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European Impact on the California Indians, 1530-1830

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Harry Kelsey*
Affiliation:
Natural History Museum, Los Angeles, California

Extract

When the first European visitors arrived on the shores of California, they found the Indians to be poor and the country sparsely settled. The natives lived in semi-permanent villages of brush shelters and huts. Though hunters and gatherers, they sometimes practiced a form of protoagriculture. Social groups were fragmented by complex language differences. Often extremely hostile and suspicious of strangers, they were nonetheless attracted to the culture brought in by the newcomers.

In most cases the Europeans discovered that the Indians fit their own preconceptions. Missionaries found them eager for conversion. Sophisticates saw them as ignorant and brutish. Kindly people considered them to be warm and friendly. To soldiers they seemed fierce and hostile. Catholic visitors to the missions were frequently impressed with their piety. Protestants often thought their faith was but a thin veneer overlying an undiminished paganism. It is nearly impossible to generalize about the observations of Europeans. Indians in the same place were often described in totally contradictory ways by successive parties of visitors. And this same diversity of opinion exists among historians today.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1985

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References

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65 The best accounts are in Bancroft, Hubert Howe, History of California, vol. 1, 15421800,Google Scholar and vol. 2, 1801–1824, vols. 18 and 19 of the Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft (San Francisco: The History Co., 1886), I, 244–57, 290–97, 298–316; II, 34–35, 323–26, 333–35, 527–38.

66 The classic statement of the anti-missionary position was made by Cook, Sherburne F. in The Indian versus the Spanish Mission, which was vol. 1 of his The Conflict between the California Indian and White Civilization, (3 vols.; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1943).Google Scholar The most able defense of the Franciscan missionaries has been made in the various works of Francis F. Guest, cited herein.

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72 Lasuén, Refutation of Charges, 23 July 1797, in Kenneally, , ed., Writings, 2, 212.Google Scholar Engelhardt says there were at least twenty-nine marriages. See his Upper California, vol. 3 of Missions and Missionaries of California (4 vols.; San Francisco: James G. Barry Co., 1913), 645. Other sources give higher totals.

73 See, for example, the remarks by Jesuit missionary Salvatierra, Juan María in Misión de la Baja California, ed. by Baile, C. (Madrid: La Editorial Católica, 1946), pp. 210–11, 226–27.Google Scholar See also Jackson, , “Epidemic Disease,” 308–38.Google Scholar

74 See the testimony of the padres in Geiger, and Meighan, , As the Padres Saw Them, pp. 105–06.Google Scholar S. F. Cook concluded in 1943 that the padres were wrong and syphilis was not a major cause of Indian population decline. See his Conflict between the California Indians and White Civilization, I, 29. Recent research has shown this opinion to be wrong. See Meighan’s, explanation in As the Padres Saw Them, p. 7.Google Scholar

75 Lasuén letter of March 1, 1795, quoted in Cook, , Conflict between the California Indian and White Civilization, 1, 110–12.Google Scholar See also Kelsey, Harry, trans, and ed., The Doctrina and Confesionario of Juan Cortés (Altadena, CA: Howling Coyote Press, 1979), p. 10.Google Scholar The protest idea seems to have originated with Hugo Reid. See his letters to the editors, Los Angeles Star, 15 February 1852 and later, letter no. 14, in which he describes the killing of infants conceived as a result of rape. These letters have been reprinted many times, though never from the originals, which are in the manuscript collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. The most recent reprint is the version by Heizer, Robert F., ed., The Indians of Los Angeles County: Hugo Reid’s Letters of 1852 (Los Angeles: Southwest Museum, 1968).Google Scholar In this version the letter in question is numbered 16 (page 70). Heizer carefully noted the differences between the various published versions. Strangely enough, he did not consult the original manuscripts, though he knew of their existence (ibid., 4), but thought some had disappeared. Actually, the collection includes all of the published manuscripts, plus a number of Reid’s commentaries on the Indians of Los Angeles that have never been published.

76 Guest, Francis F., “An Examination of the Thesis of S. F. Cook on the Forced Conversion of Indians in the California Missions,” Southern California Quarterly, 61 (Spring 1979), 16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Engelhardt, , Missions and Missionaries, 2, 527; III, 312–13.Google Scholar

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79 The reports for 1785–1802 are published in Kenneally, , Writings, 2, 394426.Google Scholar Those for the period 1785–1821 are summarized in Archibald, Robert, The Economic Aspects of the California Missions (Washington: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1978), p. 154.Google Scholar

80 The most widely quoted population study was done by Cook forty years ago, Conflict between the California Indian and White Civilization. Cook relied largely on transcripts and summaries made in the late nineteenth century for Hubert Howe Bancroft. Ibid., I, 2, 14. His sources did not improve substantially with the years. In his last major study, The Population of the California Indians, 1769–1970, he relied on the same sources, plus “transcripts” (really extracts and summaries) made by Thomas Workman Temple, two mission registers (it is not clear whether Cook actually used these or simply had them extracted by Temple), and studies of the Chumash villages done by Alan K. Brown. Ibid., pp. 21–23, 27–29, 87–88. In other words, some of the major studies of California Indian populations are based on secondary sources. Cook began to face the problem in 1976, when he admitted that “the baptism books are still available, and if time and opportunity were favorable, it would be desirable to make a definitive count.” (The Population of the California Indians, 1769–1970, p. 35). While it is difficult to compare figures in Cook’s various studies, it appears, for example, that in the new work Cook changed his estimate of local gentile baptisms at Mission Soledad from the 1,326 listed in his 1940 work (p. 184) to 1,165 in the 1976 study (p. 29). Similarly, he changed his estimate of local gentile baptisms at Mission Santa Cruz from 1,506 in his 1940 study (p. 184) to 1,220 in his 1976 account (p. 29). In a still later work, which he coauthored, Cook finally began to rely on original records. Working with Woodrow Borah, Cook came up with “new assemblies based upon new readings of the registers” of eight missions, again reducing his totals. Nevertheless, he also continued to insist that the aboriginal population was more than twice as large as he had estimated in 1940. See Cook, S.F. and Borah, Woodrow, Essays in Population History: Mexico and California (3 vols.; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979), 3, 189–90.Google Scholar In addition, the authors concluded that infant mortality in the missions was “no worse than in other comparable societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” Ibid., III, 241–42. Obviously, no one can use Cook’s earlier studies without great caution, and it may very well be that most of his work should be done again. At the very least, Cook’s work on California Indian populations is open to serious question. In fact, all Indian population studies need to be approached with a good deal of caution. See Merrell, James H., “Playing the Indian Numbers Game,” Reviews in American History, 12 (September 1984), 354–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

81 Cook, , The Population of the California Indians, 1769–1970, p. 77,Google Scholar says: “From the earliest days of the missions intermarriage was common between Indians and Spaniards or Mexicans.” In the same book (p. 143) he says: “There were very few marriages between Spaniards or Mexicans and Indian women.” See also page 162, where he reverses the argument again.

82 Jackson, , “Epidemic Disease,” 310.Google Scholar

83 Cook originally estimated the population at 135,000; Conflict between the California Indian and White Civilization, I, 3. By 1976 he had changed the total to 310,000; Population of the California Indians, 1769–1970, p. 43. Baumhoff estimated the population at 350,000; see the comments of Ubelaker, Douglas H., “Sources and Methodology for Mooney’s Estimate of North American Indian Populations,” in The Native Population of the Americas in 1492, ed. by Denevan, William M. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), pp. 237–39, 286–87.Google Scholar

84 See the annual summaries in Archibald, , Economic Aspects, p. 154 Google Scholar; and in Engelhardt, , Missions and Missionaries of California, 3, 653.Google Scholar Both of these sources seem to agree on a total approaching 80,000. Possibly the figure includes some whites, and it may be subject to interpretation on other grounds as well. Neverless, Engelhardt is consistent in stating that his totals include only Indians; white baptisms are listed separately. See his Missions and Missionaries of California, III, 316. Mission San Carlos Borromeo (.Carmelo), The Father of the Missions (Santa Barbara: mission Santa Barbara, 1934), p. 242. San Francisco, or Mission Dolores (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1924), pp. 270–71. San Miquel Arcángel, The Mission on the Highway (Santa Barbara: Mission Santa Barbara, 1929), p. 60. Mission Nuestra Señora de Soledad (Santa Barbara: Mission Santa Barbara, 1929), p. 81. See also Smilie, Robert S., The Sonoma Mission, San Francisco Solano de Sonoma (Fresno: Valley Publishers, 1975), p. 137.Google Scholar McCarthy, Francis Florence, The History of Mission San Jose, California, 1797–1835, ed. by Wood, Raymund F. (2nd ed.; Fresno: Academy Library Guild, 1958), pp. 136, 224.Google Scholar

85 Archibald, , Economic Aspects, p. 154.Google Scholar

86 A major problem in Indian population studies is how to deal with assimilation. Cook, discusses the matter in Population of the California Indians, 1769–1970, pp. 7576,Google Scholar and elsewhere.

87 Ibid., p. 76.

88 Cook, and Borah, , Essays in Population History: Mexico and California, 3, 211,Google Scholar agree that the missions in Alta California probably saved the Indians from a worse fate than the one they endured.