133-540: The Tongva ( / ˈ t ɒ ŋ v ə / TONG -və ) are an Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands , an area covering approximately 4,000 square miles (10,000 km). In the precolonial era, the people lived in as many as 100 villages and primarily identified by their village rather than by a pan-tribal name. During colonization ,
266-485: A permaculture . Different tribes encountered non-Native European explorers and settlers at widely different times. The southern and central coastal tribes encountered European explorers in the mid-16th century. Tribes such as the Quechan or Yuman Indians in present-day southeast California and southwest Arizona first encountered Spanish explorers in the 1760s and 1770s. Tribes on the coast of northwest California, like
399-618: A California Senate Bill of 2008 asserted that the US government signed treaties with the Gabrieleño, promising 8.5 million acres (3,400,000 ha) of land for reservations , and that these treaties were never ratified, a paper published in 1972 by Robert Heizer of the University of California at Berkeley , shows that the eighteen treaties made between April 29, 1851, and August 22, 1852, were negotiated with persons who did not represent
532-598: A Justice of the Peace punishable by fine, any white person may, by consent of the Justice, give bond for said Indian, conditioned for the payment of said fine and costs, and in such case the Indian shall be compelled to work for the person so bailing, until he has discharged or cancelled the fine assessed against him. Native men were disproportionately criminalized and swept into this legalized system of indentured servitude . As
665-605: A city which saw an increase in the Native population from 200 in 1820 to 553 in 1836 (out of a total population of 1,088). As stated by scholar Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval, "while they should have been owners, the Tongva became workers, performing strenuous, back-breaking labor just as they had done ever since settler colonialism emerged in Southern California." As described by researcher Heather Valdez Singleton, Los Angeles
798-400: A diverse group of nations and peoples that are indigenous to the geographic area within the current boundaries of California before and after European colonization . There are currently 109 federally recognized tribes in the state and over forty self-identified tribes or tribal bands that have applied for federal recognition . California has the second-largest Native American population in
931-478: A divide between Mexican Los Angeles and the nearest Native community. However, "Native men, women, and children continued to live (not just work) in the city. On Saturday Nights, they even held parties, danced, and gambled at the removed Yaanga village and also at the plaza at the center of town." In response, the Californios continued to attempt to control Native lives, issuing Alta California governor Pio Pico
1064-494: A failed attempt to kill the mission's priests in 1779 and organized eight foothill villages in a revolt in October 1785 with Toypurina , who further organized the villages, which "demonstrated a previously undocumented level of regional political unification both within and well beyond the mission." However, divided loyalties among the natives contributed to the failure of the 1785 attempt as well as mission soldiers being alerted of
1197-684: A feast. As they sat down to eat, the cannon was fired and many Indians were killed. The father of Captain Jack was among the survivors of that attack. Since then the Modocs resisted the intruders notoriously. Additionally, when in 1846 the Applegate Trail cut through the Modoc territory, the migrants and their livestock damaged and depleted the ecosystem that the Modoc depended on to survive. By 1900,
1330-465: A few times, he becomes desperate, and resolve upon a war of extermination. This is a common feeling among our people who have lived upon the Indian frontier ... That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected. While we cannot anticipate this result but with painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power or wisdom of man to avert. Some local communities like
1463-474: A giving up; a relinquishment of jurisdiction by a board in favor of another agency." In contrast with annexation , where property is forcibly seized, cession is voluntary or at least apparently so. In 1790, the U.S. states of Maryland and Virginia both ceded land to create the District of Columbia , as specified in the U.S. Constitution of the previous year. The Virginia portion was given back in 1847,
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#17327723186741596-537: A group of consultants, Oliver Wozencraft , George Barbour, and Redick McKee to make treaties with the indigenous peoples of California in 1851. Leaders throughout the state signed 18 treaties with the government officials that guaranteed 7.5 million acres of land (or about 1/7th of California) in an attempt to ensure the future of their peoples amid encroaching settler colonialism . Anglo-American settlers in California responded with dissatisfaction and contempt at
1729-401: A land base in the Tongva traditional homeland. In 2008, more than 1,700 people identified as Tongva or claimed partial ancestry. In 2013, it was reported that the four Tongva groups that have applied for federal recognition had more than 3,900 members in total. The Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy was established to campaign for the rematriation of Tongva homelands. In 2022, a 1-acre site
1862-423: A large bay on the mainland, which they named Baya de los Fumos ("Bay of Smokes") because of the many smoke fires they saw there. The Indigenous people smoked their fish for preservation. This is commonly believed to be San Pedro Bay , near present-day San Pedro . The Gaspar de Portolá land expedition in 1769 resulted in the founding of Mission San Gabriel by Catholic missionary Junipero Serra in 1771. Under
1995-440: A long history of Indigenous belonging in the basin." While in 1848, Los Angeles had been a small town largely of Mexicans and Natives, by 1880 it was home to an Anglo-American majority following waves of white migration in the 1870s from the completion of the transcontinental railroad . As stated by research Heather Valdez Singleton, newcomers "took advantage of the fact that many Gabrieleño families, who had cultivated and lived on
2128-530: A miserable existence by days' work." However, even though Jackson's report would become the impetus for the Mission Indian Relief Act of 1891, the Gabrieleño were "overlooked by the commission charged with setting aside lands for Mission Indians." It is speculated that this may have been attributed to what was perceived as their compliance with the government, which caused them to be neglected, as noted earlier by Indian agent J. Q. Stanley. By
2261-434: A model proposed by archaeologist Mark Q. Sutton, these migrants either absorbed or pushed out the earlier Hokan -speaking inhabitants. By 500 AD, one source estimates the Tongva may have come to occupy all the lands now associated with them, although this is unclear and contested among scholars. In 1811, the priests of Mission San Gabriel recorded at least four languages; Kokomcar, Guiguitamcar, Corbonamga, and Sibanga. During
2394-520: A petition in 1846 stating: "We ask that the Indians be placed under strict police surveillance or the persons for whom the Indians work give [the Indians] quarter at the employer's rancho." In 1847, a law was passed that prohibited Gabrielenos from entering the city without proof of employment. A part of the proclamation read: Indians who have no masters but are self-sustaining, shall be lodged outside of
2527-737: A process known as "retrocession". Following the First Opium War (1839–1842) and Second Opium War (1856–1860), Hong Kong ( Treaty of Nanking ) and Kowloon ( Convention of Peking ) were ceded by the Qing dynasty government of China to the United Kingdom ; and following defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War , Taiwan was ceded to the Empire of Japan in 1895. Territory can also be ceded for payment, such as in
2660-481: A project in 2017 to dedicate wooden statues in local Ganesha Park to the Indigenous people of the area, they disagreed over which name, Tongva or Kizh , should be used on the dedication plaque. Tribal officials tentatively agreed to use the term Gabrieleño. The Act of September 21, 1968, introduced this concept of the affiliation of an applicant's ancestors in order to exclude certain individuals from receiving
2793-403: A regional scale to create a low-intensity fire ecology ; this prevented larger, catastrophic fires and sustained a low-density "wild" agriculture in loose rotation. By burning underbrush and grass, the natives revitalized patches of land and provided fresh shoots to attract food animals. A form of fire-stick farming was used to clear areas of old growth to encourage new in a repeated cycle;
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#17327723186742926-563: A requirement for inclusion on, the judgment roll. The act of 1968 stated that the Secretary of the Interior would distribute an equal share of the award to the individuals on the judgment roll “regardless of group affiliation.” Many lines of evidence suggest that the Tongva are descended from Uto-Aztecan -speaking peoples who originated in what is now Nevada , and moved southwest into coastal Southern California 3,500 years ago. According to
3059-475: A reservation for the Gabrieleño in 1907 failed. Soon it began to be perpetuated in the local press that the Gabrieleño were extinct. In February 1921, the Los Angeles Times declared that the death of Jose de los Santos Juncos, an Indigenous man who lived at Mission San Gabriel and was 106 years old at his time of passing, "marked the passing of a vanished race." In 1925, Alfred Kroeber declared that
3192-536: A reservation, potentially at Sebastian Reserve in Tejon Pass , would be opposed by the citizens because "in the vineyards, especially during the grape season, their labor is made useful and is obtained at a cheap rate." A few Gabrieleño were in fact at Sebastian Reserve and maintained contact with the people living in San Gabriel during this time. In 1859, amidst increasing criminalization and absorption into
3325-552: A series of letters for the Los Angeles Star from the center of the Gabrieleño community in San Gabriel township, describing Gabrieleño life and culture. Reid himself was married to a Gabrieleño woman by the name of Bartolomea Cumicrabit, who he renamed "Victoria." Reid wrote the following: "Their chiefs still exist. In San Gabriel remain only four, and those young... They have no jurisdiction more than to appoint times for holding of Feasts and regulating affairs connected with
3458-543: A series of massacres and conflicts between settlers and the indigenous peoples of California lasting from about 1846 to 1873 that is generally referred to as the California genocide . The negative impact of the California Gold Rush on both the local indigenous inhabitants and the environment were substantial, decimating the people still remaining. 100,000 native people died during the first two years of
3591-448: A share of the award to the “Indians of California” who chose to receive a share of any awards to certain tribes in California that had splintered off from the generic group. The members or ancestors of the petitioning group were not affected by the exclusion in the Act. Individuals with lineal or collateral descent from an Indian tribe who resided in California in 1852, would, if not excluded by
3724-478: A state-enabled policy of elimination was carried out against its aboriginal people known as the California genocide in the establishment of Anglo-American settler colonialism . The Native population reached its lowest in the early 20th century while cultural assimilation into white society became imposed through Indian boarding schools . Native Californian peoples continue to advocate for their cultures, homelands, sacred sites, and their right to live. In
3857-660: A village, which was the center of Tongva life. The Tongva spoke a language of the Uto-Aztecan family (the remote ancestors of the Tongva probably coalesced as a people in the Sonoran Desert , between perhaps 3,000 and 5,000 years ago). The diversity within the Takic group is "moderately deep"; rough estimates by comparative linguists place the breakup of common Takic into the Luiseño-Juaneño on one hand, and
3990-514: Is constant communication with ancestors. On October 7, 1542, an exploratory expedition led by Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo reached Santa Catalina in the Channel Islands, where his ships were greeted by Tongva in a canoe. The following day, Cabrillo and his men, the first Europeans known to have interacted with the Gabrieleño people, entered a large bay on the mainland, which they named "Baya de los Fumos" ("Bay of Smokes") on account of
4123-460: Is possible there were as many as half a dozen dialects rather than the two which the existence of the missions has lent the appearance of being standard. The demarcation of the Fernandeño and the Gabrieleño territories is mostly conjectural and there is no known point in which the two groups differed markedly in customs. The wider Gabrieleño group occupied what is now Los Angeles County south of
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4256-532: The Bureau of Indian Affairs , and Federal and State funding for Tribal TANF/CalWORKs programs. The California genocide was not acknowledged as a genocide by non-native people for over a century in California. In the 2010s, denial among politicians, academics, historians, and institutions such as public schools was commonplace. This has been credited to a lingering unwillingness of settler descendants who are "beneficiaries of genocidal policies (similar to throughout
4389-479: The Gabrieleño . This was not their autonym, or their name for themselves. Because of historical uses, the term is part of every official tribe's name in this area, spelled either as "Gabrieleño" or "Gabrielino." Because tribal groups have disagreed about appropriate use of the term Tongva , they have adopted Gabrieleño as a mediating term. For example, when Debra Martin, a city council member from Pomona , led
4522-624: The La Jolla complex and the Pauma Complex , both dating from c. 6050–1000 BCE. From 3000 to 2000 BCE, regional diversity developed, with the peoples making fine-tuned adaptations to local environments. Traits recognizable to historic tribes were developed by approximately 500 BCE. The indigenous people practiced various forms of sophisticated forest gardening in the forests, grasslands, mixed woodlands, and wetlands to ensure availability of food and medicine plants. They controlled fire on
4655-597: The Louisiana Purchase and Alaska Purchase . This is a yielding up, or release. France ceded Louisiana to the United States by the treaty of Paris, of April 30, 1803 following the Louisiana Purchase . Spain made a cession of East and West Florida by the treaty of February 22, 1819. Cessions have been severally made of a part of their territory by New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. Under
4788-655: The Miwok , Yurok , and Yokut , had contact with Russian explorers and seafarers in the late 18th century. In remote interior regions, some tribes did not meet non-natives until the mid-19th century. At the time of the establishment of the first Spanish Mission in 1769, the most widely accepted estimates say that California's indigenous population was around 340,000 people and possibly more. The indigenous peoples of California were extremely diverse and made up of ten different linguistic families with at least 78 distinct languages. These are further broken down into many dialects, while
4921-581: The San Gabriel township , which became "the cultural and geographic center of the Gabrieleño community." Yaanga also diversified and increased in size, with peoples of various Native backgrounds coming to live together shortly following secularization. However, the government had instituted a system dependent on Native labor and servitude and increasingly eliminated any alternatives within the Los Angeles area. As explained by Kelly Lytle Hernández, "there
5054-619: The Sierra Madre and half of Orange County , as well as the islands of Santa Catalina and San Clemente . The Spanish oversaw the construction of Mission San Gabriel in 1771. The Spanish colonizers used slave labor from local villages to construct the Missions. Following the destruction of the original mission, probably due to El Niño flooding, the Spanish ordered the mission relocated five miles north in 1774 and began referring to
5187-724: The Spanish Empire in 1821, a liberal sect of the First Mexican Republic passed an act to secularize the missions , which effectively ended religious authority over native people in Alta California . The legislation was primarily passed from liberal sects in the Mexican government, including José María Luis Mora , who believed that the missions prevented native people from accessing "the value of individual property." The Mexican government did not return
5320-462: The Tongva language , part of the Takic subgroup of the Uto-Aztecan language family. There may have been five or more such languages (three on the southernmost Channel Islands and at least two on the mainland). European contact was first made in 1542 by Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo , who was greeted at Santa Catalina by people in a canoe. The following day, Cabrillo and his men entered
5453-448: The civil law system , cession is the equivalent of assignment , and therefore, is an act by which a personal claim is transferred from the assignor (the cedent ) to the assignee (the cessionary ). Whereas real rights are transferred by delivery, personal rights are transferred by cession. Once the obligation of the debtor is transferred, the cessionary is entirely substituted. The original creditor (cedent) loses his right to claim and
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5586-494: The "Gabrieleño" labor population at the mission was recorded to be 1,201. It jumped to 1,636 in 1820 and then declined to 1,320 in 1830. Resistance to this system of forced labor continued into the early 19th century. In 1817, the San Gabriel Mission recorded that there were "473 Indian fugitives." In 1828, a German immigrant purchased the land on which the village of Yang-Na stood and evicted the entire community with
5719-403: The 18 treaties of 1851–1852 that were never ratified and were classified. In 1944 and in 1946, native peoples brought claims for reimbursements asking for compensations for the lands affected by treaties and Mexican land grants. They won $ 17.5 million and $ 46 million, respectively. Yet, the land agreed to in the treaties was not returned. The American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed by
5852-449: The 21st century, language revitalization began among some California tribes. The Land Back movement has taken shape in the state with more support to return land to tribes. There is a growing recognition by California of Native peoples' environmental knowledge to improve ecosystems and mitigate wildfires . The traditional homelands of many tribal nations may not conform exactly to the state of California's boundaries. Many tribes on
5985-472: The American settlers embraced a policy of elimination toward indigenous people in California. In his second state address in 1851, Burnett framed an eliminatory outlook toward native people as one of defense for the property of white settlers : The white man, to whom time is money, and who labors hard all day to create the comforts of life, cannot sit up all night to watch his property; and after being robbed
6118-437: The California landscape, altering native people's relationship to the land as well as key plant and animal species that had been integral to their ways of life and worldviews for thousands of years. The missions further perpetuated cultural genocide against native people through enforced conversion to Christianity and the prohibition of numerous cultural practices under threat of violence and torture, which were commonplace at
6251-685: The City limits in localities widely separated... All vagrant Indians of either sex who have not tried to secure a situation within four days and are found unemployed, shall be put to work on public works or sent to the house of correction. In 1848, Los Angeles formally became a town of the United States following the Mexican-American War . Landless and unrecognized, the people faced continued violence, subjugation, and enslavement (through convict labor ) under American occupation. Some of
6384-849: The Cross Creek Site, Santa Barbara Channel Islands , Santa Barbara Coast's Sudden Flats, and the Scotts Valley site, CA-SCR-177 . The Arlington Springs Man is an excavation of 10,000-year-old human remains in the Channel Islands. Marine shellfish remains associated with Kelp Forests were recovered in the Channel Island sites and at other sites such as Daisy Cave and Cardwell Bluffs dated between 12,000 and 9000 cal BP. Prior to European contact, indigenous Californians had 500 distinct sub-tribes or groups, each consisting of 50 to 500 individual members. The size of California tribes today are small compared to tribes in other regions of
6517-562: The Gabrieleño culture was extinct, stating "they have melted away so completely that we know more of the finer facts of the culture of ruder tribes." Scholars have noted that this extinction myth has proven to be "remarkably resilient," yet is untrue. Despite being declared extinct, Gabrieleño children were still being assimilated by federal agents who encouraged enrollment at Sherman Indian School in Riverside, California . Between 1890 and 1920, at least 50 Gabrieleño children were recorded at
6650-607: The Indigenous Californian tribes except for the Yuman/Quechan , who numbered 2,759 in the state. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, there are currently over one hundred federally recognized native groups or tribes in California including those that spread to several states. Federal recognition officially grants the Indian tribes access to services and funding from
6783-413: The Los Angeles basin area, only 20 former neophytes from San Gabriel Mission received any land from secularization. What they received were relatively small plots of land. A "Gabrieleño" by the name of Prospero Elias Dominguez was granted a 22-acre plot near the mission while Mexican authorities granted the remainder of the mission land, approximately 1.5 million acres, to a few colonist families. In 1846, it
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#17327723186746916-514: The Modoc population decreased by 75 to 88% as a result of seven anti-Modoc campaigns started by the whites. There is evidence that the first massacre of the Modocs by non-natives took place as early as 1840. According to the story told by a chief of the Achumawi tribe (neighboring to Modocs), a group of trappers from the north stopped by the Tule lake around the year 1840 and invited the Modocs to
7049-582: The Padres and the others of the Mission, because they had come to live and establish themselves in her land.’’ In June 1788, nearly three years later, their sentences arrived from Mexico City : Nicolás José was banned from San Gabriel and sentenced to six years of hard labor in irons at the most distant penitentiary in the region. Toypurina was banished from Mission San Gabriel and sent to the most distant Spanish mission. Resistance to Spanish rule demonstrated how
7182-466: The Senate. The US had negotiated with people who did not represent the Tongva and had no authority to cede their land. During the following occupation by Americans, many of the Tongva and other Indigenous peoples were targeted with arrest . Unable to pay fines, they were used as convict laborers in a system of legalized slavery to expand the city of Los Angeles for Anglo-American settlers, who became
7315-515: The Spanish Crown's claims to California were both insecure and contested. By the 1800s, San Gabriel was the richest in the entire colonial mission system, supplying cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, horses, mules, and other supplies for settlers and settlements throughout Alta California . The mission functioned as a slave plantation. Latter-day ethnologist Hugo Reid reported, “Indian children were taken from their parents to be raised behind bars at
7448-480: The Spanish referred to these people as Gabrieleño and Fernandeño , names derived from the Spanish missions built on their land: Mission San Gabriel Arcángel and Mission San Fernando Rey de España . Tongva is the most widely circulated endonym among the people, used by Narcisa Higuera in 1905 to refer to inhabitants in the vicinity of Mission San Gabriel. Some people who identify as direct lineal descendants of
7581-674: The Tongva as "Gabrieleno." At the Gabrieleño settlement of Yaanga along the Los Angeles River , missionaries and Indian neophytes, or baptized converts, built the first town of Los Angeles in 1781. It was called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula (The Village of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porziuncola). In 1784, a sister mission, the Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles Asistencia ,
7714-480: The Tongva people and that none of these persons had authority to cede lands that belonged to the people. An 1852 editorial in the Los Angeles Star revealed the public's anger towards any possibility of the Gabrieleño receiving recognition and exercising sovereignty: To place upon our most fertile soil the most degraded race of aborigines upon the North American Continent, to invest them with
7847-726: The Tongva- Serrano on the other, at about 2,000 years ago. (This is comparable to the differentiation of the Romance languages of Europe). The division of the Tongva/Serrano group into the separate Tongva and Serrano peoples is more recent, and may have been influenced by Spanish missionary activity . The majority of Tongva territory was located in what has been referred to as the Sonoran life zone, with rich ecological resources of acorn, pine nut, small game, and deer. On
7980-547: The U.S. federal government, who reimbursed money to the state for the militias. Most of inland California including California deserts and the Central Valley was in possession of native people until the acquisition of Alta California by the United States. The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848 inspired a mass migration of Anglo-American settlers into areas where native people had avoided sustained encounters with invaders. The California Gold Rush involved
8113-526: The U.S. government in 1978, which gave indigenous people some rights toward practicing their religion. In practice, this did not extend or include religious freedom in regard to indigenous people's religious relationship to environmental sites or their relationship with ecosystems. Religion tends to be understood as separate from the land in American Judeo-Christian terms, which differs from indigenous terms. While in theory religious freedom
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#17327723186748246-430: The United States generally)." This meant that the genocide was largely dismissed, distorted, and denied, sometimes through trivialization or even humor to create a self-positive image of settlers. Cede The act of cession is the assignment of property to another entity. In international law it commonly refers to land transferred by treaty . Ballentine's Law Dictionary defines cession as "a surrender;
8379-574: The United States in 1813, it was still being implemented as late as 1903 in Southern California. The last native removal in U.S. history occurred in what has been referred to as the Cupeño trail of tears , when the people were forced off of their homeland by white settlers, who sought ownership of what is now Warner Springs . The people were forced to move 75 miles from their home village of Cupa to Pala, California . The forced removal under threat of violence also included Luiseño and Kumeyaay villages in
8512-567: The United States. Most tribes practiced forest gardening or permaculture and controlled burning to ensure the availability of food and medicinal plants as well as ecosystem balance. Archeological sites indicate human occupation of California for thousands of years. European settlers began exploring their homelands in the late 18th century. This began with the arrival of Spanish soldiers and missionaries who established Franciscan missions that instituted an immense rate of death and cultural genocide . Following California statehood ,
8645-512: The United States. Prior to contact with Europeans, the California region contained the highest Native American population density north of what is now Mexico . Because of the temperate climate and easy access to food sources, approximately one-third of all Native Americans in the United States were living in the area of California. Early Native Californians were hunter-gatherers , with seed collection becoming widespread around 9,000 BCE. Two early southern California cultural traditions include
8778-532: The activity of the Russian-American Company . A Russian explorer, Baron Ferdinand von Wrangell , visited California in 1818, 1833, and 1835. Looking for a potential site for a new outpost of the company in California in place of Fort Ross , Wrangell's expedition encountered the native people north of San Francisco Bay . He noted that local women, who were used to physical labor, seemed to be of stronger constitution than men, whose main activity
8911-550: The area. During the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the government attempted to force indigenous peoples to further break the ties with their native culture and assimilate into white society. In California, the federal government established such forms of education as the reservation day schools and American Indian boarding schools . Three of the twenty-five off-reservation Indian boarding schools were in California, and ten schools total. New students were customarily bathed in kerosene and their hair
9044-420: The attempt by converts or neophytes. Toypurina, José and two other leaders of the rebellion, Chief Tomasajaquichi of Juvit village and a man named Alijivit, from nearby village of Jajamovit, were put on trial for the 1785 rebellion. At his trial, José stated that he participated because the ban at the mission on dances and ceremony instituted by the missionaries, and enforced by the governor of California in 1782,
9177-486: The boarding schools. Native people recognized the American Indian boarding schools as institutionalized forces of elimination toward their native culture . They demanded the right for their children to access public schools. In 1935, restrictions that forbid native people from attending public schools were removed. It was not until 1978 that native people won the legal right to prevent familial separation that
9310-545: The church [traditional structure made of brush]." There is some speculation that Reid was campaigning for the position of Indian agent in Southern California, but died before he could be appointed. Instead, in 1852, Benjamin D. Wilson was appointed, who maintained the status quo. The letters of Hugo Reid revealed the names of 28 Gabrielino villages. In 1855, the Gabrieleño were reported by the superintendent of Indian affairs Thomas J. Henley to be in "a miserable and degraded condition." However, Henley admitted that moving them to
9443-441: The city of Shasta authorized "five dollars for every Indian head." In this period, 303 volunteer militia groups of 35,000 men were formed by the settlers. In the fiscal year of 1851–1852, California reimbursed approximately $ 1 million of expenses for militia groups engaged in "the suppression of Indian hostilities", although in fact, they were massacring native people. Volunteer militia groups were also indirectly subsidized by
9576-687: The city streets clean in the 1850s and 1860s but increasingly included road construction projects as well. Although federal officials reported that there were an estimated 16,930 California Indians and 1,050 at Mission San Gabriel, "the federal agents ignored them and those living in Los Angeles" because they were viewed as "friendly to the whites," as revealed in the personal diaries of Commissioner George W. Barbour . In 1852, superintendent of Indian affairs Edward Fitzgerald Beale echoed this sentiment, reporting that "because these Indians were Christians, with many holding ranch jobs and having interacted with whites," that "they are not much to be dreaded." Although
9709-426: The city's burgeoning convict labor system, the county grand jury declared "stringent vagrant laws should be enacted and enforced compelling such persons ['Indians'] to obtain an honest livelihood or seek their old homes in the mountains." This declaration ignored Reid's research, which stated that most Tongva villages, including Yaanga , "were located in the basin, along its rivers and on its shoreline, stretching from
9842-423: The coast, shellfish, sea mammals, and fish were available. Prior to Christianization , the prevailing Tongva worldview was that humans were not the apex of creation, but were rather one strand in the web of life . Humans, along with plants, animals, and the land were in a reciprocal relationship of mutual respect and care, which is evident in their creation stories. The Tongva understand time as nonlinear and there
9975-551: The collection of the Imperial Academy of Sciences . He described the locals that he met on his trip to Cape Mendocino as "the untamed Indian tribes of New Albion , who roam like animals and, protected by impenetrable vegetation, keep from being enslaved by the Spanish". After about a decade of conservative rule in the First Mexican Republic , which formed in 1824 after Mexico gained independence from
10108-435: The deserts and to the sea." Only a few villages led by tomyaars (chiefs) were "in the mountains, where Chengiichngech 's avengers, serpents, and bears lived," as described by historian Kelly Lytle Hernández. However, "the grand jury dismissed the depths of Indigenous claims to life, land, and sovereignty in the region and, instead, chose to frame Indigenous peoples as drunks and vagrants loitering in Los Angeles... disavowing
10241-549: The dropping of 11,000 pounds of granular hexazinone on 3,075 acres of the Stanislaus National Forest in 1996 by the USFS, deformed plants and sickened wildlife that are culturally and religiously significant to native people. California has the largest population of Native Americans out of any state, with 1,252,083 identifying an "American Indian or Alaska Native" tribe as a component of their race (14.6% of
10374-409: The early twentieth century, Gabrieleño identity had suffered greatly under American occupation. Most Gabrieleño publicly identified as Mexican, learned Spanish, and adopted Catholicism while keeping their identity a secret. In schools, students were punished for mentioning that they were "Indian" and many of the people assimilated into Mexican-American or Chicano culture. Further attempts to establish
10507-718: The eastern border with Nevada have been classified as Great Basin tribes , while some tribes on the Oregon border are classified as Plateau tribes . Tribes in Baja California who do not cross into California are classified as indigenous peoples of Mexico . The Kumeyaay nation is split by the Mexico-United States border . Evidence of human occupation of California dates from at least 19,000 years ago. Archeological sites with dates that support human settlement in period 12,000 -7,000 ybp are: Borax Lake ,
10640-440: The end of the century. The mass decline in population has been attributed to disease and epidemics that swept through Spanish missions in the early part of the century, such as an 1833 malaria epidemic, among other factors including state-enabled massacres that accelerated under Anglo-American rule. In the early 19th century, Russian exploration of California and contacts with indigenous people were usually associated with
10773-576: The endonym would be pronounced / ˈ t ɒ ŋ v eɪ / , TONG -vay . Some descendants prefer the endonym Kizh , which they argue is an earlier and more historically accurate name that was well documented by records of the Smithsonian Institution, Congress, the Catholic Church, the San Gabriel Mission, and other historical scholars. The Spanish referred to the Indigenous peoples surrounding Mission San Gabriel as
10906-485: The first laws passed targeted Natives for arrest, imprisonment, and convict labor. The 1850 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians "targeted Native peoples for easy arrest by stipulating that they could be arrested on vagrancy charges based 'on the complaint of any reasonable citizen'" and Gabrieleños faced the brunt of this policy. Section 14 of the act stated: When an Indian is convicted of any offence before
11039-586: The following as a legal practice: Any person could go before a Justice of Peace to obtain Indian children for indenture. The Justice determined whether or not compulsory means were used to obtain the child. If the Justice was satisfied that no coercion occurred, the person obtain a certificate that authorized him to have the care, custody, control and earnings of an Indian until their age of majority (for males, eighteen years, for females, fifteen years). Raids on native villages were common, where adults and children were threatened with fatal consequence for refusing what
11172-456: The gold rush alone. Settlers took land both for their camps and to farm and supply food for their camps. The surging mining population resulted in the disappearance of many food sources. Toxic waste from their operations killed fish and destroyed habitats. Settlers viewed indigenous people as obstacles for gold, so they actively went into villages where they raped the women and killed the men. Sexual violence against native women and young girls
11305-424: The help of Mexican officials. The mission period ended in 1834 with secularization under Mexican rule. Some "Gabrieleño" absorbed into Mexican society as a result of secularization, which emancipated the neophytes. Tongva and other California Natives largely became workers while former Spanish elites were granted huge land grants. Land was systemically denied to California Natives by Californio land owning men. In
11438-482: The jail and convict labor crews in Mexican Los Angeles." By 1844, most Natives in Los Angeles worked as servants in a perpetual system of servitude, tending to the land and serving settlers, invaders, and colonizers. The ayuntamiunto forced the Native settlement of Yaanga to move farther away from town. By the mid-1840s, the settlement was forcibly moved eastward across the Los Angeles River , placing
11571-491: The lands to tribes, but made land grants to settlers of at least partial European ancestry, transforming the remaining parts of mission land into large land grants or ranchos . Secularization provided native people with the opportunity to leave the mission system, yet left many people landless , who were thus pressured into wage labor at the ranchos. The few Indigenous people who acquired land grants were those who have proven their Hispanicization and Christianization . This
11704-737: The many smoke fires they saw there. This is commonly believed to be San Pedro Bay , near present-day San Pedro . The Gaspar de Portola expedition in 1769 was the first contact by land to reach Tongva territory, marking the beginning of Spanish colonization. Franciscan padre Junipero Serra accompanied Portola. Within two years of the expedition, Serra had founded four missions, including Mission San Gabriel , founded in 1771 and rebuilt in 1774, and Mission San Fernando , founded in 1797. The people enslaved at San Gabriel were referred to as Gabrieleños , while those enslaved at San Fernando were referred to as Fernandeños . Although their language idioms were distinguishable, they did not diverge greatly, and it
11837-707: The matter, who stated that the construction of the road would destroy the religions of the three tribes. However, no protection was provided through the Religious Freedom Act. The National Park Service mandates a no-gathering policy for cultural or religious purposes and the United States Forest Service (USFS) requires a special permit and fee, which prohibits native people's religious freedom. A 1995 mandate that would have provided conditional opportunities for gathering for this purpose failed to pass. Pesticide use in forests, such as
11970-744: The mission system, the Spanish initiated an era of forced relocation and virtual enslavement of the peoples to secure their labor. In addition, the Native Americans were exposed to the Old World diseases endemic among the colonists. As they lacked any acquired immunity, the Native Americans suffered epidemics with high mortality, leading to the rapid collapse of Tongva society and lifeways . They retaliated by way of resistance and rebellions, including an unsuccessful rebellion in 1785 by Nicolás José and female chief Toypurina . In 1821, Mexico gained its independence from Spain and secularized
12103-416: The mission system. Many individuals returned to their village at time of death. Many converts retained their traditional practices in both domestic and spiritual contexts, despite the attempts by the padres and missionaries to control them. Traditional foods were incorporated into the mission diet and lithic and shell bead production and use persisted. More overt strategies of resistance such as refusal to enter
12236-437: The mission. They were allowed outside the locked dormitories only to attend to church business and their assigned chores. When they were old enough, boys and girls were put to work in the vast vineyards and orchards owned by the missions. Soldiers watched, ready to hunt down any who tried to escape.” Writing in 1852, Reid said he knew of Tongva who “had an ear lopped off or were branded on the lip for trying to get away.” In 1810,
12369-455: The missions . They sold the mission lands , known as ranchos, to elite ranchers and forced the Tongva to assimilate. Most became landless refugees during this time. In 1848, California was ceded to the United States following the Mexican-American War . The US government signed 18 treaties between 1851 and 1852 promising 8.5 million acres (3.4 million ha) of land for reservations . However, these treaties were never ratified by
12502-435: The missions. The population of Native California was reduced by 90% during the 19th century—from more than 200,000 in the early 19th century to approximately 15,000 at the end of the century. The majority of this population decline occurred in the latter half of the century, under American occupation. While in 1848, the population of native people was about 150,000, by 1870 it fell to 30,000, and fell further to 16,000 by
12635-496: The missions. In that same period, 63,789 deaths at the missions were recorded, indicating the immense death rate . This massive drop in population has been attributed to the introduction of diseases, which rapidly spread while native people were forced into close quarters at the missions, as well as torture, overworking, and malnourishment at the missions. The missions also introduced European invasive plant species as well as cattle grazing practices that significantly transformed
12768-407: The names and addresses of several Gabrieleño living in San Gabriel, showing that contact between the group at Tejon Reservation and the group at San Gabriel township, which are more than 70 miles apart, was being maintained into the 1920s and 1930s. Indigenous peoples of California Indigenous peoples of California , commonly known as Indigenous Californians or Native Californians , are
12901-407: The nation-wide total). This population grew by 15% between 2000 and 2010, much less than the nation-wide growth rate of 27%, but higher than the population growth rate for all races, which was about 10% in California over that decade. Over 50,000 indigenous people live in Los Angeles alone. However, the majority of Indigenous people in California today do not identify with the tribes indigenous to
13034-431: The new creditor (cessionary) gains that right. When an ecclesiastic is created bishop , or when a parson or rector takes another benefice without dispensation, the first benefice becomes void by a legal cession, or surrender. Retrocession is the return of something (e.g., land or territory) that was ceded in general or, specifically: Examples: In insurance , retrocessional arrangements generally are governed by
13167-400: The new majority in the area by 1880. In the early 20th century, an extinction myth was purported about the Gabrieleño, who largely identified publicly as Mexican-American by this time. However, a close-knit community of the people remained in contact with one another between Tejon Pass and San Gabriel township into the 20th century. Since 2006, four organizations have claimed to represent
13300-531: The northern and mountainous areas of the state, which had avoided some earlier waves of violence due to their more remote locations. Near the end of the period associated with the California genocide, the final stage of the Modoc Campaign was triggered when Modoc men led by Kintpuash (AKA Captain Jack) murdered General Canby at the peace tent in 1873. However, it's not widely known that between 1851 and 1872
13433-411: The northern boundary was somewhere between Topanga and Malibu (perhaps the vicinity of Malibu Creek ) and the southern boundary was Orange County's Aliso Creek . The word Tongva was coined by C. Hart Merriam in 1905 from numerous informants. These included Mrs. James Rosemyre (née Narcisa Higuera) (Gabrileño), who lived around Fort Tejon , near Bakersfield. Merriam's orthography makes it clear that
13566-524: The people advocate the use of their ancestral name Kizh as an endonym . Along with the neighboring Chumash , the Tongva were the most influential people at the time of European encounter. They had developed an extensive trade network through te'aats (plank-built boats). Their food and material culture was based on an Indigenous worldview that positioned humans as one strand in a web of life (as expressed in their creation stories ). Over time, different communities came to speak distinct dialects of
13699-515: The people were displaced to small Mexican and Native communities in the Eagle Rock and Highland Park districts of Los Angeles as well as Pauma , Pala , Temecula , Pechanga , and San Jacinto . Imprisonment of Natives in Los Angeles was a symbol of establishing the new "rule of law." The city's vigilante community would routinely "invade" the jail and hang the accused in the streets. Once congress granted statehood to California in 1850, many of
13832-501: The people were organized into sedentary and semi-sedentary villages of 400-500 micro-tribes. The Spanish began their long-term occupation in California in 1769 with the founding of Mission San Diego de Alcalá in San Diego . The Spanish built 20 additional missions in California, most of which were constructed in the late 18th century. From 1769 to 1832, an estimated total of 87,787 baptisms and 24,529 marriages had been conducted at
13965-666: The people: Two of the groups, the hyphen and the slash group, were founded after a hostile split over the question of building an Indian casino . In 1994, the state of California recognized the Gabrielino "as the aboriginal tribe of the Los Angeles Basin." No organized group representing the Tongva has attained recognition as a tribe by the federal government . The lack of federal recognition has prevented self-identified Tongva descendants from having control over Tongva ancestral remains, artifacts, and has left them without
14098-514: The population of native people who survived the eliminatory policies and acts carried out in the 19th century was estimated at 16,000 people. Remaining native people continued to be the recipients of the U.S. policies of cultural genocide throughout the 20th century. Many other native people would experience false claims that they were "extinct" as a people throughout the century. Although the American policy of Indian removal to force indigenous peoples off of their homelands had begun much earlier in
14231-416: The provisions of the Act of 1968, remain on the list of the “Indians of California.” To comply with the Act, the Secretary of Interior would have to collect information about the group affiliation of an applicant's Indian ancestors. That information would be used to identify applicants who could share in another award. The group affiliation of an applicant's ancestors was thus a basis for exclusion from, but not
14364-541: The rights of sovereignty, and to teach them that they are to be treated as powerful and independent nations, is planting the seeds of future disaster and ruin... We hope that the general government will let us alone—that it will neither undertake to feed, settle or remove the Indians amongst whome we in the South reside, and that they leave everything just as it now exists, except affording us the protection which two or three cavalry companies would give. In 1852, Hugo Reid wrote
14497-533: The same land for generations, did not hold legal title to the land, and used the law to evict Indian families." The Gabrieleño became vocal about this and notified former Indian agent J. Q. Stanley, who referred to them as "half-civilized" yet lobbied to protect the Gabrieleño "against the lawless whites living amongst them," arguing that they would become " vagabonds " otherwise. However, active Indian agent Augustus P. Greene's recommendation took precedent, arguing that "Mission Indians in southern California were slowing
14630-573: The same time, three languages were recorded in Mission San Fernando. Prior to Russian and Spanish colonization in what is now referred to California, the Tongva primarily identified by their associated villages ( Topanga , Cahuenga , Tujunga , Cucamonga , etc.) For example, individuals from Yaanga were known as Yaangavit among the people (in mission records, they were recorded as Yabit ). The Tongva lived in as many as one hundred villages. One or two clans would usually constitute
14763-483: The sawmill." A missionary during this period reported that three out of four children died at Mission San Gabriel before reaching the age of 2. Nearly 6,000 Tongva lie buried in the grounds of the San Gabriel Mission. Carey McWilliams characterized it as follows: "the Franciscan padres eliminated Indians with the effectiveness of Nazis operating concentration camps...." There is much evidence of Tongva resistance to
14896-492: The school. Between 1910 and 1920, the establishment of the Mission Indian Federation, of which the Gabrieleño joined, led to the 1928 California Indians Jurisdictional Act, which created official enrollment records for those who could prove ancestry from a California Indian living in the state in 1852. Over 150 people self-identified as Gabrieleño on this roll. A Gabrieleño woman at Tejon Reservation provided
15029-608: The settlement of this portion of the country for non-Indians and suggested that the Indians be completely assimilated," as summarized by Singleton. In 1882, Helen Hunt Jackson was sent by the federal government to document the condition of the Mission Indians in southern California. She reported that there were a considerable number of people "in the colonies in the San Gabriel Valley, where they live like gypsies in brush huts, here today, gone tomorrow, eking out
15162-531: The sight of Spanish sticks that spit fire and death, nor [to] retch at the evil smell of gunsmoke—and be done with you white invaders!’ This quote, from Thomas Workman Temple II's article “Toypurina the Witch and the Indian Uprising at San Gabriel” is arguably a mistranslation and embellishment of her actual testimony. According to the soldier who recorded her words, she stated simply that she ‘‘was angry with
15295-509: The state, rather they are of Indigenous Mexican or Central American ancestry, or of tribes from other parts of the United States, such as the Cherokee or Navajo . Of the state's 934,970 indigenous people who specified a Native American tribe, 297,708 identified as " Mexican American Indian" , 125,344 identified as "Central American Indian" , and 125,019 identified as Cherokee. 108,319 identified with "all other tribes," which includes all of
15428-693: The supernatural." As stated by scholars John Dietler, Heather Gibson, and Benjamin Vargas, "Catholic enterprises of proselytization , acceptance into a mission as a convert, in theory, required abandoning most, if not all, traditional lifeways." Various strategies of control were implemented to retain control, such as use of violence, segregation by age and gender, and using new converts as instruments of control over others. For example, Mission San Gabriel's Father Zalvidea punished suspected shamans "with frequent flogging and by chaining traditional religious practitioners together in pairs and sentencing them to hard labor in
15561-546: The system, work slowdowns, abortion and infanticide of children resulting from rape, and fugitivism were also prevalent. Five major uprisings were recorded at Mission San Gabriel alone. Two late-eighteenth century rebellions against the mission system were led by Nicolás José, who was an early convert who had two social identities: "publicly participating in Catholic sacraments at the mission but privately committed to traditional dances, celebrations, and rituals." He participated in
15694-420: The treaties, believing the native people were being reserved too much land. Despite making agreements, the U.S. government sided with the settlers and tabled the treaties without informing the signees. They remained shelved and were never ratified. The California genocide continued after the California Gold Rush period. By the late 1850s, Anglo-American militias were invading the homelands of native people in
15827-496: Was Los Angeles , where an 1850 city ordinance passed by the Los Angeles City Council allowed prisoners to be "auctioned off to the highest bidder for private service." Historian Robert Heizer referred to this as "a thinly disguised substitute for slavery." Auctions continued as a weekly practice for nearly twenty years until there were no California native people left to sell. The United States Senate sent
15960-493: Was a normal part of white settler life, who were often forced into prostitution or sex slavery . Kidnappings and rape of native women and girls was reported as occurring "daily and nightly." This violence against women often provoked attacks on white settlers by native men. Forced labor was also common during the Gold Rush, permitted by the 1850 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians . Part of this law instituted
16093-461: Was cut upon arrival. Poor ventilation and nutrition and diseases were typical problems at schools. In addition to that, most parents disagreed with the idea of their children being raised as whites, with students being forced to wear European style clothes and haircuts, given European names, and strictly forbidden to speak indigenous languages. Sexual and physical abuse at the schools was common. By 1926, 83% of all Native American children attended
16226-411: Was essentially slavery . Although this was in legal terms illegal , the law was established not to help protect indigenous people, so there were rarely interventions to stop kidnappings and the circulation of stolen children into the market by law enforcement. What were effectively slave auctions occurred where laborers could be "purchased" for as low as 35 dollars. A central location for auctions
16359-436: Was founded at Yaanga as well. Entire villages were baptized and indoctrinated into the mission system with devastating results. For example, from 1788 to 1815, natives of the village of Guaspet were baptized at San Gabriel. Proximity to the missions created mass tension for Native Californians, which initiated "forced transformations in all aspects of daily life, including manners of speaking, eating, working, and connecting with
16492-433: Was heavily dependent on Native labor and "grew slowly on the back of the Gabrieleño laborers." Some of the people became vaqueros on the ranches, highly skilled horsemen or cowboys, herding and caring for the cattle. There was little land available to the Tongva to use for food outside of the ranches. Some crops such as corn and beans were planted on ranchos to sustain the workers. Several Gabrieleño families stayed within
16625-472: Was hunting. He summarized his impressions of the California Indians as a people with a natural propensity for independence, inventive spirit, and a unique sense of the beautiful. Another notable Russian expedition to California was the 13-month-long visit of the scientist Ilya Voznesensky in 1840–1841. Voznesensky's goal was to gather some ethnographic, biological, and geological materials for
16758-413: Was integral to native children being brought to the boarding schools. This separation often occurred without knowledge by parents, or under white claims that native children were "unsupervised" and were thus obligated to the school, and sometimes under threatening circumstances to families. Since the 1920s, various Indian activist groups were demanding that the federal government fulfill the conditions of
16891-429: Was intolerable as they prevented their mourning ceremonies. When questioned about the attack, Toypurina is famously quoted in as saying that she participated in the instigation because “[she hated] the padres and all of you, for living here on my native soil, for trespassing upon the land of my forefathers and despoiling our tribal domains. … I came [to the mission] to inspire the dirty cowards to fight, and not to quail at
17024-408: Was no place for Natives living but not working in Mexican Los Angeles. In turn, the ayuntamiunto (city council) passed new laws to compel Natives to work or be arrested." In January 1836, the council directed Californios to sweep across Los Angeles to arrest "all drunken Indians." As recorded by Hernández, "Tongva men and women, along with an increasingly diverse set of their Native neighbors, filled
17157-422: Was noted by researcher Kelly Lytle Hernández that 140 Gabrieleños signed a petition demanding access to mission lands and that Californio authorities rejected their petition. Emancipated from enslavement in the missions yet barred from their own land, most Tongva became landless refugees during this period. Entire villages fled inland to escape the invaders and continued devastation. Others moved to Los Angeles,
17290-642: Was noted in the land acquisition of Victoria Reid , an Indigenous woman born at the village of Comicranga . The first governor of California as a U.S. state was Peter Hardenman Burnett , who came to power in 1848 following the United States victory in the Mexican–American War . As American settlers came in control of California with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo , its administrators honored some Mexican land grant titles, but did not honor aboriginal land title . With this shift in power,
17423-400: Was protected, in practice, religious or ceremonial sites and practices were not protected. In 1988, Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Ass'n the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the U.S. Forest Service to build a road through a forest used for religious purposes by three nearby tribal nations in northwestern California. This was despite the recommendations of the expert witness on
17556-554: Was recorded by Anglo-American settlers, "'White men, whom the Marshal is too discreet to arrest' ... spilled out of the town's many saloons, streets, and brothels, but the aggressive and targeted enforcement of state and local vagrancy and drunk codes filled the Los Angeles County Jail with Natives, most of whom were men." Most spent their days working on the county chain gang , which was largely involved with keeping
17689-564: Was returned to the conservancy in Altadena , which marked the first time the Tongva had land in Los Angeles County in 200 years. Tongva territories border those of numerous other tribes in the region. The historical Tongva lands made up what is now called "the coastal region of Los Angeles County , the northwest portion of Orange County and off-lying islands." In 1962 Curator Bernice Johnson, of Southwest Museum , asserted that
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