LibGuides: Native Americans : California Native Americans

California Native American Tribes

California Indian Tribes
"California Indian Tribes" is part of a larger collection.
Access the full collection at Indian Tribes of North America.
California Tribal Lands and Reservations
The map shows tribal-owned and federal land in California.
Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation
Information about the name, homelands, history, and current status of "The First People of the Monterey Bay Area, California."
The Muwekma Ohlone
This official site of the Muwekma Ohlone Indian Tribe, "the original inhabitants of San Francisco, California, USA, and the surrounding Bay Area," contains news, history, a photo gallery, and links to other Native American sites.
Short Overview of Kumeyaay and California Indian History
"This Web site is dedicated to the promotion and preservation of the Kumeyaay culture. Kumeyaay.com tells the story from the Kumeyaay perspective."

California Missions & Ranchos

California Missions
"The focus of the California Missions Fact Cards is on the physical mission, particularly the buildings. The histories of these mission buildings are traced from their establishment to the present. The facts have been gathered from many sources, and are selected to be those of interest and use to elementary school students. Though there are common factors in the descriptions of the missions, each of the 21 has unique features which are included in the Fact Cards. "
more...less...
California Missions : An Introduction

The line of California missions, founded between 1769 and 1823, stretches about 650 miles from San Diego in the south to Sonoma in the north. Along this trail called El Camino Reál (The Royal Road) are the visible reminders of a colorful period in California history.

References to the mission days are all around us, in the names of streets and towns, in the architecture of our buildings, in the symbols of the mission bell and the red tile roof. Learning about the missions helps us to understand California today.

In the 1760's Spain controlled what is now Mexico (then known as New Spain). When Russian ships began exploring the coast north of Mexico, Spain decided to secure the land by sending an expedition headed by Gaspár de Portolá and Father Junípero Serra to establish Spanish missions along this coast. Portolá was named Governor of Alta (Upper) California and Serra became President of the missions.

Father Serra was a missionary priest in the Franciscan Order, a religious group founded by St. Francis of Assisi under the Roman Catholic Church. Serra established the pattern for the missions, spacing them about one day's walk apart and placing two padres at each site, one to serve as business manager and the other as spiritual leader.

Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821 and soon resented the expense of supporting the missions. In 1833 the Mexican government ruled that all mission lands should be transferred from the Catholic Church to the pueblo, or civilian community. This transfer was called secularization, and it ended the period of prosperity and influence of the missions.
California Misssion Life
"Mission Life describes the typical mission life and activities at the peak of the mission period. The emphasis is on those factors that were held in common by most of the missions. Some differences are described. The aim, however, is to give a composite view of what being inside the mission was like for most of the people who lived there in the early 1800s."
more...less...
CALIFORNIA MISSION LIFE--An Introduction

Between 1769 and 1823, Franciscan padres established a string of 21 missions along the California coast, reaching from San Diego to Sonoma. Until 1834, when secularization removed them from the control of the Church, the missions were the primary force for change in California.

No two missions were exactly alike in their design or development. A mission’s location influenced its architecture and its industries. The personal characteristics of the padres assigned to a mission shaped the course that life at that mission would take. Attitudes of the local inhabitants of the area differed from mission to mission. Missions founded later in the mission period developed somewhat differently than those founded in the early years.

All these factors created differences among the missions. Yet the 21 missions had even more in common than they had differences. Founded with the same goals -- to secure the land for Spain and to convert the local population to the Catholic faith -- the missions followed essentially the same path. What was accomplished toward those goals was based on the more mundane daily activities inside the missions.

Over the course of the 65 years of the mission period, many changes were taking place in California. Ways of doing things changed. Following the padres and their guards of soldiers there came settlers from Mexico. Pueblos (towns) grew up around many of the missions. The pueblos of Los Angeles and Yerba Buena (later San Francisco) were especially significant.

Mission Life describes the typical mission life and activities at the peak of the mission period. The emphasis is on those factors that were held in common by most of the missions. Some differences are described. The aim, however, is to give a composite view of what being inside the mission was like for most of the people who lived there in the early 1800s.

Most of what we know about what went on inside the missions of California comes from the detailed records, reports, and diaries kept by the padres at each mission. By being the record keepers, the padres somewhat controlled what historians would know about the missions. There are a few reports by visitors who came to California during this time, but there are almost no first-hand accounts or reports from Native Californians who were a part of the missions story.

The most complete description of the California missions is Zephyrin Engelhardt’s The Missions and Missionaries of California: Volume 2, Upper California, published in 1912. Engelhardt was a Catholic priest who used original source documents for his work. His view supports the Franciscan padres side of the story.

Mission Life is based on many sources, including Engelhardt’s work. Throughout the descriptions, however, the experience of the Native Californians has been kept in view in a sincere attempt to present a balanced picture of life inside the missions.
California Ranchos
The rancho period may be said to span almost one hundred years, from the 1780s when the first big land concessions were made, to the 1880s when the last of the ranchos was sold to subdividers. About 500 private land grants were given by Spanish or Mexican governors between 1784 and 1846.

Native Americans in California

A SHORT OVERVIEW OF CALIFORNIA INDIAN HISTORY
California Indians Fact Cards
"California Indians Fact Cards gives quick facts about the traditional way of life in about 1770 of more than 50 early California groups. It is a snapshot of what we believe life was like at that time, and not a history of any of the tribes either before or after 1770." Find information about Native Americans in California, explorers, missions, mission life, ranchos, governors and California history by decades."
California Native American Heritage Commission
This California commission is dedicated to the "preservation and protection of Native American human remains, associated grave goods and cultural resources." The website features a map of cultural areas and native languages and a list of Population of Native Americans in California. Click here for A list of Federally Recognized Tribes of California.
Bibliographies of Northern and Central California Indians
Bibliographies of "The California Indian Library Collections Project;" located at the Ethnic Studies Library, Native American Studies Collection, 30 Stephens Hall, U.C. Berkeley, 94720. Continuing bibliographies are not currently under development. The collection is available to researchers.
Five Views: An Ethnic History Site Survey for California
This report is a commentary on those events, procedures, laws, and situations that confronted and greatly affected California Indians and their ability to survive once Europeans arrived.
The Dorothy Morehead Hill Collection: California Native American Legacy and Tradition
This "collection consists of over 35 years of field notes, interviews, and still and video images. It contains audio, video, photographic and printed items representing the history, culture, customs, economics and social life of the Native Americans in California."
California Cultures: Native Americans
The nice collection includes photographs, documents, newspaper clippings, political cartoons, works of art, oral histories, and other primary sources.
California Native American Documents Project
The site includes reports of the commissioners of Indian affairs from the 1870s, allotment data for 1887-1915, documents on Rogue River War and Siletz Reservation and an interactive online version of the California section of the 1952 compilation of ethnographic data by John R. Swanton, The Indian Tribes of North America, with an extensive introduction.
Ericson Photograph Collection
'Online images depicting "a wide variety of everyday northwest California scenes and activities from the 1880s through the 1920s. Lumber industry, Native Americans, city and village street scenes (primarily Arcata), schools, portraits, and scenic views are the featured subjects of this collection."
"California as I Saw It:" First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900
"Consists of the full texts and illustrations of 190 works documenting the formative era of California's history through eyewitness accounts. The collection covers the dramatic decades between the Gold Rush and the turn of the twentieth century. It captures the pioneer experience; encounters between Anglo-Americans and the diverse peoples who had preceded them; the transformation of the land by mining, ranching, agriculture, and urban development; the often-turbulent growth of communities and cities; and California's emergence as both a state and a place of uniquely American dreams."
American Historical Images on File: The Native American Experience
"A comprehensive collection of images of Native American people. The collection is arranged chronologically from the prehistoric period and the Paleo-Indians to 1990." Images of paintings, drawings, sketches, and photographs."