Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants: The Legacy of Colonial Encounters on the California Frontiers (review)

Recently, Indian lands have become identifiable through the presence or absence of gambling casinos. Professor Lightfoot, a well-known archaeologist, following years of fieldwork has come to question the notable absence of land holdings and federal recognition of Indian groups of coastal California between Santa Rosa and San Juan Capistrano and to research the causes. Through a multi-disciplinary approach, employing an exhaustive bibliography of English-language published sources in ethnohistory, ethnology, archaeology, and oral history, he analyzes the past to explain the present.

An introduction sets forth his intent, and following chapters present Lightfoot's general areas of comparison between Franciscan mission and Russian commercial colonies of coastal California in policies of enculturation, relocation, social mobility, labor, and interethnic unions involving natives, and demographic change, with a survey of established prehistory of the region. More detailed information regarding the six points of comparison within the mission field follows, with a well-balanced, succinct, overview of mission history and archaeology, concluding that neophytes, after several generations, lost traditional identification with geographic areas and, thereby, cultural identity. There follows a chapter providing views of missions from Indian informants and archaeological evidence, demonstrating continuity of various pre-contact social, dietetic, and manufacturing traditions reflecting an underground indigenous culture.

Similarly an overview for the Russian-American Company at Ross-Rumiantsev is presented. Interest in California was restricted to acquiring sea otter pelts and agriculture to supply permanent colonial holdings in Alaska. Thus, enculturation and relocation did not exist, and other factors of Russian-Pomo/Miwok contact were generally insignificant. Russian presence was less than half that of the Franciscans, with Indians retaining most of their traditional culture. Indians at Ross lived freely outside the fort, labored seasonally for the Russians, sometimes involved themselves in liaisons with Aleut otter hunters from Alaska, and few converted to Orthodox Christianity. Given her tenuous position in Spanish territory, Russia sought to allow natives maximum options, creating an impression of friendly occupation.

After presenting this parallel view of both systems, Lightfoot then specifically compares them. In the area of enculturation Russian policy was nil and Spanish incomplete; relocation, nil and congregation and mixture of groups; labor, free and exploitive as opposed to obligatory with sustenance and some training; social mobility, inconsequential versus open to change through marriage, skills, and native governance; interethnic relations, common [not with Russians!] and brief, and in missions neophytes could assimilate into the Euro-American population; and, finally, Russian presence had little documented impact on demography, and congregation at missions, over double the time period, had disastrous impact. Following abandonment of both systems, California Indian populations were dispersed, forced off lands by growth of ranches and pressure of the Gold Rush, while U.S. allocations of land were restricted to southern coastal and interior regions. In the twentieth century, land grants were extended to the extreme north and included Pomo, but groups between Santa Rosa and San Juan Capistrano were forced off their occupied lands. Finally, anthropological study of California natives established at the University of California alienated coastal people considered to be "culturally extinct" and "missionized," without traditional culture or recollection. Because of this, Miwok, Ohlone, Esselen, Salinan, Chumash, and Gabrielino became identified as "Mission Indians." Thus, the U.S. Government must go beyond retained political and cultural autonomy by considering more complex factors to establish equitable policies.

Excellent and appropriate maps, tables, and contemporary illustrations enhance the text. Lengthy explanatory notes, thorough English-language bibliography, and an analytical index complete the volume. This is a very well developed interdisciplinary study and an important addition to the literature of contemporary California ethnohistory.