History of Native California

Summary

This video script delves into the rich history of California's indigenous tribes, emphasizing their deep connection to the land and the devastating impact of colonization. It discusses the land bridge theory, early human presence in the Americas, and the indigenous perspective on their origins. The script highlights the Spanish mission system's enslavement, the gold rush's environmental and cultural destruction, and the state-sponsored violence against Native Americans. It also touches on the resilience and efforts of indigenous communities to preserve their culture and knowledge amidst forced assimilation and contemporary challenges.

Takeaways

• 🌎 California has always been a populous area with many indigenous tribes, currently home to 109 to 111 tribes.
• 📍 Every place in California had a name given by the indigenous people, showing that there were tribes everywhere.
• 🔍 New studies suggest that humans have been in the Americas for over 100,000 years, challenging traditional theories about indigenous migration.
• 🌱 Indigenous people of California have always believed they are part of the land and have been there since the beginning.
• 🚜 Indigenous Californians were actively managing and shaping the landscape, contradicting the idea that they were passive inhabitants.
• ⚔️ The colonization of California began with the Spanish mission system, which enslaved native people and brought violence.
• 🏅 The Gold Rush brought extreme environmental destruction and legalized genocide against California Indians, drastically reducing their population.
• 💰 The state of California paid bounties for the killing of indigenous people, with different regions setting their own prices for scalps and heads.
• 🧑‍🏫 Despite forced assimilation, indigenous people are reclaiming their knowledge and cultural practices, and they are actively working to preserve and revitalize their traditions.
• 🤝 Modern partnerships between indigenous tribes and institutions like Humboldt State University are helping to blend traditional practices with scientific methods to benefit both communities.

Q & A

How many tribes are currently recognized in California?

California is home to 109 to 111 recognized tribes.

What does the script suggest about the historical presence of Californian Indians?

The script suggests that Californian Indians were widespread, with every region named by a tribe, indicating a deep and extensive historical presence.

What is the 'land bridge theory' mentioned in the script?

The 'land bridge theory' is a traditional point of knowledge suggesting that native people arrived in the Americas via a land bridge, but new studies challenge this, proposing an earlier human presence over 100,000 years ago.

How does the script describe the relationship between California Indians and the land?

The script describes the relationship as one of deep connection and unity, where California Indians are part of the land and have always been there, not as migrants from elsewhere.

What evidence of California Indian activities is mentioned in the script?

The script mentions evidence of agriculture, large areas tended to, and shaping of the natural landscape as indicators of California Indian activities.

What term do most California Indian scholars use to describe the arrival of Europeans?

Most California Indian scholars refer to the arrival of Europeans as 'invasion'.

What was the purpose of the Spanish mission system in California?

The Spanish mission system aimed to create a labor force to establish an extension of Spain and was effectively an enslavement system for California Indians.

How did the Gold Rush impact California Indians?

The Gold Rush led to drastic changes, environmental destruction, and the establishment of...

Outlines

00:00

🌳 Indigenous California: History and Connection to the Land

The first paragraph delves into the rich history of California's indigenous people, highlighting the state's long-standing population of 109 to 111 tribes. It emphasizes the deep connection these tribes have with the land, where every region was named by them, signifying their omnipresence and integral role in the ecosystem. The paragraph challenges the land bridge theory, proposing that humans may have been present in the Americas as early as 100,000 years ago, suggesting a complex indigenous history that predates conventional narratives. It stresses the indigenous belief of being an inherent part of the land, not separate from it, and their roles in maintaining the balance of nature through practices like controlled burning. The paragraph also touches on the devastating impact of colonization, beginning with the Spanish mission system, which led to the enslavement and sexual violence against indigenous people, marking the start of a series of destructive waves that the Californian Indians faced.

05:01

🏔️ The Gold Rush and Its Aftermath: Environmental and Cultural Devastation

The second paragraph focuses on the period of the Gold Rush and its catastrophic effects on California's indigenous communities. It describes the ruthless pursuit of gold by settlers who disregarded and violently displaced indigenous people, leading to environmental destruction and the establishment of laws that...

Keywords

💡California Indian History

This term refers to the history and heritage of the indigenous peoples of California. The video emphasizes that California has been home to numerous tribes for thousands of years, and it challenges the misconception that the region was an empty wilderness before colonization. The script highlights the deep connection between California's indigenous peoples and the land, which they have inhabited and named for generations.

💡Mission System

The Mission System refers to the network of 21 missions established by Spanish colonizers in California during the 18th and 19th centuries. The video describes this system as a form of enslavement for California Indian people, where indigenous populations were forcibly brought into missions to work and convert to Christianity. It was a period marked by severe violence and exploitation, significantly impacting native communities.

💡Land Bridge Theory

The Land Bridge Theory is a widely accepted hypothesis suggesting that the first inhabitants of the Americas migrated from Asia across a land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska. The video critiques this theory by presenting new research indicating that humans may have been in the Americas much earlier than previously thought, thus complicating the narrative of indigenous origins.

💡Gold Rush

The Gold Rush refers to the mid-19th century period when gold was discovered in California, leading to a massive influx of settlers seeking wealth. The video describes how this event brought environmental destruction and violent conflict with indigenous peoples, as settlers sought to take over land and resources, often leading to massacres and the displacement of native communities.

💡Genocide

Genocide in this context refers to the systematic extermination of California Indian populations during and after the Gold Rush. The video explains how early California settlers, supported by state laws, conducted campaigns to kill indigenous people, often offering bounties for their scalps and heads. This resulted in the loss of up to 80% of the native population in some regions.

💡Boarding Schools

Boarding Schools were institutions where indigenous children were forcibly taken from their families to be assimilated into Euro-American culture. The video highlights how these schools aimed to erase native identities by prohibiting traditional practices and languages, forcing children to adopt Christianity and Western norms. This practice led to significant cultural loss and trauma within indigenous communities.

💡Traditional Land Management

Traditional Land Management refers to the indigenous practices of maintaining and cultivating the land, which have been passed down through generations. The video mentions practices like controlled burns and sustainable agriculture, which were integral to the stewardship of California's landscapes. These methods are now being recognized for their environmental benefits and are being integrated with modern scientific approaches.

💡Historical Trauma

Historical Trauma refers to the cumulative emotional and psychological wounding over generations, resulting from massive group trauma experiences, such as colonization, genocide, and cultural suppression. The video discusses how California Indian communities have endured such trauma but continue to survive and resist, emphasizing the ongoing impact of these historical events on contemporary indigenous life.

💡Forced Assimilation

Forced Assimilation is the process by which indigenous peoples were compelled to abandon their cultural practices and adopt the dominant Euro-American culture. The video illustrates this through examples like boarding schools and the imposition of Christianity, which stripped native communities of their languages, traditions, and social structures, leading to a loss of cultural heritage.

💡Resilience

Resilience in the video refers to the enduring strength of California Indian communities despite centuries of oppression, violence, and cultural destruction. The narrative underscores the ongoing efforts of indigenous peoples to preserve their culture, restore their land, and assert their rights, showing that despite historical trauma, they continue to thrive and contribute to society.

Highlights

California has always been a populous place with 109 to 111 tribes currently and countless tribes in the past.

Every place in California had a name given by the indigenous tribes, indicating their widespread presence.

New studies suggest humans were present in the Americas over 100,000 years ago, challenging the land bridge theory.

Indigenous peoples' identity is tied to the land, with a belief in their eternal presence rather than migration.

Californian Indians had significant roles in shaping the natural landscape through agriculture and land management.

Colonization and invasion brought

Transcripts

(guitar strumming)

- For California Indian history, specifically,

I think it's important for people to know that

California has always been a populous place.

It's home, right now, to 109 to 111 tribes.

But back then, you're talking about tribes everywhere.

(light music)

There is no empty space of wilderness that exists

in this place that we currently call California.

The way you know that there were

Californian Indians everywhere

is that every place had a name.

There was not a mountain or a field or a region

that there wasn't a tribe who had already named it.

For the sciences, I think that the land bridge theory

has always been sort of a first point of knowledge

about native people.

But there have been new studies that have shown

that there was humans in this side of the Americas

over 100,000 years ago,

which would mean that that is around the same amount of time

in which they say people were sort of first leaving Africa.

And so we are asking people to complicate

how they understand who are as indigenous peoples here.

What we say is we're from this place

- That's a real and true belief that we have.

We are a part of the land and the land is us

and we didn't migrate from some other place.

We've always been there.

- We've always been a part of our land

and not above it, not below it, but equal to.

And we have our role.

Our roles come from that engagement

and come from seeing what needs to be done

to make things the best way that they can be.

- So all this is very important for people to understand

because I think sometimes they think

California Indian people are here, but

they're not really doing much with the space.

There's so much evidence of, like, agriculture.

There's evidence of large areas in which they're tending to.

There's evidence of ways in which they're shaping

what we now think of as the natural landscape.

And then colonization happens.

(somber music)

Most California Indian scholars, they call it invasion.

So we're being invaded.

- When Cabrillo was first on one of his ships in 1500s,

burning of the land is what actually gave away

people on that land.

That was, like, the first thing that, you know,

colonizers saw, was our traditional burnings of the lands.

- You're talking about three waves of destruction.

From the start of these waves,

there's not really a time period

in which Californian Indians can recover

from what's happening to them.

So the first wave of destruction

is the Spanish mission system.

They built the first mission in San Diego.

There's 21 missions that they built in total.

This is Father Junípero Serra.

And they're bringing people into the missions

in the hopes that they can create this labor force

to be able to establish this extension of Spain.

The mission system is effectively

an enslavement system of California Indian people.

The missionaries bring along with them Spanish soldiers.

The soldiers are written about in these records

as being perpetrators of sexual violence,

not only against women, but also children.

Junípero Serra actually talks about that in his journals.

He's like, they're sexually assaulting women and children

in front of people.

And when people try to stop them, they get shot.

I mean, it's a very violent type of situation.

The mission system sort of stops around San Francisco

and so up here in Northern California,

what they say about us is we were contacted relatively late

in the sort of colonization cycle.

We'd had contact with some explorers

who had come through,

people that were looking mostly for gold.

And at a point, they find gold.

And this is where you get the sort of, like,

massive influx of the gold rush.

(somber music)

- And it just came, like, overnight

and it came in hard.

And life just changed drastically just immediately

in a lot of ways for California people.

(somber music)

- They're not here so that they can set up a colony

or so that they can establish a labor force.

They want gold.

They will kill whoever's in the way.

They will take apart whatever needs to be taken apart.

They'll do whatever it takes.

The thing about the gold rush that people don't think about

is that it was actually

an environmental destruction as well.

And then on top of that, they are setting up

a political system and a state system of laws and governance

that will legalize the genocide that they want to commit

against California Indian people.

- Our first lieutenant governor, Peter Burnett,

saw this huge population of Indians in the state.

And so he's the one that, you know,

charged the war of extermination on the California Indians.

And we lost, you know, probably around

80% of our total population in just a short period of years.

- The early settlers wanted the resources,

they wanted what would make them rich faster.

But instead of asking the tribe to help them or assist them,

they say, well, since the tribe probably

won't just give it to us, we're just gonna wipe them out.

We're gonna massacre them.

We're gonna take everything for ourselves.

(somber music)

- Each region of California is allowed to set

their own sort of, 'What are we gonna pay

for a scalp or a head?'

But when you look at advertisements,

what you see is that they're advertising them

at things like $5 a head and 25 cents per scalp.

The first year that they do this,

they pay one million dollars.

The state of California says that it has paid

one million dollars for killing Indian people.

The second year they do it, it's one million dollars.

In this region, every single tribe in this region

would have some kind of stories

about the violence that came out of the gold rush.

My great-grandfather, you know,

his family is from Karuk country.

His great-uncle, his mom had lived through the gold rush.

And he was born sort of, like, at the tail-end

of this period of time

and he would always say to my mother,

you know, remember, granddaughter,

you're here because some miner was a bad shot.

Like, that's how close it is to who we are.

(light music)

- When modern contact,

we had to forgot about all our relationships.

We had to forget about all of the sciences

and we had to forget about all of the philosophies.

We had to forgot about everything

that was ingrained in us for thousands of years.

To a shattered existence.

(somber music)

- They would take your kids from your family

and take them to boarding schools.

And then assimilate you,

you were not to practice your cultures.

You're not to practice your traditions.

You're supposed to practice, you know,

I hate to say it this way, the white man's religion.

We're gonna Christianize you.

You're gonna follow our god.

- I know that I'm a product of forced assimilation.

I know I was stripped of some of the smartest information

a human being can have

and I know I don't have that now.

But I know it's attainable over time.

And we're on the right path.

- There's all these great moments of native people

making sure that they were trying to hold on to things.

Like, fighting back and making plans for the future.

It's palpable in Humboldt County.

(chainsaw whirring)

(light music)

- The Native American community

and especially Wiyots and the surrounding tribes

were put through a lot.

It wasn't just the Wiyots, it was Yurok, Hupa, and Karuk.

We were all put through a lot during the early years.

Here we are, we're growing.

We're becoming a stronger nations.

We're working together with each other

to create a positive thing.

And not only us working with each other's sister tribes,

we're working with the cities,

the governments that surround us, the schools, HSU,

to make this more positive.

- Humboldt State University is within

the aboriginal territory of the Wiyot people.

And then we have several other large tribes around here,

the three largest in California,

the Karuk, the Yurok, and the Hupa.

So being that we are in the backyard

of three of the largest tribes,

we can draw off and partner with some of our local tribes

to bring that extra educational component

to our STEM and natural resource students.

Here at the Indian Natural Resources,

Science and Engineering program,

and Diversity in STEM, we go by INERSP+.

Our services generally provide navigational suggestions

to students, assisting them navigate the college

in Natural Resources and Sciences.

We often are enriching that experience

with extra curricular activities

coming from an indigenous perspective.

So bringing up our ancestors practices, and techniques

of managing landscapes, melding them or braiding them in

with the scientific method and innovative technologies.

- In Native Studies, we're doing a sort of broad spectrum

of what it's like to learn from indigenous peoples

and cultures and knowledges

so that we can build a better world,

build a better way of knowing.

It's about how we learn with and from native people

instead of disciplines historically that have focused on

the study of Native American people.

- My paternal grandmother was one of the founders

of the Indian Tribal Education Personnel program, the ITEPP,

back in the late '60s and early '70s.

Her and a bunch of other mothers and grandmothers,

they were the ones that kind of started

a lot of other community programs, our healthcare programs,

our education programs.

I always think it's a pretty amazing story

'cause a lot of those women, her included,

had attended boarding schools,

and for those women to come back from that

and still understand that we needed health

and we needed education and we needed a strong community.

- When you talk about

the Indian Tribal Educational Personnel Program

and United Indian Health Services,

having these women with moxie,

they come from a generation of women who have been having to

just hold that strength for such a long time.

And part of the work as tribal people

is how do we go back and tap into that

'cause that's always there.

We come from a long line of those folks

who are moving forward and have had to keep their dignity,

keep their pride.

And although it hurts, we're still doing that work.

That's what I try to tap in for the young people,

tribal people, in particular,

but also for non-Indian students to hear that too.

It's not all historical trauma and then we're gone.

No, it's historical trauma and we're still here

and we're not going anywhere.

We're still learning, we're still enduring.

(light music)