Indigenous People’s Day 2020

Desert Cahuilla Woman by Edward S. Curtis, 1926

On Monday, many in the United States honored the indigenous peoples of this land. In honor of this occasion, I want to share about the indigenous peoples of what is now San Diego County, where I have spent most of my life.

Often, when thinking about indigenous people or Native Americans, white people tend to view indigenous culture as whatever the Europeans encountered the first time they set foot on North or South American soil. However, this limits a lengthy history and varied, changing cultures. We study documented and attested European history stretching back thousands of years, yet often only look at indigenous history for a couple of hundred. The most significant reason for this is that history as a discipline relies upon written documents. Many indigenous peoples in the Americas (and in fact all across the globe, including Europe) did not keep written records. Without journals, letters, legal documents, degrees, or church records, a historian cannot do their work. This is an important note to make, because often we assume, if there is no history, that these people did not exist. However, this is simply not true, it just makes it difficult to learn about them. Many scholars within the fields of archaeology and anthropology have been doing work to learn more about the people of the Americas before European contact. These scholars are trying to learn more about the many thousands of years that humans have been living here and share that culture and history.

Now, I do not have the space in a single blog post to provide a complete history of the indigenous people of what is now San Diego county from the first human residents up until the present. Therefore in this blog post, I hope to provide merely an introduction to the people who lived here at the time of the first Spanish contact and connect you with resources to learn more. I think it is important to acknowledge that indigenous peoples are not past-tense people. There are indigenous peoples living all over the United States still to this day, and many are actively working to revitalize their language and culture, and fight for rights and acknowledgment in this country. These indigenous people have a present, and a future as well. For the sake of space, I will cover two groups of people this week, and three more next week. I hope you learn something, and I hope you take the time to do some additional exploring on your own this week. Whose ancestral home are you living in, and where can you find them today? Where are they in your community, and where can you go to seek out their voices?

For at least 10,000 years, the Payómkawichum or, The People of the West, have lived in the Temecula valley. They are the most southwestern group of people belonging to the Shoshone language family, which stretches up through Oregon and Idaho. In a book published in 1908, their approximate territory was described as being “beginning at the mouth of the Agua Hedionda, it ran so as to include what was afterwards the San Marcos rancho, also most of the Escondido rancho.” I found this to be such a fascinating time capsule of this area, incorporating not only the indigenous people who lived here for 10,000 years, but the later Mexican settlers and their land grants and ranchos, which now are familiar as the names of cities.

In 1542, Spaniard Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo landed a ship at modern-day Point Loma. He and his crew were the first Europeans to land in San Diego, and they claimed the region for Spain. After this initial contact, the Spanish began establishing a chain of missions up the Alta California coast. These missions were used to forcibly spread Christianity, secure the Spanish claim to a region already being eyed by the British and Russians from the north, and “tame” the native population. In June 1798, Father La Suén founded Mission San Luis Rey de Francía. The mission was placed within the ancestral land of the Payómkawichum, and the Franciscans began to refer to them as San Luiseños, which later was shortened to just Luiseños. As at the other missions, life for the Payómkawichum was hard. The Spanish fed them Spanish foods and dressed them in Spanish clothes and forced them to participate in Catholicism and abandon their own faith. Diseases spread freely from the Spanish to the Payómkawichum, killing thousands from the point of contact. Mission life was detrimental to the culture and language, but as the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians website states, “The invasion of Spanish Missionaries – and each successive group of non-Natives – to the Temecula Valley had a devastating effect on the Payómkawichum, but we have survived every challenge. Generation after generation, we have grown and adapted to meet changing times and conditions. This land is witness to our story.” Part of this story of survival and adaptation includes continued involvement in the events of the region. In December 1846, more than 20 American soldiers were killed in the Battle of San Pasqual, part of the Mexican-American War. After the battle, some Luiseños who were sympathetic to the Americans, captured and killed eleven Californios (fighting for Mexico). Mexican general José María Flores sent José del Carmen Lugo to pursue the responsible Luiseños. Lugo arrived in the Temecula valley in January 1847, accompanied by some Cahuilla Indians and caught ambushed a group of Luiseños ear Vail Dam, killing dozens, if not more than 100 Luiseños. The specific number will never be known, because the attack was followed by heavy rains which prevented adequate recovery. The remains that were recovered were buried in a cemetery which now lies in a shopping plaza in Temecula.

The Mexican-American War formally came to an end with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. In the treaty, the United States promised to allow the natives to remain in their homes and take special care to prevent American settlers from pushing natives out. In 1852, U.S. Indian Agents signed the Temecula Treaty with the native tribes in the area. This treaty guaranteed large amounts of land in the state would remain for the sole use of the indigenous people on that land. However, this treaty and countless others like it were never ratified by the Senate, and thus the conditions of the treaty were ignored by the U.S. government. In 1875, a group of Temecula ranchers petitioned the California government to remove a group of Payómkawichum from that land, which had been given to them as a Mexican land grant. The ranchers won, and the Payómkawichum were evicted from the land. In 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed an executive order creating the Pechanga Reservation, which provided land for the Pechanga band ofPayómkawichum. This reservation was too small and arid to support the people, and the U.S. government purchased additional land for the reservation in 1907. The Pechanga continued to develop adequate irrigation to farm and support their people. Throughout the area, there are six bands of Luiseño indians. Today, these bands are the Soboba and Pechanga in Riverside County and Pauma, Pala, La Jolla, and Rincon in San Diego County. The Payómkawichum have continued to fight to enlarge their reservation lands to better sustain life. They work within the reservation and with the broader community to preserve and maintain this ancestral land and provide employment through running casinos and other businesses. I’m going to repeat something I mentioned at the beginning. The Payómkawichum are still here. They are still alive. They are still fighting for justice and human rights, and they are still active members of the broader culture and society of San Diego County.

In 1919, The Mission Indian Federation was founded. At this point, the United States did not give citizenship to Native Americans. This organization included members from a wide variety of tribes and tribal groups, and was centered in Southern California. This civil rights group fought for citizenship, the dissolution of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the right for tribes to own and govern their reservation lands. The Indian Citizenship Act was passed in 1924, although each state interpreted the act differently. In the state of California, indigenous peoples were given citizenship, except those on reservations who were still considered wards of the federal government. In 1953, Public Law 280 and Concurrent Resolution 108 were passed, reducing the influence of the Bureau of Indian Affairs on reservations. Native Americans had gained more autonomy, and full citizenship. Membership in the organization faded by the 1970s as it appeared the organization’s goals had been mostly accomplished.

The Cahuilla Band of Indians traditionally lived in the mountain valleys and canyons from the Coachella Valley, San Gorgonion Pass, and San Jacinto mountains. They lived in the mountain deserts to the east of the Payómkawichum. There is archaeological evidence to suggest that the Cahuilla have lived in this area for at least 5,000 years. Their society centered around the natural hot springs in the area which provided fresh water, a place to bathe, and a center for spiritual connection. The Cahuilla developed irrigation canals to bring water throughout the area. In addition to gathering plants for food such as acorns and yucca, the Cahuilla maintained extensive trade networks throughout the region for food and shells. The Cahuilla language belongs to the Uto-Aztecan language family, which extends south into what is now central Mexico. According to the Augustine Tribe, “Cahuilla” has been interpreted to mean “the master,” “the powerful one,” or “the one who rules.” The Cahuilla had a complex social and family network to maintain broad, secure ties across thousands of people. They were divided between two moieties, Wildcat (Tuktum) and Coyote (Istam). This assignment was passed down from the father, and you could not marry someone from the same moiety. Within the moities were family groups called Sibs, which traced lineage to the patriarch. Each Sib maintained their own territory and lived near each other. The Cahuilla women were known for incredible skill at weaving baskets. The Cahuilla women could weave baskets so tightly that they could be used to carry water. With the arrival of the Spanish, metal pots and pans were introduced to the Cahuilla causing baskets to fall out of favor. However, art collectors were drawn to the intricate patterns woven into Cahuilla baskets and the incredible skill that they are made with led to a rise in demand for Cahuilla baskets from an art stand point. This was an incredible economic and cultural opportunity for the Cahuilla to reclaim their culture and some economic autonomy after European domination. The arrival of the Spanish in the 18^th century brought devastation to the Cahuilla people. A smallpox epidemic in 1863 killed more than 80% of the Cahuilla people. By the late 19^th century, only a few thousand Cahuilla were left in scattered villages. In 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant issued an executive order establishing the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation. In 1891, the Augustine Reservation was established. The Augustine band almost completely disappeared by the 1950s, with only 11 members left alive. This is unfortunately not a unique story of indigenous people in the United States. However, there are about 3,000 enrolled numbers between all nine Cahuilla nations: the Agustine Band of Cahuilla Indians, Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, Cabazon and of Mission Indians, Agua Caliente Band of Cahilla Indians, Morongo Band of Mission Indians, Cahuilla Band of Mission Indians, Ramona Band of Cahuilla Indians, Santa Rosa Band of Mission Indians, and Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla Indians.

In doing this research on the indigenous people of Southern California, my big take away is that this is not a happy ending story. There is a lot of pain, a lot of trauma, and a lot of devastation in the story of the Payómkawichum and Cahuilla peoples. However, there is so much hope and optimism. On all of the tribal pages that I looked at, I saw a narrative of resilience and active hope for the future. In the face of adversity that I as a white American can not even comprehend, the Payómkawichum and Cahuilla are telling their unique stories, and they are creating a future for themselves. They are not allowing themselves to live in the past-tense world that many Americans think Native Americans reside in. Instead, they are claiming and living the present, and they are building a future. Next week, I will share with you the story of three more peoples from San Diego county.

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