senate never actually ratified these treaties, leaving them without legal standing and failing to provide the promised protections/benefits to these groups.