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Competing Visions: A History of California Competing Visions: A History of California

Robert W. Cherny San Francisco State University

Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo Saint Mary's College of California, [emailprotected]

Richard Griswold de Castillo San Diego State University

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COMPETING VISIONS

Robert W. ChernyGretchen Lemke-Santangelo Richard Griswold del Castillo

A History of California

COMPETINGVISIONS

COMPETINGVISIONSA History of California

Second Edition

Robert W. ChernySan Francisco State University

Gretchen Lemke-SantangeloSaint Mary’s College of California

Richard Griswold del CastilloSan Diego State University

The text (including graphs, maps, and charts) of Competing Visions: a History of California, by Robert W. Cherny, Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo, and Richard Griswold del Castillo is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA. All photographs and artistic renderings in the text are licensed under CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC BY-SA, or CC BY-NC-SA, or are in the public domain and free of any known restrictions/permissions. The cover image, “Coit Tower Mural” by artist Ralph Stackpole, is licensed under CC BY 2.0. by Ed Bierman. The authors wish to thank Margaret Copeland of Terragrafix.com for preparing the digital version of the text, including the design of its charts, maps, and tables, and the Saint Mary’s College Filippi Fund and Office of Faculty Development for their financial support of this project.

ContentsPreface xiii

1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People,Before Spanish Settlement 1

Diversity: Origins of California and Its Native Peoples 3

Cycles of Life: The Food Quest, Spirituality, and Rituals 10The Food Quest 10Spirituality 14Rituals 16

A Closer Look: Six Regional Peoples 19The Gabrielino/Tongva 19The Chumash 21The Costanoans 22The Miwoks and Yokuts 24The Shastans 25

Significance: The Importance of California Natives and Other North AmericanNative Peoples in Non-Indian History 26

Summary 28

2 The Spanish Colonization of California,1769–1821 31

The Spanish Conquest and Empire 34Spain’s Exploration of the Californias 35Early Maritime Exploration and Encounters 38The First California Colony 39

Demographic and Ethnic Growth of California 41The Missions 42Neophyte Resistance 46Evaluation of the California Missions 48

Establishing Presidios and Pueblos 50

Gender Relations in Spanish California 53Spanish Californian Culture 56

Political Developments in Spanish California 57The Wars of Independence in New Spain 59Foreign Interest in Spanish California 60

Summary 62

3 Mexican Californios: Conflict and Culture,1821–1846 65

A New Political Order 68Early Self-Government: Solá and Argüello 68The Governorship of José María Echeandía 69Rebellion Against Centralism: Governor Victoria 70Secularization of the Missions: José Figueroa 72Rebellion, Revolution, and Home Rule 74Micheltorena and the Catesby Jones Affair 76

The Rise of the Ranchos 78Environmental Changes 81

Social Relations in Mexican California 82The Growth of Town Governments 82Californianas: Mexican Californian Women 83Mexican–Indian Relations 85Immigrants and Foreigners 87

California and the World 93

Summary 94

4 War, Conquest, and Gold: The American EraBegins, 1845–1855 96

The War Between the United States and Mexico 99Manifest Destiny 100Frémont and the Bear Flaggers 101Occupation and Resistance 103California Indians and the War 106Peace 107The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 107The Divided Mind of the Californios 109

The Gold Rush 110Gold! The Discovery of 1848 110The Argonauts 113Camp Life 117Nativism and Racism 120The Legendary Life of Joaquín Murrieta 121

vi Contents

California Transformed 122Conquest of the Californios 122Conquest of the Indians 123Economic Transformation 124The Golden State 124

Summary 126

5 California and the Crisis of the Union,1850–1870 129

Crisis and Conflict in the 1850s 132California Statehood and the Compromise of 1850 132San Francisco’s Crisis of Political Legitimacy: Vigilantism in the 1850s 133Violence and Displacement: California Indians in the 1850s 136The Politics of Land and Culture 138

Californians and the Crisis of the Union 141Fighting Slavery in California 141Sectional Issues and California Politics 143California and Civil War 146Reconstruction and New Understandings of Citizenship 147

Economic Growth in a Time of National Crisis 148The Transformation of Mining 148Economic Diversification 149Transportation 151Tying Together the Union With Iron 152

New Social and Cultural Patterns 155Gender Roles and New Social Institutions 155The Growth of Religious Toleration 157Writing the Gold Rush 160

Summary 161

6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900 164

The Economic Transformation of California and the West 167Railroad Expansion 168Mining and Finance 171Agriculture 172Water 174Rise of Organized Labor 176San Francisco: Metropolis of the West 177

Contents vii

New Social Patterns 180Education 180Changing Gender Roles 181California Indians 183Changing Patterns of Ethnicity 184

Politics 188Political Discontent in the 1870s 189The Second Constitutional Convention, 1878 191Politics in the 1880s 192Political Realignment in the 1890s 193California and the World: War With Spain and Acquisition of the Philippines 195

Cultural Expression 196

Summary 197

7 California in the Progressive Era, 1895–1920 200

The Origins of California Progressivism 203The Many Shapes of Progressivism 204Municipal Reform: Los Angeles 204Municipal Reform: San Francisco 205Organized Labor in the Progressive Era 207Efforts to Reform State Government Before 1910 209

Social and Economic Change in the Progressive Era 210Immigration and Ethnic Relations 210Economic Changes 214Earthquake and Fire in 1906 216Water Wars 218California in the World Economy 221

California Progressivism, 1910–1920 222Hiram Johnson and the Victory of the Progressives, 1910–1911 222California Progressives and the Presidential Election of 1912 224Radicals in a Progressive Era 225A Second Flood of Reform, 1913 227The Progressive Tide Recedes, 1914–1920 229

Californians in a World of Revolutions and War 229Californians and the Mexican Revolution 230War in Europe and Conflict at Home 230Californians Go to War 231Peace and the Backwash of War 232

The Meaning of Progressivism for Californians 233

Summary 234

viii Contents

8 California Between the Wars, 1919–1941 237

The Rise of Los Angeles: Twentieth-Century Metropolis 241The Economic Basis for Growth 241The Automobile and the Growth of Southern California 243

Prosperity Decade: The 1920s 245Politics in a Time of Prosperity 245New Economic Patterns 247New Social Patterns 249Cultural Expression 252

Depression Decade: The 1930s 254Impact of the Great Depression 254Labor Conflict 257Federal Politics: The Impact of the New Deal 261State Politics: The Rise of the Democrats 263Cultural Expression During the Depression Decade 266California on the Eve of War 268

Summary 269

9 World War II and the Great Transformation 273

Economic Expansion 276Overview of the War’s Economic Impact 276The Aircraft Industry 277Shipbuilding 278Agriculture 279Other Industry 280

Japanese Relocation and Internment 282The Unfolding Tragedy 282Relocation and Internment 285

Population Growth and Diversity 289Black Migration 290New Challenges and Opportunities 294Shifting Gender Relations 299

Daily Life and Culture 302Wartime Challenges 302Entertainment 302

Political Transformation 304Change from the Grassroots 304Change at the Top 305

Summary 307

Contents ix

10 Postwar California: Prosperity and Discontentin the Golden State: 1946–1963 310

Unbridled Growth 312Industrial Growth and Organized Labor 313Education 316Population and Suburban Growth 317Transportation, Energy, Water Resources, and Environmental Pollution 319

Postwar Politics 324California’s Red Scare 324Warren and Knight 327Edmund G. Brown 328Liberalism at the Municipal Level 331

Social and Cultural Dissent 333White Flight and Ghettoization 333Poverty in the Barrios and Fields 335Asian Pacific Immigration and Activism 339Opportunities and Challenges for California Indians 340Student Activism 341Cultural Developments 343

Summary 345

11 Divided We Stand: Activism and Politics,1964–1970 348

Seeds of Change 352From Civil Rights to Civil Unrest 352Black Power 356The Grassroots War on Poverty 358Justice in the Fields 360The Anti-War Movement 363The Counterculture 365Coming Together at People’s Park 367

The Movement Expands 368The Chicano Movement 368Taking the Rock 372Change and Activism Along the Pacific Rim 374Emerging Feminist and Gay Rights Movements 376

Politics in the Age of Dissent 378The Decline of Liberalism 378Reagan as Governor 380

Summary 382

x Contents

12 Era of Limits and New Opportunities:1970–1990 385

The Legacy of the ’60s 389Feminism 390Disability Rights 392Gay Pride 393Multiethnic Political Gains 395Ethnicity and Economics 398Cultural Advances 402

Economic Changes and Environmental Constraints 404The Economy 404Environmental Activism and Constraints 407

Politics in the Era of Limits 414Edmund G. Brown Jr. 414Deukmejian 418

Summary 420

13 California in Our Times 423

A New Kind of California 426The Los Angeles Riots, the O.J. Simpson Trial, and After 426The Rise of Latino California 428The Ever-Changing Ethnic Mosaic 430

The Economic Roller Coaster 435Cycles of Bust and Boom 436Technology 438Trade: Going Global 439Growing Wealth, Increasing Poverty, Shrinking Middle Class 441

A Faltering Infrastructure 442Education 443Health Care and Housing 445The Environment 446Transportation 448Energy 449

Politics in the New California 449State Politics, 1990–1998: The Governorship of Pete Wilson 450State Politics, 1998–2003: The Governorship of Gray Davis 452State Politics, 2003–2008: The Governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger 454State Politics Since 2010: The Return of Jerry Brown 456

Religious and Cultural Diversity 458Spirituality in Contemporary California 458

Contents xi

Cuisine 459Art, Literature, Film, and Music 459

Competing Visions: The History and Future of California 463

Summary 464

Governors of California: 1767 to Present 467Glossary of Spanish Terms 469Index I-1Image Links I-39

xii Contents

PrefaceThe decision to write this textbook grew out of our experience teachingCalifornia history to an increasingly diverse student population. Our class-rooms contain an exciting mix of students from a myriad of ethnic, multieth-nic, international, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Their levels ofacademic readiness also differ, and nearly all are products of a visual, ratherthan print-oriented, culture. In light of this diversity, we, as educators, neededa text geared toward varied learning styles and academic skill levels—one thatwould stress reading comprehension, critical thinking, and the synthesis andintegration of knowledge. Just as important, we needed a more inclusivetext that reflects the history of all of our students—one designed to foster activeidentification with the past, civic engagement, an appreciation of diversity, andcross-cultural communication and understanding. Thus, we wrote the text forour students and ourselves, and with the hope that our colleagues would find itequally useful.

Themes

Three major themes, which run throughout the 13 chapters, highlight continuityover time and provide a common, unifying thread for the narrative. They arealso crafted to enhance students’ global and cross-cultural awareness. The first,California and its relationship to its region, the nation, and the world, placesCalifornia within a national, and often global, context. The state, although fre-quently depicted as a trendsetter or “place apart,” has always been influencedby outside demographic, environmental, political, cultural, and economic forces.Its first people came from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and devel-oped complex trade networks that facilitated cultural and economic exchange farbeyond the state’s current boundaries.

Later, as part of Spain’s global empire, California and its people were sub-ject to new influences and pressures. In turn, Mexico’s war for independenceand America’s war with Mexico profoundly altered the state’s cultural, eco-nomic, political, and environmental landscape. More recently, California’s inte-gration into the Pacific Rim economy has created a new set of challenges andprospects. Once again, the state is in dynamic interaction with other geo-graphic entities.

A second theme is cultural richness and diversity. Here we focus on howdemographic diversity has created a broad range of cultural expression.

xiii

Beginning with California’s first people, cultural diversity has been an integralpart of the human landscape. Wave after wave of migrants and immigrants, theemergence of ethnic enclaves, and the birth of numerous subcultures haveadded additional layers of richness, and at times produced interesting culturalfusions. As a consequence, the state’s cuisine, music, art, architecture, folklore,cinema, theater, dance, and public spaces all carry the imprint of its incrediblydiverse and increasingly complex mixture of ethnic and national groups.

Such diversity has also led to competing visions of the “California Dream,”the text’s third and final theme. Since at least 1769, Californians have been atodds over the allocation of cultural, economic, and political power. The dream,synonymous with opportunity, not only placed individuals and groups in com-petition, it also carried different meanings for different people. To some, forexample, the state’s natural resources represented an opportunity for industrialexpansion and monetary advancement. To others, California’s natural endow-ment represented the opportunity to maintain an older, more traditional wayof life, a font of physical and spiritual renewal, or a fragile and irreplaceablepart of the planet’s life support system. In social terms, many equated opportu-nity with toleration and inclusion, while others saw opportunity in discrimina-tion and exclusion. Politically, many Californians linked opportunity to theprogressive or liberal traditions that encouraged a stronger role for governmentin allocating resources and guiding growth and expansion. Others, however,equated “big government” with the erosion of individual opportunity andinitiative.

Consistent with these themes, we have chosen to emphasize some topicsmore than others. In developing the history of state politics, most chaptersstress political challenges from the powerless and disenfranchised, and the com-peting visions of a diverse electorate. The state’s natural resources, and conflictsover their allocation and exploitation, also figure prominently in the text. Finallythe experience and contributions of California’s multiethnic and multinationalconstituents are integral to every chapter.

Approach

To enhance learning among a diverse student population, we crafted a text witha chronological and narrative format. This approach, while offering the advan-tages of clarity and coherence, also reflects a renewed emphasis on synthesisand the big picture among historians and educators. Moreover, the sequentialframework helps students follow, connect, and integrate historical knowledge—the foundation of learning to think historically. Within the general narrative weadded several other learning aids. Each chapter opens with a vignette about aspecific individual whose experience illuminates important developments of theperiod. This feature, representing the personal side of history, is designed topromote active engagement with the past and a sense of human agency—the

xiv Preface

sense that all Californians shape the state’s history, present, and future. Everychapter also includes a list of significant dates and events, and a series of studyquestions intended to enhance reader comprehension and promote criticalthinking and debate. Similarly, many of the photograph and illustration cap-tions ask students to look critically at what they are seeing. Concise chapterintroductions and summaries reinforce reading comprehension, and synthesizeand integrate the material. Suggested readings at the end of each chapter encour-age more in-depth research into topics of special interest.

Our individual interests as practicing historians shaped our choices as weconstructed the text. Richard Griswold del Castillo, professor of Chicana andChicano studies at San Diego State University, wrote Chapters 1 through 4.He teaches courses in Chicano history and the Mexican/United Statesborderlands. His research focuses on the 19th-century Southwest, and MexicanAmerican community history and civil rights struggles. The first chapter,devoted to the history of indigenous people, emphasizes the diversity and com-plexity of California Indian cultures. Subsequent chapters relate the history ofthe first Euro-Americans and mestizos who came north to colonize California,stressing the influence of Indian peoples on the culture and economy of themissions, presidios, and pueblos. These chapters present new perspectives onthe ways in which the Indians resisted colonial subjugation, as well as the cul-tural fusion that took place before the American era. They also emphasize theways in which the emerging Californio culture was a vital and adaptiveresponse to the new environment. The chapter on the Mexican War andGold Rush reflects the influence of 30 years of new scholarship that challengesthe older “triumphalist” vision of American progress and prosperity. The con-flicts among Indian, Spanish-Mexican and Anglo-American cultures and anassessment of what was gained and lost in the American conquest of Californiaare important features of this chapter.

Robert W. Cherny, professor emeritus of history at San Francisco StateUniversity, taught courses on U.S. history between the Civil War and WorldWar II as well as courses on the history of California. His research focuses onAmerican politics between the Civil War and World War I, and politics andlabor in California and the West from the Civil War to World War II. Hischapters, five through eight, trace the state’s history from about 1850 untilWorld War II. There is a special effort to explain economic cycles and theirrelation to the state’s economic development and diversification. Other majortopics include the experiences of an increasingly diverse population thatincluded not only the descendants of the first peoples and the Californios butalso migrants from other parts of North America, Europe, Latin America, andAsia; changing gender roles for men and women; political development, includ-ing political responses to ethnic diversity and to economic issues; and the rela-tion of cultural expression to all these other patterns. There is also attention tourbanization, especially the development of San Francisco in the late 19th cen-tury and Los Angeles in the early 20th century.

Preface xv

Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo, professor of history at Saint Mary’s Collegeof California and author of Chapters 9 through 12, teaches courses in Californiaand U.S. history, African American history, the history of American women, andU.S. environmental history. Her research focuses on African American migra-tion, 20th century movements for social change, and urban poverty. Herchapters, beginning with World War II and concluding in the late 1980s,cover standard material on population growth, economic expansion, naturalresources, environmental degradation, public policy and major political fig-ures and legislation; however, there are many features that depart from thetraditional narrative. Racial tensions and discrimination are covered in eachchapter, but with an emphasis on civil rights activism and protest. Ratherthan being portrayed as passive victims, Mexican Americans, AfricanAmericans, Asian Americans, and Indians are represented as active agentsof social, political, and cultural change. Gender also receives significant atten-tion, including in-depth coverage of women’s status and activism, and theemergence of gay, lesbian, and transgender communities and institutions.Her discussion of politics extends to neglected social movements such as thewelfare rights, disability rights, eco-feminist, environmental justice, and AIDSaction initiatives, along with more familiar ethnic power, anti-war, New Left,countercultural, gay pride, and women’s movements. Similarly, discussion ofeconomic policy and expansion is balanced with coverage of labor activism,employment and wage discrimination, class tensions and stratification, capitaland white flight, access to social services and affordable housing, and compet-ing liberal and conservative economic visions.

Chapter 13, jointly written by all the authors, covers contemporary issuesand events—many of which unfolded as we wrote: the impact of 9/11, therecall of Governor Gray Davis and the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger, thestate’s escalating fiscal crisis and growing public distrust of both the governorand legislature, and the reelection of Jerry Brown and his proposals for a taxincrease. The chapter also covers the state’s increasing integration into theglobal economy, the erosion of California’s infrastructure (including publicschools), the declining affordability of housing and health care, immigrationpolicy and anti-immigrant hostility, increasing demographic diversity, andrecent cultural trends.

New To This Edition

Chapter 13 now discusses current events in California to the present day,including the Oakland Mehserle case and its aftermath, immigration anddemographic changes, the 2008 economic crisis, the Occupy movement, andecological and energy challenges. Based on feedback from the first edition,we have also added new chapter-opening vignettes that spotlight people inCalifornia’s history, including Mary and Joseph Tape, a Chinese-American

xvi Preface

immigrant couple; Katherine Philips Edson, a groundbreaking state politician;Catherine “Kay” Spaulding, an environmental activist; and Jacqueline Nguyen,the first Asian American to serve as a federal apellate judge. Throughout thebook, we have revised sentences, added specific information (often in responseto suggestions from the reviewers), and worked to make the text more accessi-ble at the same time we worked to emphasize our three central themes. Wehave also added a concluding section on the relation between California historyand civic engagement, challenging students to put to use what they havelearned about the state as they exercise their responsibilities as citizens.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the attentive, insightful, and creative staff atWadsworth | Cengage. Jeff Greene, ever patient, supportive, and generouswith his time, shepherded the first edition through its conceptualization to itsactual production. Megan Chrisman has been equally helpful with the prepara-tion of this revised edition. Thank you both for having faith in our vision. BobGreiner and Susan Holtz did a masterful job with layout, design, and copyedit-ing in the first edition, and Prashanth Kamavarapu and Margaret Bridges havecontinued that fine work with this edition. Thank you for your creative insightsand tact.

Josh Paddison, now of Indiana University, provided crucial assistance withthe initial development of Chapter 13. Several of our California history collea-gues carefully read and commented on three separate drafts of the originalmanuscript. Their knowledge of the subject and attention to detail make it afar more balanced, accessible, and meaningful text. In preparation for the sec-ond edition, several more colleagues reviewed the book and made invaluablesuggestions for the revision. We extend our deepest thanks to these “readers:”

Carolle J. Carter, San Jose State UniversityVanessa Crispin-Peralta, Westmont CollegePhilip Garone, California State University, StanislausAnne Hickling, De Anza CollegePaivi Hoikkala, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona Linda Ivey, California State University, East BayJon Kelly, West Valley CollegeDaniel Lewis, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona Joseph A. Pitti, California State University, SacramentoJohn Putman, San Diego State UniversityNancy Quam-Wickham, California State University, Long Beach E.A. Schwartz, California State University, San Marcos

Preface xvii

Dian Self, American River CollegeEdie Sparks, University of the PacificDenise S. Spooner, California State University, Northridge Ernesto S. Sweeney, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles Nancy J. Taniguchi, California State University, Stanislaus

In addition to the formal readers, several individuals and institutionsoffered invaluable support and assistance as we moved through the writingand revision process. Robert Cherny would like to thank the students in hisCalifornia history classes for their responses to the first edition and suggestionsfor improvements; the students who served as research assistants during thedevelopment of the first edition; and his family, especially his granddaughters,Cerys and Sabina Cherny, who have not only been a source of joy but also aninspiration for thinking about the importance of learning about history as avital preparation for planning for the future. Gretchen Lemke-Santangelowould especially like to thank Saint Mary’s College Office of Faculty Develop-ment, Anthony Santangelo, and Anna Marie Daniels.

Robert W. ChernyGretchen Lemke-Santangelo

Richard Griswold del Castillo

xviii Preface

CHAP

TER 1

California’s Origins:The Land and thePeople, BeforeSpanish Settlement

Main Topics

❚ Diversity: Origins of California and Its Native Peoples

❚ Cycles of Life: The Food Quest, Spirituality, and Rituals

❚ A Closer Look: Six Regional Peoples

❚ Significance: The Importance of California Nativesand Other North American Native Peoples inNon-Indian History

❚ Summary

“In the beginning on the water that was everywhere,a downy feather swirled and swirled upon a tinyfleck of foam.”

If you were a Yuki Indian child living in what is nowMendocino County in 13,000 BCE, you might have listenedenraptured as an elder began to tell this story of creation,one version of many that existed among the earliest of NorthAmerican cultures.

“Listen closely to the feather,” the elder might haveintoned, “and you will hear the singing of Taikomol, thecreator of the world, whose name means He-who-goes-alone.Swirling and singing, swirling and singing, Taikomol rose up

from the water and became a man—but he was not alone.Hanging from his body was another god, the god Coyote,the selfish one of death and pain. With Coyote at his side,Taikomol made a basket from parts of his own body. Reachingdeep into the basket, he drew forth a ball of mud, which hemolded with pine pitch to make the earth. Jealous Coyoteclung to Taikomol as he traveled over the new earth fourtimes from north to south, fastening its four corners with asky made from the skins of four whales. This earth is good,Taikomol thought, and so he wanted to share all he had cre-ated. Reaching deep again into his basket, he found sticks ofwood, and placed them in a protected place, a kind of house.Through the night, Taikomol was swirling and singing over thishouse, with Coyote hovering at his side and peeking sharplyinto the dwelling with his jealousy growing. When dawn brokethe darkness, the sticks walked as people into the morning.

“Taikomol was filled with joy at his creation and wantedpeople to live forever, but jealous Coyote wanted them to die.When the first son died and was buried, Taikomol offered tobring him back to life, but Coyote said that the dead shouldremain dead. The other gods agreed, and for that reason peo-ple do not come to life again after they die.”

As the elder finished, your young eyes might have shone asyou repeated softly to yourself, “For that reason people do not

CHAPTER 1California’s Origins: The Land and the People,

Before Spanish Settlement

TRIASSIC PERIOD, 250–200 MILLION YEARS BCE

Creation of the present-day continents by the movementof tectonic plates

CENOZOIC PERIOD,66 MILLION YEARS BCE

Warm-blooded animals populate North America

MIOCENE PERIOD,23 MILLION YEARS BCE

Creation of the Sierra Nevada mountains

PLEISTOCENE PERIOD,2 MILLION YEARS BCE

Cooling and ice age create valleys and present-day coastlineof California

30,000 BCE Estimate of first human settlement in California

900 BCE Corn, beans, and squash enter Colorado River region fromMexico

100 BCE–700 CE Introduction of pottery in California

1542 CE Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo explores California coast

1602 CE Sebastián Vizcaíno discovers Monterey Bay

1769 CE First Euro-Americans settle in California

come to life again after they die.” Creative stories such as thisone, passed on through the generations, reflect the very diversityof California itself, distinctive from its beginnings in its geo-graphic formations, climate, variety and plenitude of flora andfauna, and the multiplicity of its Indian peoples. The earliesthuman history of this region shows that in California no singlegeneralization could ever capture reality; it has always been anunusual locale where, because of its lush environment, a largepopulation of diverse peoples could live together and thrive.

Questions to Consider

❚ What factors explain California’s distinctiveness as aplace, and how did those factors affect the characteristicsof its first settlers?

❚ What important characteristics did the first settlersshare, and what were some salient differences?

❚ How did the many achievements of the native peoplescontribute to the non-Indian history of the NorthAmerican continent?

Diversity: Origins of California and Its Native Peoples

The land that the Yukis believe was created by Taikomol was located at thattime at about the same latitude as 21st-century Cuba. It later became knownas California. For millions of years, a large portion of this land would be slowlypushed north as the tectonic plate west of the present-day Sierra Nevadamountains moved with periodic shudders we call earthquakes. The earth’s sur-face is constantly being propelled by the immense forces of the super-heatedradioactive solid iron core and the molten layers below the crust. As this move-ment takes place, the relatively thin rock earth surface has cracked and shifted,forming new land masses and the present continents. These large land massescontinued to move. Those places where the crust has broken because of thismovement are called the tectonic plates, or earthquake faults, and they havebeen a significant part of California’s history.

Sixty million years ago, ocean waves lapped the western side of the SierraNevada mountains, which were then merely well-worn hills. These hillsallowed the winds to carry torrential tropical rains eastward, where the ocean’smoisture created a tropical forest with great varieties of exotic plants and ani-mals. In some places, the annual rainfall exceeded 50 inches. This area is nowknown as the Great Basin and includes the present-day states of Nevada,Arizona, and Utah. In Cenozoic California (66 million years ago), the great

Diversity: Origins of California and Its Native Peoples 3

MEXICO

PACIFIC OCEAN

Map 1.1 California’s Principal Geographic Land Forms

dinosaurs that had once ranged over the land had already mysteriously disap-peared and warm-blooded mammals such as lions, giant sloths, and camels roamed the land.

Forty-three million years later, the earth began to move upward, thrust by tremendous volcanic pressures in its crust (Miocene period, 23 million years ago). A series of earthquakes thrust up solid rock formations, including the

4 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

OREGONIDAHO

NEVADA

CALIFORN

Sierra Nevada range—pushed 10,000 feet up in the air—and the coastal moun-tain ranges. These mountains were massive enough to cut off the flow of rain-storms that had been watering the Great Basin. To the east of these mountainsa desert began to develop. Mount Lassen and other now-extinct volcanoeserupted, darkening the skies and layering the earth with a rich ash. MountShasta, Mount Whitney, and scores of other enormous peaks reached theirpresent altitudes. Simultaneously the climate began to cool around the world,perhaps because a chain of volcanoes between North and South America filledin the Panama lowlands and stopped water circulation between the Pacific andAtlantic Oceans, or perhaps because of the uplift of the great Himalayanmountain ranges, which changed airflow patterns.

After the formation of mountain ranges, a cooling continued for the nextfew million years (the late Pleistocene period). Enormous glaciers crept slowlysouth, carrying with them billions of tons of rock and earth, leveling mountainsand filling in valleys. Death Valley, the lowest spot in North America (282 feetbelow sea level), was born of the upward and downward movement of theearth’s crust and, between glacier movements, was filled with fresh water. Theglaciers cut through the mountains, creating the beautiful Yosemite Valley. Asthe polar caps grew, the ocean froze and retreated, exposing new land, includ-ing millions of acres of valleys and hills west of the mountains, which are nowthe San Joaquin Valley and southern California.

The retreating water also created a new coastline. The San Francisco,Monterey, and San Diego harbors appeared. About 100,000 years ago, a narrowland bridge connecting the Asian continent with North America was exposed.Animals began to find their way across: The horse, then merely a few feet tall,and the camel wandered north and west from North America into China, andthen Africa, where their evolution and eventual domestication changed humanhistory. From Asia to North America came new animals such as the bison andmammoth, followed by human beings.

Most American scientists believe that these humans came as part of alarger migration of people who crossed the Bering Strait from Asia, followedthe big game animals south, and reached the southern tip of South Americawithin 10,000 years—perhaps in some cases using oceangoing canoes to traveldown the Pacific Coast. Despite the general agreement among Americanscientists about the Asian origin of these people, European experts are moreskeptical of the certainty of the evidence of a Bering Strait crossing, and nativepeople themselves have different versions of their origins. There is a noticeableabsence of accounts of migration from a land of ice and snow in the traditionalstories of the American Indian peoples. The Hopis, for example, tell of travel-ing to the north from their warm lands until they reached a land of “perpetualsnow.” Some tribes believe that the earth was prepared for them by the godsand that humans did not migrate to their land but were suddenly created there.Still others have no primal origin legend at all but only stories of migrationfrom the east—not the north.

Diversity: Origins of California and Its Native Peoples 5

Although radiocarbon tests of human remains located on Santa RosaIsland off the coast of Santa Barbara indicate that these first families arrived30,000 years ago, these data are also under scrutiny. A number of scholars ofNative American history have seriously questioned the dating of human settle-ment, noting unexplained evidence that could mean human beings lived inNorth America much earlier. Indeed, anthropologists and archeologists aredebating the radiocarbon tests that show evidence of humans in the area asfar back as 40,000 BCE.

The native peoples in California were scattered and they spoke more than100 different languages. Nowhere else in North America, outside of centralMexico, did so many Indian groups congregate in such density with so muchdiversity. After almost 50 years of scientific scholarship and debate, most his-torians and anthropologists concede that perhaps as many as 300,000 peoplelived in California before the first European settlement.

Anthropologists have generally classified these first inhabitants into sixgroups, based on their common root languages, with their linguistic origins sug-gesting their movement from different geographic regions. The first, and largest,were the Penutian-speaking peoples, living in numerous bands and clans mostlyin central and northern California. They were most closely related to the Indianpeoples of the Pacific Northwest and may have arrived by moving down thecoast, by boat or on foot. Next were the Hokan-speaking peoples, scatteredthroughout the state as far north as Shasta County and as far south as SanDiego. They appear to have migrated from the Southwest—present-day Arizonaand New Mexico. The Uto-Aztecan–speaking people lived along the Kern Riverand in the Mojave and Colorado Deserts as well as in the Los Angeles basin, andseem to have traveled from the Southwest or perhaps mainland Mexico. Smallergroups included Athabascan-speaking people living in extreme northern Cali-fornia, who probably entered from Alaska, and the Algic-stock peoples, includ-ing the Yiot and Yurok Indians, who lived along the northern coast inHumboldt County. The Algic-stock languages are related to those of the Algon-quians in the eastern part of the United States. A small group of Yukian-speaking peoples lived in northern Mendocino County; their language is uniqueto California and has no relation to any other in North America. They were splitinto four groups, geographically separated from each other, and each speaking adifferent dialect of their language. Their origins are uncertain.

At first these various Indians lived in bands, small groups of two or threeextended families, whose membership was voluntary and changing. But as thepopulation increased, they began to form lineages, or larger permanent group-ings of families, who were forbidden to intermarry because they claimed acommon ancestor. Clans developed next, formed by amalgamating several bio-logically related lineages. Some of the coastal native peoples eventually createdlarger social and political systems, organizing what could be called towns. TheChumash people, for example, who lived in what later became Santa Barbaraand Ventura and on the coastal islands, had large governments and complex

6 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

0 100 Mi.

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ACHUMAWI

SHASTA

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NONGATL

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COASTMIWOK

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MAIDU

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GABRIELINO

SERRANO

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NORTHERN

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SOUTHERN

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Map 1.2 California Indian Territories

social systems. All of the 100 or so California language groups—which anthro-pologists call tribelets or village communities—had distinct territorial and spir-itual identities, group histories, and destinies.

Politically, the California natives developed two kinds of government, both with a headman assisted by a governing council. The first kind of government

Diversity: Origins of California and Its Native Peoples 7

included a lineage group who all traced their descent from a common ancestor,while the second was a band of individuals who were not all related by blood.The lineage-based governments had more institutionalized forms of politicaldecision making, with a stable council and headman. In the band-based gov-ernment, decisions were made by the headman and council as needs arose. Likethe Chumash, the Gabrielino/Tongva people (also in southern California) seemto have evolved complex political governing systems that were able to governlarge villages with many different clans and lineages, but anthropologists arenot certain as to their exact form of government. Everywhere in California,before the Spanish arrived, Native American government often mixed spiritualwith secular authority.

All of these systems grew out of this land of tremendous contrasts: lushvalleys and grasslands teeming with game and edible plants; formidable moun-tains whose deep snows made life nearly impossible in the winters; vast desertswith little water and ferocious heat in the summer; and finally, a coastal littoralwhose mild climate and multitudes of fish and wildlife invited settlement.Although its first inhabitants found the desert climates cooler and fresh watermore plentiful, Californians today share with them the area’s impressive envi-ronmental diversity, unique in the United States. In one day a person can drivefrom a foggy seashore beach through lush, irrigated valleys, past snow-coveredmountains, and into a blistering, arid desert.

In the 21st century, we find that the southwestern part of the state, includ-ing the Los Angeles, San Gabriel, and San Fernando Valleys, has a relativelyarid, semi-Mediterranean climate, with large variations in rainfall from themountains to the coastal plains. The mild climate has attracted millions of resi-dents and, although the southern mountain ranges surrounding the coastal lit-toral are high enough (6000–11,000 feet) to have snow in the winter, providingsome natural springs and rivers, this is not enough water for the burgeoningpopulation. Water is imported to the south from northern California’s riversas well as from the Colorado River, and the large population has causedwater and air pollution, not to mention the decimation of native plantsand animals.

North of Santa Barbara, along the California coast, the climate changes asthe Coast Range, whose hills and mountains are between 1000 and 5000 feethigh, trap the offshore breezes and prevent the reduction of inland heat. Thenorth central coastal mountains and valleys have their own unique environ-ment, cooler than southern California, with more precipitation. Summers aregenerally overcast and foggy, while winter skies are brilliant, with the rainy sea-son beginning sometime after January. Here one can find some of the mostbeautiful coastal scenery in California. North from Santa Barbara lies MorroBay, which is guarded by an impressive rock sentry. Further north along thecoast is Big Sur, with its breathtaking ocean vistas, waterfalls, and towering red-woods. Just north of Big Sur, Monterey Bay is one of the richest aquatic wildlife

8 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

regions in the world. Inland from here are rolling hills with oak trees, grass-lands, and fertile alluvial valleys, the largest of which is Salinas Valley.

Further north is San Francisco Bay, one of the most impressive naturalharbors in the world, covering more than 400 square miles. Its entrance—theGolden Gate—is so narrow that the bay is really more like an inland sea, sur-rounded by low-lying hills rich in vegetation. The extensiveness of the bay andits connection with the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers make water trans-portation of prime importance. Today it is possible for oceangoing cargo shipsto dock at Sacramento or Stockton. The bay gives easy access to the fertileSonoma and Santa Clara Valleys. The climate in this region of California isalways cool, and much wetter than southern California. North from here theterrain changes. From the Russian River to the Oregon border, the coast is rug-ged, with steep cliffs that hug the ocean. Frequent storms lash the beaches andthere are few harbors, the most notable being Humboldt Bay. This region hasredwood and pine forests, interspersed with woodland grass and small valleys.

East of this northern coastal region, a tableland—interspersed with mountainranges and the majestic snowcapped peaks of Mount Lassen and Mount Shasta—provides evidence of a prehistoric volcanic past. Between forests of pine and firthat cover the mountain ranges are the flatlands—the product of ancient lavaflows, with an elevation between 3000 and 5000 feet, covered with sagebrush andjunipers. Rain and snow define the seasons; lakes and rivers are plentiful.

The most mountainous region of California is the Sierra Nevada, a rangerunning some 400 miles from Mount Lassen in the north to the Tejon Pass inthe south. Mount Whitney (14,494 feet in elevation), one of the tallest moun-tains in the continental United States, resides here with other peaks nearly ashigh. The Sierra mountains include the awe-inspiring Yosemite Valley andSequoia National Park, along with breathtaking waterfalls, rapidly flowingmountain streams and rivers, and the largest freshwater lake in the state, LakeTahoe. The Sierras provide much of the water that the entire state dependsupon. On average, more than 50 inches of rain are captured in the mountainsnowfall each winter, providing year-round water for the Kern, Yosemite, SanJoaquin, Sacramento, Tuolume, Stanislaus, and other rivers. The discovery ofgold here in 1848 changed California forever.

South and east of the Sierras lies a vast desert that harbors a rich diversityof plant and animal life. Sage, cacti, and grasses survive the fierce heat of thedesert summer, while juniper and piñon trees grow on the higher plateaus.After a brief rainy season in March or April, the desert explodes in wildflowers,some seeds of which can lie dormant for years. The desert region has the low-est point in the United States—Death Valley (282 feet below sea level)—as wellas several lakes of historical importance, notably Mono and Owens Lakes.Imperial and Coachella Valleys in the southern desert are of prime importancetoday as agricultural centers, thanks to irrigation. The huge Salton Sea receivesthe runoff of excess irrigation water from the Imperial Valley. It was created in

Diversity: Origins of California and Its Native Peoples 9

the early 1900s by a temporary rechanneling of the Colorado River, and todayits salinity is greater than that of seawater.

The 450-mile-long Central Valley lies between the Sierra Nevada and thecoastal mountains and is on average 50 miles wide. The valley is drained by theSan Joaquin River in the south and the Sacramento River in the north, both fedby numerous tributaries flowing from the Sierras. The two great rivers meetnear Sacramento and form a delta region. The temperate weather, richnessof the soil, and increased availability of irrigation have made this regioninvaluable farmland. Although this is a major difference from the times ofCalifornia’s first peoples, they, too, experienced a land of many contrasts—contrasts that have led some to say that there are many Californias.

Cycles of Life: The Food Quest, Spirituality, and Rituals

The Food Quest

Imagine bright sunshine and deep blue skies framing a spry old woman as sheleads her granddaughter along the path that winds through the fertile hills ofthe San Joaquin Valley around 3000 BCE. Spying something in the brush, theelder woman stops and kneels, as does the girl, looking carefully at the delicate,green plant her grandmother is grasping in strong, sure hands. “In digging wildpotatoes we never take the mother plant,” the grandmother says. “We justselect the babies that have no flowers, just leaves. We are thinning out thearea so that more will grow next year.” The girl nods as they set about collect-ing the flowerless young plants. As their baskets fill, her mind drifts to otherharvestings the two have shared, of wild onions, tobacco, and various bulbs.She breathes deeply of the clear air, remembering the late summer and earlyautumn times when it was acrid with the smell of the burnings done annuallyin the chaparral. Those fires cleared space for the young growth needed formaking baskets, and increased the places where edible and medicinal plantscould be produced. The girl thinks ahead to when she will help her grand-mother broadcast the seeds of grain-yielding grasses and green annualsbetween trees so they will be able to survive the drought.

This image, based on a 20th-century Yokut description of how the tribe’sancestors passed along knowledge of their natural environment, gives us someidea of how the early peoples managed their environment and dealt withthe depletion of larger game that accompanied the population increase ofthose times. As thousands of years of hunting and gathering gave way to agreater dependence on a variety of grass plants, acorns, and marine life as die-tary supplements, the California Indians developed techniques of cultivation,propagation, and preparation to increase their food supply. The burnings this

10 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

young girl recalls are the early incarnations of a tradition described toanthropologist Florence Shipek by elders of the Kumeyaay peoples of SanDiego County in the 1960s. The elders also reported planting and hybridizingoak tree cuttings to produce more acorns. More recently M. Kat Anderson, inher study of California Indians’ management of their natural world, concludedthat they practiced a wide variety of techniques including “burning, pruning,sowing, weeding, tilling …” –that Indians assert were practices to help naturealong. Other scholars point to the fish management traditions of the coastalIndians, particularly those living north of Monterey bay. When the Chinooksalmon had their semi-annual runs up the Klamath River, for example, it wastradition to allow some of them to pass on to the spawning grounds. The weirsthat they built to trap them were dismantled at key times to allow the fish topass, thus conserving the future stock of this important food. All these manage-ment techniques were under the spiritual direction of key shamans.

While they worked, these two women might have looked across the hillstoward the stand of oak trees near their village, grown from cuttings. Oaktrees then, as in the 21st century, could be found throughout California aswell as the greater Southwest and northern Mexico. The indigenous peoplesof Alta and Baja California developed the techniques that made the highlynutritious fruit of those trees—acorns—into a staple food. Each mature tree ofthe seven different species of oak could produce up to 500 pounds of acornsannually, but these nuts could only be gathered for a few weeks each year.

To pass the time as they pick greens, the elder reviews with her grandchildhow acorns must be leached of their bitter tannic acids to make them edible.She rejects the method of immersing the acorns in mud near a streambed forseveral months, for there are all sorts of risks involved in leaving anything onits own like that. She prefers to shell the acorns and grind them into a meal,pouring water over it until the acid leaches out through coiled baskets. Stone orsand basins were also used for the leaching process, which was probably anoriginal innovation of the California Indians. The young girl thought of howher mother, taught by her grandmother, organized the long hours of workrequired by their small family for several weeks to produce the acorn meal.Later, the meal could be boiled into mush or baked into cakes. In a good sea-son, they could gather enough acorns to make meal that would last them untilthe next gathering. She feels grateful for those bountiful years.

As the sun sinks lower and the sky turns to pinks and purples, the two womenmight spot the girl’s father and brother near the oak trees, returning from a tradejourney to the coast. The pair would be laden with fish and game received inexchange for acorns, trading as the Wiot peoples did near present-day Eureka.Trade patterns revolved around the need for food. One of the most importantand pervasive items of trade was obsidian, black volcanic glass stone used tomake arrow and spear points. Crystal salt, gathered from the Owens Valley andthe Colorado River or distilled from seawater, was also commonly traded. The

Cycles of Life: The Food Quest, Spirituality, and Rituals 11

peoples in San Diego traded acorn meal for melons grown by the Yuman(Quechan) Indians. Abalone shells from the Pacific Ocean have been found inmiddens (refuse heaps) on the eastern side of Baja California, indicating a tradein shells between the western coastal communities and those further inland.

The stories the two men would surely bring back from their trip might wellinclude tales highlighting the religious significance that the mountains, lakes,rivers, and other natural features had for them. They believed that the landwas given to them by the gods and their ancestors, with boundaries establishedthrough tradition and warfare. They not only traveled for survival, they alsomade spiritual journeys. Their concept of the land differed from that of theEuropeans both in its relation to the spiritual, and in their belief that landwas for the use of families and clans as groups—not as individuals.

Almost every native group had occasion to travel within its territory andoccasionally outside it to obtain needed foods or implements, just as this imag-inary family did. Given the diversity of California Indian language groups,lineages, bands, clans, and towns, generalizations about them as a whole aredifficult to make. We can say that, unlike the peoples living along the ColoradoRiver and further east, they did not develop maize agriculture. Those moreeastern tribes cultivated maize, corn, beans, and squash once these plants hadspread north from central Mexico after 900 BCE. For the California Indians,however, lush flora and fauna were available to those living near the coastand in the north, so there was no need to develop farming. And in any case,especially in the south, scant rainfall made agriculture without irrigation prob-lematic. Almost all the western groups had territories that crossed two or moreecological food zones, enabling them to draw from different regions in differentseasons and thus not remain wholly dependent on any one food source.

California’s various Indians were also similar in that they were perhaps themost omnivorous peoples in the Americas, eating practically everything thatwas not poisonous. Besides acorns, fish, and game, they ate insects, shellfish,grasses, lizards, snakes, cactus, and scores of species of wild plants. Baskets,pottery vessels, bows and arrows, harpoons, nets, grinding and cutting stones,and other practical implements that line the shelves of California’s museumstoday are evidence of the importance of food gathering to all of the state’s var-ious historical cultures.

The California Indians actively shaped their natural environment so as toextract its maximum food value. And they passed on their burgeoning environ-mental management techniques through oral transmission—usually throughshamans, or spiritual leaders—from generation to generation. The most com-mon management technique was the use of fire to control brush and treegrowth, to create a layer of ash that nourished the seed-bearing grasses ofthe next season, and to drive game into traps. The annual clearing of brushby fire was an important ecological activity, creating places where grassescould grow and where game could forage. Burning the chaparral regions andgrasslands promoted the growth of “burn species” of edible plants and grasses

12 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

that normally would not flourish in these areas. Frequent burnings in forestedareas also prevented the buildup of dense brush whose accidental burningmight have large-scale, disastrous results. Environmental historians believethat land management practices—especially burning—were so significant inmaintaining a balance among the land, the flora, and the fauna of pre-conquest California that the decline of the Indian population after Europeansettlement produced a change in the natural environment—a change causedby the unchecked growth of brush and chaparral. As estimated by ethnohistor-ians, perhaps 10 percent of the plants and 30 percent of the animals commonin pre-Columbian California have since disappeared, victims of encroachingEuropean plants and animals. Perhaps as much as 90 percent of all flora andfauna present in California today are not native to the region, but haveappeared since the arrival of Europeans in North America.

Many native life forms have almost disappeared in 21st-century California.Before the Spanish, the coastal region hosted thousands of acres of Americandune grass and Pacific beach grass. Beginning in the American era, these twograsses were gradually replaced by European beach grasses. These grasses trapmore sand and create huge sand dunes, which in turn make it harder for other

Many Indian women were accomplished artisans, using local materials to create both utilitarian and ornamental objects.

Cycles of Life: The Food Quest, Spirituality, and Rituals 13

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varieties of plants to thrive. Similarly, the coastal prairie regions once containedperennial bunch grasses that have been replaced by varieties of Europeanspreading grasses, including Italian rye grass and wild oats and barley.

Spirituality

Although physical nourishment was a time-consuming enterprise for Indianfamilies like the imaginary Yokuts described earlier, the food quest was bal-anced in their lives with time spent striving to live in harmony with the hiddenforces of nature. Spirits inhabited the world of all native peoples in the Amer-icas; communicating with those spirits occupied a good portion of their lives,especially during changes in season and on special occasions such as coming ofage, marriage, and death.

Imagine another dawn breaking in the life of another Indian family, amongthe Cahuilla. The father has spent some weeks instructing his adolescent son inthe correct ways to dance, eat, bathe, and participate in one of the most impor-tant spiritual exercises of their community, the toloache ceremony. (In someIndian groups, girls also participated in this ritual.)

Gently, the father shakes his boy to wakefulness. “Come, my son—theelders are ready,” he says, and the boy shakes off his slumber to hurry outside.There, the boy lines up with his friends, all aged 10 to 15, as the shamaninspects them carefully. “You,” he points to one, then another, continuingdown the line. “You, and you, and you. Come.” The boys are escorted to aceremonial enclosure, where they will remain for a week while the old peopledance all night and prepare the jimsonweed potion called toloache.

Mixing the crushed roots of the poisonous datura—or jimsonweed—withwater created a narcotic potion that produced visions in those who drank it.The Indians believed these visions were a means of communicating with thesupernatural. Where the toloache cult originated and how it spread is not cer-tain, though some scholars believe it began among the peoples of southernCalifornia and diffused north and east, driven by the dislocations caused bythe Spanish occupation.

Death can be caused by ingesting toloache; it was only used with greatpreparation and supervision by the Indians, and drunk perhaps once in a per-son’s life. The process was supervised by the shaman, or religious leader of thetribe, who was also an expert in folk medicine. The shaman (usually male, butsometimes female) was key to the preservation of such rituals as the toloacheceremony. Shamans had power by virtue of an animal that came to them indreams or visions—bestowed upon them by the Great Spirit so they couldhelp people connect with each other and the natural world. It was believedthe shaman could change shapes and become the guardian spirit animal.

When the boys are called forth from their hut into a moonless night aweek later, a hush falls upon the watching crowd. The father looks proudly athis son who is standing tall, unblinking; he can tell the boy is ready to drink

14 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

and become a man. “Tonight and only tonight you taste the toloache that willtransport you to the world of the Great Spirit,” the shaman intones, holdinghigh a gourd filled with the sacred potion. Each boy drinks, and the drummingand dancing begin. One by one the boys collapse; as they do, they are carriedwith great jubilation back into the hut. The father keeps a strong face tosquelch any small anxiety he might have as he gently lays down his son, whois muttering now in the throes of his vision. “Go away, Coyote, go away,” theboy cries out suddenly. “I know your tricks and selfish ways.” Later he will tellhis father, “Coyote tempted me to jump from the highest cliff into the swirlingwaters below, saying he would catch me. ‘Drink more toloache,’ he told me, ‘forit will make you powerful like the shaman, look, like me, I am drinking all thetime—come, we will fly!’ But I told him no, I know your deceit, for my fathertold me you are self-destructive and a liar. And Coyote howled as he flew away,hanging his head in shame for his weakness. ‘You are right, wise boy, donot jump, I cannot catch you, I cannot,’ he wailed. Then he faded and I wokeup sweating.” The boy’s father nods wisely as his son finishes describinghis vision, for everyone knows Coyote is all of these things, both destructiveand regretful.

On the next night and the next, the boys are called out of the hut, taughtsongs, lore, and correct living. They learn the oral myths passed down throughgenerations—stories with many animals, like Coyote, who had human person-alities and magical powers. These stories also explained the meaning of life andrecorded the tribe’s own history. Coyote was a nearly universal mythic figurewho could be the trickster or hero, depending on local interpretations. Amongthe Maidu, for example, the Coyote and Earthmaker gods were opposed toeach other and struggled in the creation of the earth and people. Coyoteappeared in many guises: as messenger, transformer, creator, but most oftenas the divine deceiver of humankind. Often, myths were related to geographicalfeatures of tribal territory, such as a mountain peak, lake, or river. Certainly theboys had heard these tales before, as the telling of them was woven into dailylife—how the Great Spirit created the world, why death existed, why humansociety was organized as it was—but now the boys, too, became responsiblefor keeping this knowledge alive.

An introduction to medicinal lore might also have been included in theirtraining, again supervised by the shaman, who also preserved the tribe’s vastknowledge of medicine, spiritual incantations, and the uses of various herbs.Similar to the curanderos (herbal faith healers) among the Mexicans, shamanswere practitioners of holistic medicine. Using breath and touch in addition toplants and animals, shamans facilitated true cures in the only way thoughtpossible—by bringing the body and the soul into harmony with the naturalworld. A Chumash Indian, Fernando Librado, told of many cures that hewitnessed after the afflicted one had been given a toloache potion to drink.Once, a man who had been severely beaten and was near death was revivedand completely cured within a few days of drinking toloache and being

Cycles of Life: The Food Quest, Spirituality, and Rituals 15

rubbed over with tobacco. Another who was in great pain from brokenbones received almost immediate relief and was eventually healed after drink-ing toloache.

While these specialized cures were needed in serious cases, knowledge ofmedicinal plants was part of the cultural heritage of all the people. The boysmight learn about the many uses of tobacco, grown or traded by almost allthe native groups and thought to have curative and spiritual powers whenchewed, eaten, or smoked. They might be shown medicinal plants good fortreating many common ailments: from sore muscles, headaches, cramps, andnausea, to common colds, rheumatism, cuts, bites, wounds, and sores. Theirsisters, in their own coming-of-age rituals, might learn about other plants use-ful for contraception, menstrual problems, and childbirth. When the Spanishbegan to occupy California, they liberally borrowed from native medicinallore, using special herbs to treat arrow wounds, as well as wild chamomileand manzanilla for respiratory illnesses. A number of our modern medicinesderive from the plants used by the North American Indians.

Once taught the ways of the tribe, the boys eat no meat and drink nothingbut cold water for the rest of that month. After this they are men. Sitting by thefire, the young man who saw Coyote in his visions contemplates his future. Hisfather smiles softly, careful that his son does not see his pride as he observesthe seriousness on that youthful face. Then he breaks the young man’s reverie.“Tomorrow you will join us on the hunt. Today we prepare ourselves in thetemescal. Come, help carry the rocks.”

Together, father and son join the other men of the village placing heatedrocks inside the rounded structure made of saplings and covered with grassand hides. This temescal, or sweathouse, was another significant part of theirspiritual life. Sprinkling water on the rocks, the men gathered inside the steamyhut to chant, sing, smoke, and pray. An hour or two later, they would emergeand immediately plunge into cold water, purified for success in undertakingssuch as hunting and war.

Rituals

When the sun rises and the stars and the moon go down, then the old man ofthe house wakens everyone and begins with breakfast which is to eat meat andtortillas (acorn cakes), for we do not have bread. This done, he takes his bow andarrows and leaves the house with vigorous and quick step…. His old womanstaying at home makes the meal. The son, if he is a man, works with the men.

These words of Pablo Tac, a San Luis Rey mission Indian in the 1820s, offera glimpse of their daily life before the Spanish arrived. Although generalizationsabout the diverse Indian communities are difficult to make, each had its ownregional version of rituals surrounding marriage, morals, and leisure—the acti-vities that gave meaning and purpose to life—all drawn from the sustenance ofeach of their rich and varied environments.

16 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

Common to many of these activities was song of one form or another. Like the initiation rites of the Cahuilla described earlier, young girls of the Diegueño or Kumeyaay Indians participated in a Wakunish, or womanhood ceremony, at puberty. A bed of hot sand was prepared and the girl placed on top of it, sur-rounded by dancing and singing members of her village. Following this, she returned to her special hut to be instructed in the sacred affairs of the commu-nity. A sand painting was used to show the girl her place in the universe, and marriageable girls were tattooed on their chins after a period of fasting.

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Cycles of Life: The Food Quest, Spirituality, and Rituals 17

In 1854, a U.S. expedition led by Lieutenant Colonel William Emory traveled through the desert regions of California and Arizona to survey the international boundary. Along the way, artists sketched the region’s plants, animals, and inhabitants. Arthur Schott created this picture of a Diegueño family in 1854. Do you see any Spanish or Mexican influence?

Song and dance also figured in marriage rituals. Chumash marriage cele-brations began with a private ceremony for the family, where invited guestsbrought presents, according to former mission Indian Fernando Librado.Later there was a feast, followed by what he called a Jealousy Dance, in whichfive figures performed a burlesque of a love affair and temptations of othermen. Pablo Tac remembered another ritual dance, of the Luiseño people:

The dancers in this dance can be as many as 30, more or less. Going out of thehouse, they turn their faces to the singers and begin to give kicks, but not hardones, because it is not the time, and when the song is finished the captain ofthe dancers, touching his feet, cries, “Hu,” and all fall silent.

In some groups, boys were married before they were 21, to a suitable brideselected by their parents from outside both the immediate family and the band.The parents gave gifts to the family of the girl, and sometimes the boy went towork for his future in-laws to prove he could provide for the girl. Among sometribelets there was no formal ceremony, merely an agreement among the par-ents. During the first weeks after the marriage, members of the village visitedthe new couple to confirm that they were part of the group.

Indian and Spanish morality differed, which was a source of great conflictbetween them. Though marriage and kinship were usually governed amongIndians by strict rules, and patriarchal values held sway, most CaliforniaIndians did not regard virginity as being of great value; consequently, premari-tal sex was rarely forbidden, according to the research of historian AlbertHurtado. Adultery and sexual misconduct by women was sometimes punishedby payment of indemnities to wronged husbands and by the whipping of errantwives; however, sexual mores among Indian groups varied as greatly as theydid between Indians and Europeans, and sweeping generalizations are perilous.In some groups, women as well as men could divorce their spouse if mis-treated. Prostitution was almost unknown among Indians, Hurtado thinks,because “marital, premarital, and extramarital associations provided sufficientsexual opportunities.”

Along with many other natives in the Americas, the California Indians alsovalued a berdache tradition, in which homosexual transvestites were thought tohave special mystical powers. Many villages regarded them as a third sex,highly valued as marriage partners because of their strength and spiritualgifts. This acceptance of homosexuality as well as the native people’s casualattitudes towards sex was regarded by Christian missionaries as proof of theIndians’ inherent sinfulness.

Many California Indians believed in cremating their dead, another practicethat was unacceptable to European Catholics of the time. “Only when everythingis burned can his spirit go into the next world and not have to keep coming backafter his things,” remembers Delfina Cuero, a Kumeyaay Indian woman born in1900, in her autobiography. The funeral ceremony of her people, the Kumeyaay,involved cremating the departed along with all their worldly possessions the dayafter they died. Their bones and ashes were preserved in jars. Gifts were sent from

18 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

other bands to the family of the deceased, along with “shell money.” Tradition dic-tated that the shell money was then returned to the band who sent it, along withmore gifts. A year later, the other bands were invited to participate in a mourningceremony, during which everyone sang songs about the eagle and deer all nightlong, followed by a great feast in the morning. Figurines made of cattails, repre-senting the dead, were burned and food and baskets were given away. Later, thevisitors returned the original gifts along with more food. Such exchanges served topromote communication and good will among the villages.

Singing was also featured in leisure time activities. Songs that kept locallegends, myths, and history alive were memorized and sung, often directedtoward the Great Spirit. Each band had one singer who knew all the songsand stories and who taught them to the others. One Luiseño story, the legendof Takwish, was told through 1050 songs that were sung from sunset Fridayuntil sunrise on Sunday. There were probably hundreds of such storiesamong the California peoples, each encapsulating the “soul” of the people,transmitting their identity and heritage to the next generation.

A popular gambling and guessing game called peon was also accompaniedby songs. The Indians also participated with great gusto in many other kinds ofgames that emphasized both competition and community. Men and boysengaged in mock battles with one another using stones instead of arrows, andchildren played a game of throwing a stick through a rolling hoop. Pablo Tacremembers a ball game resembling modern football that was played with 30 or40 men and women on each side. The idea was to unearth a hidden ball usingsticks and then to carry it to the goal while the other team sought to prevent ascore. Each game lasted three or four hours.

A Closer Look: Six Regional Peoples

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the varied lives of native Californiansreflected the diversity of the land they inhabited. A closer examination of sixof the many native groups that spread across this land provides greater insightinto their similarities as well as their differences. While there were probablymore than 500 distinctive tribelets, it is useful to focus on those which werethe largest that represent the regional adaptations of these people. From theGabrielino/Tongva peoples of the south to the Shastans of the north, each group’sdevelopment was inseparably woven into the fabric of their environment.

The Gabrielino/Tongva

The Gabrielino/Tongva peoples migrated to southern California from thegreater Southwest sometime after 500 BCE. They lived in more than 100 vil-lages scattered throughout the area of present-day Los Angeles and Orange

A Closer Look: Six Regional Peoples 19

Counties, as well as the offshore islands (see Map 1.2). Named for the SanGabriel mission constructed near their villages, or rancherías (as the Spanishcalled them), they were a Cupan-speaking people. Part of the Uto-Aztecanfamily of languages, Cupan is linguistically related to languages of the PuebloIndians in New Mexico and the Aztecs of central Mexico.

The Gabrielinos worshiped the god Qua-o-ar, also called Chingichngish.According to what is known through Spanish sources, they believed the earthwas created by a divine brother and sister, who formed the first human,Wiyot, a male who was self-generating (he had children without a woman).Wiyot was poisoned by his children, but before he died he vowed to return.As his children were cremating Wiyot, Coyote appeared and said that hewanted to die with his captain. Coyote jumped into the fire, while tearing apiece of meat from Wiyot’s stomach and eating it. Soon after that, Chingichng-ish was born, and he then created a new race of people, giving them a body oflaws and proscriptions. The reported practice of Gabrielino shamans eatinga piece of the flesh of a dead body just prior to its cremation was supposedly are-creation of the birth of their “all-powerful” god. Eventually Chingichngishwas taken up into the heavens, dancing a sacred dance, and he becamethe stars.

The worship of Chingichngish evolved into a more formalistic religionwith special worship places, elaborate ceremonies, and sacrifices to this god aswell as to the Sun and Moon, who also had divine status. The Gabrielinos alsovenerated animals, especially the Eagle, whom they considered to be the soul ofa great leader. Their religion was male-centered; only men were allowed pri-mary access to divine powers. The veneration of Chingichngish may havebeen influenced by Catholicism in a syncretic way, mixing European and nativebeliefs, but it is unclear to what degree.

The lengthiest Gabrielino rituals involved deceased tribal members. After athree-day mourning ceremony with dancing and wailing, the dead were cre-mated along with all their possessions. Each year, the family conducted anothermourning ceremony in honor of the deceased one, at which the legends of thecommunity were honored. During the eight-day celebration, the longest andmost elaborate of the year, newly born children were given their father’snames, any remaining possessions of the deceased were burned, and an eaglewas ceremonially sacrificed.

Like many California native groups, the Gabrielinos were patrilineal, trac-ing their descent through the father. Arranged marriages often took place, afterwhich a wife moved into the home of her husband and was then forbidden tovisit her family of origin, although they could visit her. Divorce was possible, inwhich case the families returned the wedding gifts. A wife’s infidelity was pun-ishable by death or beating.

Of the tribe’s three social classes, leaders and their families were at the top,followed by a middle class of respected families and then by common villagers.Upper- and middle-class families controlled land and marked the boundaries

20 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

of their possessions with symbolic figures carved on trees or posts, or paintedon rocks. Each village had its own autonomous organization dominated byone lineage and ruled by a male leader who passed on his power through hismale heir. If no male heir existed, a related woman might be selected by thefamily council.

Occasionally, feuds among the various lineages and villages erupted, withvillages sometimes allying together to engage in war. Armed and bloody con-flicts arose when other tribes trespassed on ranchería lands, when women weretaken, or when enemies invoked evil powers. The Gabrielino warriors usedheavy wooden clubs, reed armor, and bows and arrows. The whole villagetook part in battles, with women and children as helpers. Enemy woundedwere killed on the field, while captured male warriors were publicly torturedand scalped.

Most of the time, however, peace reigned, fostered by intermarriages andtrade within Gabrielino groups and with the Cahuilla, Chumash, and Luiseño.The Gabrielinos’ main trade item was steatite, a kind of rock from the island ofSanta Catalina used to make carvings of sacred animals. They imported acorns,obsidian, and deerskin from the inland territories and exchanged salt, shellfish,and sea otter pelts. They also traded with the Pueblo Indians of what is nowArizona and New Mexico.

The Chumash

The Chumash people settled in villages in central California around 1000 CE,in the area from San Luis Obispo to Malibu, on the coastal Channel Islands—San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and Anacapa—and as far inland as thecentral San Joaquin Valley (see Map 1.2). They became one of the largest lan-guage groups in California and were among the native peoples sighted by theEuropean expedition led by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in October 1542.

Expert craftsmen, especially in woodworking and basketry, they con-structed planked wooden canoes up to 30 feet long that enabled them to fishfar out to sea and to visit the offshore islands. Using harpoons with stonepoints and ropes made out of yucca fiber, they hunted sea otters, seals, sword-fish, and whales. Their large carved oak bowls were the envy of the Europeans;their wooden-handled knives and arrows remain marvels of beauty. CaliforniaIndian basketry in general is noted for its decoration and workmanship, andChumash baskets were so tightly woven that when waterproofed with asphal-tum or tar, they could be used to carry and store water, as well as for cooking.The tar came from natural pools, which had oozed into a small lake located inthe western region of what is today the Los Angeles basin. The women wereresponsible for weaving these useful works of art. They also wove fishnets,floor mats, storage baskets, and strainers.

Chumash rock art paintings can be found in caves and on rocks and ledgesthroughout the Santa Barbara area. Many California native groups drew or

A Closer Look: Six Regional Peoples 21

inscribed designs and mysterious symbols on rocks, but few of these are as col-orful and dramatic as those of the Chumash. The designs are abstract, mostprobably done in conjunction with the toloache ceremony or with femalepuberty rites. The drawings may have been meant to sanctify a particularlyholy spot—almost all of them are located near water in inaccessible regions,far from the coast.

The permanent villages of the Chumash included well-constructed roundhomes built of poles and interwoven grass, some up to 50 feet in diameter andable to hold up to 70 persons. Within these homes were beds on wood frameswith divisions in between for privacy and a fire pit in the center for cooking.Every village had at least one sweathouse, a number of storehouses, a buildingused for ceremonies, a cemetery, and a recreation house.

As did many California natives, the Chumash enjoyed a variety of games.A ball game similar to soccer, played with a round wooden ball, was popularwith the boys and men; females played a hoop game that involved tryingto throw a pole through a rolling hoop. Women also gambled alongside menin various games of chance, especially a dice game using walnut shells filledwith tar.

Like the Gabrielinos, this tribe was patrilineal and had a definite class sys-tem. Those who owned the large canoes and were the heads of large familiesenjoyed high status. Wealthy family members dressed accordingly, adornedwith semiprecious stones and rare bird feathers.

The area in which the Chumash lived was blessed with many resources.Still, they had extensive trade relationships with surrounding communities. Inexchange for deerskins, acorns, obsidian, and precious stones, they traded aba-lone shells, whalebone, wooden bowls, and asphaltum. They were expert atmaking fishhooks out of shell and these were valuable trade items. Those wholived on the four offshore islands visited the mainland periodically to obtainfood and luxuries, sometimes paddling more than 40 miles in open sea andbringing with them a variety of marine items such as sea lion bristles (used asneedles), whalebones, and pelican feathers.

According to early European accounts, the Chumash were a gentle people.In the 1770s, Governor Pedro Fages wrote that they were “of good disposition,affable, liberal, and friendly toward the Spaniard.” Among them, punishmentwas rare and compensation was the modality of justice. Disputes were settledby referees, and intertribal wars were fought with restraining ritual and littlebloodshed. Their friendly and accepting manner made them good candidatesfor missionization by the Spanish priests. Within a century, however, epidemics,starvation, and displacement reduced the Chumash to near extinction.

The Costanoans

The Costanoan peoples migrated to Monterey Bay and the southern part of theSan Francisco Bay area about 500 CE and lived in more than 50 autonomous,

22 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

relatively small, permanent villages (see Map 1.2). By the time of their firstcontact with Europeans, they had a population of more than 10,000, dividedinto eight language groups and more than 30 different ethnic populations,each with different names and different dialects. Their name derives from theSpanish costa (coast), but as was the case with many native California peoples,they did not use this name themselves.

One group of Costanoans may have been the first miners in California,excavating a tunnel near present-day New Almaden to mine cinnabar, a com-pound based on mercury and used to make colorful paints. Because this wasthe only deposit of this particular mineral in California, it was a valuableasset and the Costanoans fought with surrounding tribes for the rights to themine. Indians from as far away as the Pacific Northwest traveled to Costanoanterritory to trade for cinnabar.

Like the Chumash, the Costanoans developed boats, but theirs were madeof tule reeds and used for fishing in the bays as well as for transportation andtrading expeditions. They bartered the products of the bays with the interiorIndian groups for piñon nuts, acorns, and decorative stones and shells. Warfarewith other groups seems to have been more pronounced among the Costanoanpeoples, usually caused by trespassing into their territory. (Territorial bound-aries of ethnic groups were well delineated and frequently marked.) In battle,the Costanoans killed male captives and took women; afterward, the decapi-tated heads of their enemies adorned their villages. Costanoans shared thecommon religious tradition that included a creation story involving thedestruction of the earth by flooding, followed by the rebirth of people. Theybelieved Coyote taught people to hunt and fish, and was the grandfather ofDuck Hawk, a god who helped humans by killing monsters and looking aftertheir welfare. They believed in an afterlife in which they went to another landacross the sea. On the day of death, the corpse was cremated. During themourning ceremony, members of the immediate family covered themselveswith ashes and beat themselves in sorrow, a practice which sometimes resultedin their own deaths. It was forbidden to speak a deceased’s name until it hadbeen formally given to another within the tribe.

Grizzly bears were also venerated as representing important animal spir-its and were frequently captured alive and cared for by some tribes. Specialshamans dressed in grizzly bear skins and used poisoned claws to kill enemycaptives. The Chumash Indian Fernando Librado recalled the ceremoniessurrounding the bear medicine man when he was interviewed by anthropol-ogist John P. Harrington in 1914. “To make their bear suits they would firstkill a bear and pull its skin off over the head, cutting the paws and skincarefully.” Librado remembered that occasionally other Indians would tryto kill the bear medicine man (whom they believed to be an evil spirit).But the bear shamans were believed to be protected by the supernaturalpowers they possessed (they were protected, too, by the many layers ofskins they wore).

A Closer Look: Six Regional Peoples 23

Costanoan tribal organization was similar to that of the Gabrielino/Tongva and the Chumash. The position of chief was hereditary, but any chief’sauthority was circumscribed by a strong sense of individual freedom amongcommunity members. Their social world revolved around the family of thefather and they had large families, perhaps averaging 15 per household.Wealthier men had more than one wife, which made for complex arrange-ments. Among some Costanoans there were three designations for children,indicating known parentage: man’s son, man’s daughter, and woman’s child(unknown father). Marriage appears to have been rather informal, and divorcewas easily accomplished, with the children going with the wife.

The Miwoks and Yokuts

Other Indian groups lived far from the ocean and European settlement. Two ofthese groups were the Miwoks and Yokuts. The Miwoks inhabited an area run-ning from the north and east of San Francisco Bay to Sacramento and the foot-hills of the Sierras; the Yokuts lived in the San Joaquin Valley south ofSacramento. Like other groups, these two populations settled in scattered inde-pendent villages, the members of each village speaking a different dialectalthough bound by a probable common ancestry in the ancient past.

In 1769, the Miwok population probably exceeded 25,000. They werenoted for their construction of large, round subterranean meetinghouses, some-times 40 to 50 feet in diameter, in which it was possible to assemble the wholevillage for important ceremonies and crucial discussions. The Sierra Miwoksbuilt conical homes of bark and wood, insulated by several layers to withstandthe cold winters. The Miwoks divided all creatures into two types, the waterand land descendants, and their social organization and adoption of animalnames followed this dualist system. For example, among the Sierra Miwoks,

Hupa man with a ceremonial white deerskin staff and elaborate shell necklace.

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24 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

the grizzly bear represented the land and the coyote the water. Individuals weregiven a personal name according to their relationship to the land or water moi-eties (sides). The Miwoks had three types of leaders: the chief, who arbitrateddisputes and administered punishments; the speaker, who organized everyonefor ceremonies and work; and the messengers, who acted as representatives toother groups and as announcers during ritual celebrations. Hunters and gath-erers, the Miwoks developed a variety of technologies, including seed beaters,dip nets and seines for fish, specialized traps and snares for small game, anddeer runs (fenced areas that trapped prey).

The Yokuts shared the same linguistic origin as the Miwoks and numberedsome 20,000 people who lived in about 40 independent groups. In the south,the Yokuts lived along the banks of the Kern, Tule, King, and San JoaquinRivers, and along the shore of Tulare Lake. In this era, the San Joaquin Valleywas much marshier than it is now and this created a rich aquatic environment.The Yokut way of life, therefore, revolved around the marshes formed by themany rivers in the valley. The ubiquitous tule plant was used for making every-thing from baskets to canoes, and it was also used for food. Because their foodsource was always in one place, these Yokuts built permanent villages usinglarge tule mats for construction, and they perfected freshwater fishing with spe-cialized nets, floating tule mats, spring traps, and decoys. They ate mussels,turtles, geese, and ducks, along with tule and grass seeds, and supplementedthis diet with acorns, which they obtained by trade.

The Yokuts who lived along the river edges also had access to acorns as astaple food. Some built their river villages on mounds to protect against floodsand had small tule huts for each family, but they also built larger assemblystructures and sweathouses. They raised dogs, primarily, it seems, for theirmeat, and the puppies were an item of trade as far away as Monterey. Theyhad a dualistic family system like that of the Miwoks, whose territory boundedthem on the north. Among the foothill Yokuts, plural marriages and divorcewere common, and a woman’s rights were strongly protected by her family.

The Shastans

Finally, in the Klamath and Scott River Valleys of the mountainous regionsof northern California and southern Oregon, there lived about 3000 Shastan peo-ples, a collection of groups who shared dialects of the same language. Noted fortheir many feuds and wars within their own group and with other northerngroups such as the Modocs, the Shastans fought in retaliation for past insultsand injuries as well as for control of territory. Nevertheless, they maintainedtrade relations with surrounding rancherías in order to obtain baskets, obsidian,beads, and animal skins in exchange for acorn meal, salt, and wolf skins.

The Shastan peoples, too, were patrilineal, with rule by a headman or chief.Often the wife of the chief was an important political spokesperson in resolving con-flicts. Settlement of disputes usually required payment in clamshell money, deer

A Closer Look: Six Regional Peoples 25

skins, or woodpecker scalps to the aggrieved party. The headman also regulated theownership of hunting and fishing territory, which could be inherited by families.

Harsh winters impelled the Shastans to build sturdy, warm dwellings, par-tially excavated, with solid wood logs and boards as walls and roofs. During thesummer months, the families lived in temporary camps. They also built largeassembly halls for ceremonial purposes, for use as a sweathouse, and for lodg-ing during the winter.

Shastan territory was lush with small game, salmon, trout, eels, and turtles.The women were entrusted with fishing, while the men hunted. Deer meat wasa primary food source. They also had a gathering culture, with both men andwomen seeking acorns and pine nuts. Cultivated tobacco was offered up as asacrifice to ensure good hunting.

Coyote is a major figure in Shastan belief, as a source of both evil andgood. The stories used by the Shastans to pass on their beliefs were preoccu-pied with the pervasiveness of evil, which had to be combated by manipulationof the spiritual world through the offices of male shamans and female doctors.They also seem to have been preoccupied with status, prestige, and the order ofsociety, which made insults and loss of face great evils and resentments a majortheme of cultural life.

Significance: The Importance of California Nativesand Other North American Native Peoplesin Non-Indian History

Beginning in 1769, with the first Spanish settlement, and lasting until 1848, whenCalifornia was transferred to the United States, the California Indians vastly out-numbered the Euro-American population. If history were written emphasizingthe most demographically important groups, then, until the discovery of gold,California’s history would be primarily that of its native peoples, with smallattention given to the Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo immigrants. But historyreflects political and cultural power and is usually written by the conquerors.

Spanish, Mexican, and early Anglo American settlers in California werealmost uniformly critical of the native peoples. The Spanish had mixed viewsabout the Indians, whom they considered “child-like,” “indolent,” and given toindulge in “brutal appetites,” while paradoxically seeing them as innocent andnaturally God’s children. Some Mexican settlers, or pobladores, viewed thenative peoples either as dangerous threats to civilization or as lazy peoneswho needed strong guidance. The Anglos called the California Indians “diggerIndians,” classifying them as the most primitive of all North American Indianpeoples for lack of such rudimentary accomplishments of civilization as farm-ing and pottery. Such negative valuation allowed Euro-Americans to justifytaking Indian lands and destroying their societies.

26 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

Herbert Howe Bancroft, a famous and influential 19th-century Californiahistorian, believed that the California Indians were culturally inferior to thewhites. Many modern misconceptions about the level of culture attained bythe California Indians can be traced to 19th-century positivist scholars, notablyLewis Henry Morgan, one of those who conceived of all human cultural evolu-tion as progressing through stages of savagery, barbarism, and finally civiliza-tion. These scholars tended to equate “civilization” with the development ofagriculture and technology and relegated food-gathering societies to the levelof barbarism, not taking into account that human intelligence is also reflectedin successful adaptation to an environment. Such beliefs persisted into the1960s and even later, with historians and anthropologists usually characterizingthe California native cultures as “primitive” and “underdeveloped,” thus reflect-ing prejudices that are the product of ignorance as well as ethnocentrism bornout of racialist ideologies of the past.

These attitudes make it hard to remember that much of the drama ofthose years of conquest was played out against a backdrop of the extensive,rich, and diverse native culture that existed across the North American conti-nent. The many groups in California were descendants of natives who hadmigrated from the east and north, and as such they shared cultural patternswith the larger Indian society. Along with other Indian peoples in NorthAmerica in 1492, the California Indians developed a culture that fit their nat-ural environment. Few natives in what later became the United States reliedentirely on agriculture (those who did were mostly limited to New Mexicoand Arizona); most shared an economy based on hunting, gathering, and theselective cultivation of plants. Techniques developed by California Indians formaintaining the ecological balance between the population and the naturalworld of vegetation and animal life make them the first environmentalists.Their periodic burning of brush areas to stimulate the new growth of foodcrops, decrease insect pests, manage game, and open new country helped main-tain an equilibrium that was severely disturbed by the Europeans and Americans.Not until the late 20th century would scientists finally realize the wisdom ofnative management practices.

Until at least the mid-19th century, the most important workforce inCalifornia was composed of its native peoples. The foundation of the livestockindustry and of agriculture depended on native labor, as did the constructionof early public and private buildings and the first towns. The physical monu-ments to the Spanish and Mexican eras, the missions and the ranchos, werebuilt with Indian labor. The native peoples contributed elements of theirlanguage to hundreds of place names, such as Shasta, Napa, Tuolomne, Yuba,Tehachapai, Tecate, and Ukiah. They shared their knowledge of the use ofmedicinal plants with the first Spanish and Mexican settlers, and they helpedthem defend their small settlements against attacks by other Indians. Elementsof Indian culture found their way into the mission system set up by the Spanish.The first vaqueros, or cowboys, in California were Indians employed by the

Significance 27

missions to manage the cattle, sheep, and goats brought by the Spanish. Nativecultures, languages, and identities continue to exist within California, makingthese first people very much part of the history of the state from the earliesttimes to the present day.

Summary

During the course of millions of years, California evolved into a region oftremendous geographic and natural diversity. The many climates and naturalecosystems helped create the varied ways of life of its hundreds of thousandsof first settlers—migrants whose speech derived from six linguistic groups andwas expressed in more than 100 dialects. The lush plants and game thatflourished in California sustained this large Indian population, who createdinnovative ways of nurturing their natural resources.

Despite the multiplicity of their origins and languages, the Indian peoplesshared certain values, perhaps reflecting their common origin in prehistoric

In 1806, a Russian ship visited San Francisco Bay, and the artist Wilhelm GottliefTilesius von Tilenau traveled to Mission in San José, where he sketched a dance thathad been arranged for their entertainment. Compare this picture with those shown inthe earlier two photos in this chapter. Which ones seem more realistic?

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28 CHAPTER 1 California’s Origins: The Land and the People, Before Spanish Settlement

time. They all managed their natural environment to produce the maximumamount of food, whether by controlled burns, hunting, or scattering of wildseeds. Almost all of them developed techniques for harvesting and grindingacorns into a staple food, and they all traded with other groups. A rich oraltradition of myths, legends, and stories—especially about the character Coyoteand the event of the flood—was common to all groups, as was the veneration ofanimal spirits. Complex ceremonies, songs, and rituals connected them to theirnatural environment. They all had shamans who organized their spiritual life,and many used jimsonweed or other psychotropic plants as part of their reli-gion, as well as the temescal or sweathouse. Their complex patterns of lineage,relationship, and status, including class systems in some groups, and their rela-tively small villages, reflected the patterns of all the native peoples on thecontinent—with the exception of the metropolitan civilizations in centralMexico. Their peaceful and nonwarlike image has some element of truth to it,despite the bloody intertribal warfare that periodically existed. Outside of cen-tral Mexico, native peoples rarely engaged in wars of conquest and territorialaggrandizement. The first Californians were neither more nor less sophisticatedor warlike than other peoples in North America before the arrival of theEuropeans.

A review of some of the most populous indigenous groups in Californiaillustrates their rich heritage and many accomplishments. Their ability tolearn how to live with the incredible diversity and richness of California’s cli-mate and geography and develop cultures that balanced human and naturalresources is an important ideal that seems to be regaining value in the newmillennium.

Modern anthropologists evaluate cultures on their own merits, not interms of a universal model of development that favors European culture, suchas the models used by 19th-century historians and positivist scholars.Ultimately, the California Indians must be understood on their own terms,not in comparison to other Indians or to European and American notions ofcivilization. In this regard, we must remind ourselves that the native culturesthat existed prior to their contact with Europeans were neither better nor worsethan those who would attempt to control them. Then, perhaps, we can betterappreciate the true diversity of California’s past and how that diversity mayshape the future.

Suggested Readings

❚ Anderson, M. Kat, Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and theManagement of California’s Natural Resources (Berkeley and Los Angeles:University of California Press, 2006). An examination of how the nativepeoples of California managed their natural environment.

Suggested Readings

❚ Bolton, Herbert Eugene. One of the most prolific scholars in Spanish Californiastudies. Students should consult his book-length studies on Father Juan Crespi,De Anza, and especially his translation of Father Francisco Palou’s HistoricalMemoirs of New California (New York: Russell & Russell, 1966).

❚ Castañeda, Antonia I., “Presidarias y Pobladores: Spanish-Mexican Womenin Frontier Monterey, Alta California, 1770–1821” (Ph.D. dissertation, Stan-ford University, 1990). One of the few book-length monographs aboutSpanish women in this period.

❚ Cook, Sherburne F., The Conflict Between the California Indian and WhiteCivilization (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,1976). An anthropologist who has interpreted a wealth of data to help usunderstand the dimensions of the conflict.

❚ Costo, Rupert, and Costo, Jeannette H., The Missions of California: A Legacyof Genocide (San Francisco: Indian Historian Press, 1987). A historical attackon the pro-Spanish interpretation of the missions written by CaliforniaIndian historians.

❚ Engelhardt, Father Zephyrin, The Missions and Missionaries of California(San Francisco: James Barry, 1908–1929). The classic defense of theCalifornia missions is this four-volume work by the Franciscan priest, aswell as the scholarly writings of Msgr. Francis J. Weber, in his individualhistories of the missions.

❚ Geiger, Father Maynard, The Life and Times of Fray Junípero Serra, O.F.M.;or, The Man Who Never Turned Back, 1713–1784: A Biography (Washington:Academy of American Franciscan History, 1959). The classic study of FatherSerra’s labors in California.

❚ Gutiérrez, Ramón A., and Orsi, Richard J., eds., Contested Eden: CaliforniaBefore the Gold Rush (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California

Suggested Readings

❚ Chávez-García, Miroslava, Negotiating Conquest: Gender and Power in Cali-fornia, 1770s to 1880s (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004). An in-depth examination of racial and gender relations in Mexican California.

❚ Haas, Lisbeth, Conquests and Historical Identities in California, 1769–1936(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990). A schol-arly yet readable analysis of the changes in ethnic identities among Indiansand Californios in southern California.

❚ Langum, David J., Law and Community on the Mexican Frontier: Anglo-American Expatriates and the Clash of Legal Traditions, 1821–1846 (Londonand Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987). The most thoroughanalysis of the Mexican legal system.

❚ Monroy, Douglas, Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Cul-ture in Frontier California (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor-nia Press, 1990). A new attempt to synthesize the new social history withCalifornia’s early history.

❚ Osio, Antonio María, The History of Alta California: A Memoir of MexicanCalifornia (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996). One of the firstsurvey histories of California written by a native Californio, and finally pub-lished after more than 100 years.

❚ Pico, Pío, Don Pío Pico’s Historical Narrative, Arthur P. Botello, trans.(Glendale, CA: Arthur Clark Co., 1973). An eyewitness account of manyof the major events of Mexican California, written by the last Mexicangovernor.

❚ Rosenus, Alan, General M. G. Vallejo and the Advent of the Americans(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995). An importantstudy of one of the key Mexican political figures of this era.

❚ Weber, David J., The Mexican Frontier, 1821–1846: The American South-west Under Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982).One of the best surveys to place California’s Mexican period in the contextof Mexican history.

Suggested Readings

❚ Griswold del Castillo, Richard, “ Joaquín Murrieta: Life and Legend,” inWith Badges and Bullets: Lawmen and Outlaws in the Old West, RichardEtulain and Glenda Riley, eds. (Golden, CO: Fulcrum Press, 1999),pp. 106–123. A review of the many conflicting sources of the Murrietastory, along with the legend’s contemporary meanings.

❚ Griswold del Castillo, Richard, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Legacyof Conflict (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990). The bestsingle-volume study of the political and international importance of thetreaty that ended the war with Mexico.

Suggested Readings

❚ Berglund, Barbara, Making San Francisco American: Cultural Frontiers inthe Urban West, 1846-1906 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007).A deeply researched study of the social and cultural evolution of Califor-nia’s largest city.

❚ Chen, Yong, Chinese San Francisco, 1850–1943: A Trans-Pacific Community(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000). A recent treatment that empha-sizes the continuing contacts between San Francisco’s Chinatown andChina.

❚ Clarke, Dwight L., William Tecumseh Sherman: Gold Rush Banker (SanFrancisco: California Historical Society, 1969). Incorporates long excerptsfrom Sherman’s detailed letters, especially interesting for the vigilantes of 1856.

❚ Dame Shirley, [Clappe, Louise A. K. S.], The Shirley Letters (1854–55; SantaBarbara and Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith, Inc., 1970). The letters of“Dame Shirley” provide a wealth of information on life in the gold fields.

❚ Griswold del Castillo, Richard, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (Norman:University of Oklahoma Press, 1990). The best single treatment of this cru-cially important document for the history of California and the Southwest.

162 CHAPTER 5 California and the Crisis of the Union, 1850–1870

❚ Hurtado, Albert L., Indian Survival on the California Frontier (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1988). An insightful and comprehensive treatment ofthis important topic.

❚ Lapp, Rudolph M., Blacks in Gold Rush California (New Haven: Yale Uni-versity Press, 1977). A pioneering work in African American history.

❚ Lotchin, Roger W., San Francisco, 1846–1856: From Hamlet to City (1974;Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997). An excellent treat-ment of this crucial decade in the history of the city.

❚ Matthews, Glenna. The Golden State in the Civil War: Thomas Starr King,the Republican Party, and the Birth of Modern California (New York:Cambridge University Press, 2011). A new treatment of the topic, especiallygood on the role of Thomas Starr King.

❚ Quinn, Arthur, The Rivals: William M. Gwin, David Broderick, and theBirth of California (New York: Crown Publishers, 1994). A well-writtenand balanced account of the key political rivalry in California in the 1850s.

❚ Rawls, James J., Orsi, Richard J., and Smith-Baranzini, Marlene, eds., AGolden State: Mining and Economic Development in Gold Rush California(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). One volume of a series, allof which are excellent, developed by the California Historical Society on theoccasion of the state’s sesquicentennial.

❚ Rohrbough, Malcolm J., Days of Gold: The California Gold Rush and theAmerican Nation (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1997). A highly acclaimed treatment of the Gold Rush itself and itsimpact on California and the nation.

❚ Senkewicz, Robert M., Vigilantes in Gold Rush San Francisco (Stanford:Stanford University Press, 1985). An excellent overview of San Francisco’svigilantism for the decade of the 1850s.

❚ Starr, Kevin, Orsi, Richard J., and Smith-Baranzini, Marlene, eds., Rooted inBarbarous Soil: People, Culture, and Community in Gold Rush California(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). Another of the excellentvolumes published to mark the state’s sesquicentennial.

Suggested Readings

❚ Chan, Sucheng, Asian Californians (San Francisco: MTL/Boyd & Fraser,1991). Though not limited to the Gilded Age, this book has a great deal ofinformation about Asian immigrants during that time period.

❚ Garone, Philip, The Rise and Fall of the Wetlands of California’s GreatCentral Valley (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). The firstcomprehensive environmental history of the Central Valley.

198 CHAPTER 6 California in the Gilded Age, 1870–1900

❚ Hundley, Norris, Jr., The Great Thirst: Californians and Water, 1770s–1990s(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992). Rangeswidely over the history of the state, but contains a good treatment ofwater issues during the Gilded Age.

❚ Igler, David, Industrial Cowboys: Miller & Lux and the Transformation ofthe Far West, 1850–1920 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor-nia Press, 2001). An interesting account of a company that played a majorrole in changing the ecology of the San Joaquin Valley.

❚ Issel, William, and Cherny, Robert W., San Francisco, 1865–1932: Politics,Power, and Urban Development (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 1986). Surveys social and economic patterns as well aspolitics.

❚ Levy, Harriet Lane, 920 O’Farrell Street (1937; reprinted, Berkeley: HeydayPress, 1996). Memoirs of growing up in a Jewish, middle-class family in SanFrancisco during the Gilded Age.

❚ Monroy, Douglas, Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of MexicanCulture in Frontier California (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 1990). An excellent treatment of Mexican Californiansduring the late 19th century.

❚ Ngai, Mae, The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention ofChinese America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2010). The fascinat-ing story of Joseph and Mary Tape and their children.

❚ Orsi, Richard, Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Devel-opment of the American West, 1850–1930 (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 2005). The best treatment of the subject.

❚ Shumsky, Neil L., The Evolution of Political Protest and the Workingmen’sParty of California (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1991).Currently the standard treatment of the Workingmen’s Party of California.

❚ Vaught, David, Cultivating California: Growers, Specialty Crops, and Labor,1875–1920 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). An essentialwork for understanding changes in California agriculture that accompaniedthe development of specialty crops.

❚ White, Richard, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making ofModern America (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011). A recent, often amusing,and devastatingly critical appraisal of the transcontinental railroads.

Suggested Readings

❚ Brechin, Gray, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin (Berkeleyand Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999). A highly criticalaccount of the growth of the city and its effect on its environment.

❚ Cherny, Robert, Irwin, Mary Ann, and Wilson, Ann Marie, eds., CaliforniaWomen and Politics: From the Gold Rush to the Great Depression (Lincoln,

Suggested Readings

❚ Balio, Tino, Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise,1930–1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). An examinationof nearly every aspect of the industry.

❚ Bottles, Scott L., Los Angeles and the Automobile: The Making of the Mod-ern City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). A good account ofthe relation between the expansion of Los Angeles and the automobile.

❚ La Chapelle, Peter, Proud to Be an Okie: Cultural Politics, Country Music,and Migration to Southern California (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 2007). Focuses on the country music that was introduced to LosAngeles by the Okie migration.

❚ McWilliams, Carey, Southern California Country: An Island on the Land(New York: Duell, Sloane & Pearce, 1946). One of the classic works onCalifornia; never unbiased, McWilliams wrote with the freshness thatcomes from personal observation.

❚ Sanchez, George J., Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, andIdentity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1945 (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1993). A major contribution to understanding the experience ofMexican Americans in the early 20th century.

❚ Selvin, David F., A Terrible Anger: The 1934 Waterfront and General Strikesin San Francisco (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996). Thoroughand well written, Selvin’s book also conveys the intensity of feeling of thestrikers.

❚ Sitton, Tom, and Deverell, William, eds., Metropolis in the Making: LosAngeles in the 1920s (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 2001). An anthology that treats many of the important elements inthe growth of Los Angeles during the 1920s.

❚ Starr, Kevin, Material Dreams: Southern California Through the 1920s(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). A sweeping account of south-ern California in the 1920s based upon a wide range of material.

❚ , Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California (New York:Oxford University Press, 1996). Continues Starr’s account of the state’sdevelopment, with rich details and balanced interpretations.

❚ Steinbeck, John, The Grapes of Wrath (New York: Viking, 1939). Nothingmatches this novel for its depiction of the Okies and of California farmworkers in the 1930s.

Suggested Readings

❚ Allen, Robert L., The Port Chicago Mutiny: The Story of the Largest MassMutiny Trial in U.S. Naval History (New York: Warner Books, 1989). Thisbook provides a detailed history of the Port Chicago mutiny in the contextof race relations in the military and society at large.

❚ Daniels, Roger, Concentration Camps U.S.A: Japanese Americans and WorldWar II (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1972) and From Relocationto Redress (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986). These two booksprovide a comprehensive overview of Japanese relocation and internment,the redress movement, and the personal experiences of internees.

❚ Irons, Peter, Justice Delayed: The Record of the Japanese American Intern-ment Cases (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989). This bookprovides an overview of the legal challenges to relocation and internment.

❚ Johnson, Marilyn, The Second Gold Rush: Oakland and the East Bay inWorld War II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). This bookis a regional study, focusing on the political, economic, cultural, and demo-graphic impact of the war on the San Francisco East Bay area.

❚ Lemke-Santangelo, Gretchen, Abiding Courage: African American MigrantWomen in the East Bay Community (Chapel Hill: University of NorthCarolina Press, 1996). This book, based on oral histories, examines AfricanAmerican migration from the South to the San Francisco East Bay areaduring World War II.

❚ Lotchin, Roger, ed., The Way We Really Were: The Golden State in theSecond Great War (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000). This collec-tion of essays details the war’s impact on California race relations, politics,industry (including Hollywood), and culture.

❚ Nash, Gerald D., The American West Transformed: The Impact of theSecond World War (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985) andWorld War II and the West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990).These two books provide a good overview of the war’s impact on Californiaand the greater American West.

❚ Rosenthal, Nicolas, Re-Imagining Indian Country: American Indians andCities in Modern America (Chapel Hill: University of North CarolinaPress, 2012). This book is one of the first to detail the experience of urban

308 CHAPTER 9 World War II and the Great Transformation

Indians in 20th-century America, and includes significant coverage ofCalifornia.

❚ Tateishi, John, And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese AmericanDetention Camps (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984). Thisbook, based on oral accounts of the internment experience, details thedaily lives of camp residents.

❚ Verge, Arthur C., Paradise Transformed: Los Angeles During the SecondWorld War (Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 1993). This book, anotherregional study, focuses on the war’s impact on Los Angeles.

❚ White, Edward G., Earl Warren: A Public Life (New York: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 1982). This insightful biography of Earl Warren covers his yearsas California’s governor during and after World War II.

Suggested Readings

❚ Broussard, Albert, Black San Francisco: The Struggle for Racial Equality inthe West, 1900–1954 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993). Thisbook, while covering a broad span of time, provides good coverage of post-war black activism in the San Francisco Bay area.

❚ Dassman, Raymond F., The Destruction of California (Tappan, NJ:Macmillan, 1966). This book, a classic primary source, documents theenvironmental damage that resulted from rapid growth and developmentduring the postwar period.

❚ Davidson, Michael, The San Francisco Renaissance (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1989). This book examines the origins, impact, and legacyof the San Francisco Renaissance, culminating with the rise of the BeatGeneration.

❚ Douglas, John A., The California Idea and American Higher Education,1850 to the 1960 Master Plan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).This book provides a historical overview of higher education in California,including a detailed account of the Master Plan.

❚ Galarza, Ernesto, Farm Workers and Agri-Business in California, 1947–1960(Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978). This bookexposes the human costs associated with agricultural production, includinga thorough critique of the bracero program.

❚ Hundley, Jr., Norris, The Great Thirst: Californians and Water—A History(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). This book provides anoverview of the state’s water resources, water exploitation, and local, state,and federal water policy.

❚ Lipset, Seymour, and Wolin, Sheldon S., eds., The Berkeley Student Revolt(New York: Doubleday-Anchor, 1965). A classic collection of writings onthe Berkeley Free Speech Movement and student activism, more generally.

❚ Nash, Gerald D., The American West Transformed: The Impact of the Sec-ond World War (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990). This bookdetails the lasting impact that World War II had on California’s economy,including a discussion of the state’s emerging electronics and aerospaceindustries.

❚ Navasky, Victor, Naming Names (Hill and Wang, 2003). This book placesHollywood’s Red Scare within a larger historical context, describes itshuman costs, and details its lasting impact on the industry.

❚ Pincetl, Stephanie, Transforming California: A Political History of Land Useand Development (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). This

346 CHAPTER 10 Postwar California: Prosperity and Discontent in the Golden State: 1946–1963

book provides a comprehensive history of land use, development, and envi-ronmental degradation in California.

❚ Schiesl, Martin, ed., Responsible Liberalism: Edmund G. “Pat” Brown andReform Government in California, 1958–1967 (Los Angeles: CaliforniaState University, Los Angeles, Institute of Public Affairs, 2003). This recentcollection of essays provides a good overview of Brown’s political philoso-phy, agenda, and major accomplishments during his two terms as governor.

❚ Schiesl, Martin and Dodge, Mark, eds., City of Promise: Race and HistoricalChange in Los Angeles (Claremont: Regina Books, 2006). This recent collec-tion of essays documents the experience and struggles of the city’s Latino,African American, and Asian Pacific communities before and after WorldWar II.

❚ Williams, James C., Energy and the Making of Modern California (Akron:University of Akron Press, 1997). This book provides a comprehensiveoverview of the state’s energy resources, use patterns, regulatory framework,and policy.

Suggested Readings

❚ Adler, Margot, Heretic’s Heart (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997). This is afirst-person account of student activism on the Berkeley campus duringthe ’60s.

❚ Cannon, Lou, Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power (New York: PublicAffairs, 2003). This book covers Ronald Reagan’s political career from hisearly years as a New Deal Democrat to his two terms as a conservativegovernor.

❚ Espiritu, Yen Le, Asian American Panethnicity: Bridging Institutions andIdentities (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). This book detailsthe origins, activities, and legacy of the Asian American youth movement,with particular emphasis on campus activism in California.

❚ Foner, Philip S., ed., The Black Panthers Speak (Cambridge and New York:Da Capo Press, 2002). This collection includes interviews with and writingsby Black Panther Party members.

❚ Griswold Del Castillo, Richard, and Garcia, Richard A., Cesar Chavez,A Triumph of Spirit (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995). Thisis a concise biography of Cesar Chavez that provides ample informationabout his union activities, fellow organizers, and political opponents.

❚ Johnson, Troy, The Occupation of Alcatraz (Urbana: University of IllinoisPress, 1996). This is a comprehensive account of the Alcatraz occupationthat includes information on organizers, participants, federal governmentreaction, and the occupation’s legacy.

❚ Kerner Commission, Report of the National Advisory Committee on CivilDisorders (New York: Bantam, 1968). This report, produced by a federalcommission and criticized by many civil rights activists as too superficial,explores the causes and consequences of the Watts uprising.

❚ McGirr, Lisa, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). This book documents theemergence and growing influence of the new right in state and nationalpolitics.

❚ Muñoz, Carlos, Youth, Identity, Power: Chicano Movement (New York:Verso Press, 1989). This book describes the origins, activism, and legacy ofthe Chicano youth movement.

Suggested Readings

❚ Davis, Mike, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future of Los Angeles (NewYork: Vintage, 1990). This is a critical study of racial and class divisions,political infighting, economic neglect, and poor urban planning in LosAngeles and its suburbs.

❚ D’Emilio, John, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of aHomosexual Minority in the United States (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1983). This book details the emergence of gay and lesbian communi-ties and organizations, including those in California.

❚ Godfrey, Brian J., Neighborhoods in Transition: The Making of San Francisco’sEthnic and Nonconformist Communities (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1988). This book documents the origins and evolution of San Francisco’sethnic, gay, and countercultural communities.

❚ Gutierrez, David, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immi-grants and the Politics of Ethnicity (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1995). This book provides a historical overview of Mexican immigra-tion, community and identity formation, and U.S. immigration policy.

❚ Hanson, Dirk, The New Alchemists: Silicon Valley and the Microelectronics Rev-olution (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1982). This book details the riseof Silicon Valley and its microelectronics pioneers and entrepreneurs.

❚ Jackson, Bryan, and Preston, Michael, Racial and Ethnic Politics in Califor-nia (Berkeley: Institute of Governmental Studies, 1991). This work providesan overview of political contestations among various ethnic constituenciesin California.

❚ Kotkin, Joel, and Grabowicz, Paul, California, Inc. (New York: Rawson,Wade Publishers, 1982). This book discusses the economic development ofCalifornia, details the economic policies of the Brown and Reagan adminis-trations, and documents the growth of the Pacific Rim economy.

❚ Ong, Paul, Bonacich, Edna, and Cheng, Lucie, eds., New Asian Immigrationin Los Angeles and Global Restructuring (Philadelphia: Temple UniversityPress, 1994). This book examines the political and economic factors behindrecent Asian immigration, the economic status of immigrant workers, andclass and political divisions among various Asian groups.

❚ Palmer, Tim, ed., California’s Threatened Environment: Restoring the Dream(Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1993). This is a series of essays exploringdiverse threats to California’s environment.

❚ Quinones, Juan Gomez, Chicano Politics: Reality and Promise, 1940–1990(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990). This book providesa comprehensive political history of Mexican Americans from 1940 to 1990.

Suggested Readings

❚ Anderson, Alissa, with Macías, Raúl, Policy Points: New Data Show ThatCalifornia’s Income Gaps Continue to Widen (Sacramento: California Bud-get Project, 2009). Online at http://www.cbp.org/pdfs/2009/0906_pp_IncomeGaps.pdf . A sobering examination of recent economic data.

❚ Baldassare, Mark, and Ramakrishnan, S. Karthick, The Ties That Bind:Changing Demographics and Civic Engagement in California (Sacramento:Public Policy Institute of California, 2004). An overview of social and polit-ical change by prominent public policy analysts.

❚ Barron, Stephanie, Bernstein, Sheri, and Fort, Ilene Susan, Made in Califor-nia: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900–2000 (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 2000). An interesting survey of California’s influence on Americancreativity, including art, film, and fashion.

❚ Carle, David, Introduction to Water in California (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 2009). A good overview of state water policy and its envi-ronmental impacts.

❚ Chávez, Lydia, Color Bind: California’s Struggle to End Affirmative Action(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998). A thor-ough and balanced study of Proposition 209.

❚ Davidson, Stephen, Still Broken (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010).This work, while national in focus, provides important context for under-standing California’s current health care crisis.

❚ Hayes-Bautista, David E., et al., No Longer a Minority: Latinos and SocialPolicy in California (Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research CenterPublications, 1992). The economic and social impact of the growth ofLatino populations in California, focusing on public policy issues.

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