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Historical Geography of Northern Lower California* PEVERIL MEIGS, 3d, State Teachers College, Chico, California This paper aims to briefly characterize the principal cultural landscapes of the area involved and to evaluate the changing site of its natural regions. BASIS OF AREAL UNITY The first European occupants of Lower California were Jesuit missionaries who, beginning near the southern end of the peninsula, gradually extended a line of missions northward nearly to the latitude of 30° N. Following the expulsion of the Jesuits by the king, Junípero Serra, the Franciscan, extended the mission line by founding the mission of San Fernando de Velieta at 30° N. (see map) in 1769. He then proceeded to Upper Oalifornia where he established San Diego Mission nearly in 33° N. The unoccupied area between San Fernando and San Diego became lçnown as the Frontera , or Frontier, of Lower California . When the Dominican Order took over the peninsula, the Frontera was the only territory available for new missionary activity ^and all of their new missions were founded there. The Frontera has a natural as well as an historical basis for being regarded as a geographic unit. It is better watered than the deserts , to the south, climatically and fluvially, for it is within reach of the southern end of many winter polar front storms and contains elevated lands in the interior. The west slope of the Frontera belongs principally to the Upper Sonoran Life Zone, in contrast with the Lower* Sonoran to the south and east, NATURAL LANDSCAPES Four distinct natural regions are recognizable within the Frontera (see map). In the interior are two great granitic plateaus, a northern one, the Sierra Juarez, about 5000 feet in elevation, and a southern one, the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir, averaging 7000 feet in elevation. These sierras, with snowy winters and occasional summer thundershowers, contain the only extensive coniferous forests of the Frontera, interspersed with grassy meadows. The land of the sierras drops by degrees through a steppe and desert zone of rough mountains and occasional plains to a coastal zone of marine terraces. The terraces of the immediate coast are low and little dissected, but the highest terraces, several miles inland , have been eroded almost past recognition. The terrace region has a marine desert climate, with light winter rains and dense summer fogs. Along with characteristic desert plants, fog loving plants abound in the Terrace Region . East of the precipitous eastern slope of the sierras and extending· to the Gulf of California and beyond , lies the series of very hot, *D(ita taken in part from tho author's forthcoming book, "The Dominican Mission Frontier of Lower California," based upon five summers' work in the field, and research in tho Bancroft Library. 04) dry, rain-shadowed deserts which may be called collectively the Colorado Lowlands. Though the methods of utilizing these diverse natural landscapes have undergone radical changes under the imprint of successive cultures, the Terrace Region and a portion of the Colorado Lowlands have been the most attractive and'1 except for brief periods have been the regions of most dense population. The chief culture stages of the Frontera may conveniently be listed as the Indian, Mission, and Post-mission. Time demarcations between the several stages were not sharp. Even the earliest stage still affects portions of the Frontera landscapes today. INDIAN LANDSCAPES The Indians of tne Colorado Lowlands were agriculturalists and formed a dense population near the Colorado River. West of the Sierra crest however the Indians were entirely non-agricultural and were dependent upon a gathering economy. Tradition says that when the padres introduced corn the Indians scorned it, calling it human teeth. Beef they called human flesh. The steppe and desert plant and animal life supported a sparse population living in small huts of brush and weeds. The forested sierras had no permanent inhabitants, due to the cold winters, but every fall groups of Indians moved into the pinon groves of the lower slopes of the sierras to lay in stores of pine nuts. In the spring, migrations took place to the coasts of the Gulf and the Pacific for the purpose of getting a supply of dried fish and salt...

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