Ceramic Production in Early Hispanic California: Craft, Economy, and Trade on the Frontier of New Spain

12. Native American Ceramics Found at Old Town San Diego: Trade or Local Manufacture?

12 Native American Ceramics Found at Old Town San Diego Trade or Local Manufacture? D. Larry Felton, Glenn Farris, and Eloise Richards Barter Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, located about 20 miles from the Mexican border, marks an important crossroad in California history. It is adjacent to the site of the earliest permanent Spanish colonial settlement in Alta California, the mission and presidio established on a nearby mesa in 1769. The local Kumeyaay Indian people were quickly displaced by the colonists; some were pulled into the mission, while others resisted and fled. In the 1820s, after the Mexican War of Independence, soldiers retiring from the presidio built homes along the terrace of the San Diego River within the boundaries of the modern park. This little Mexican pueblo was soon drawn into a thriving world economy , one that transported the cornucopia of goods from the British industrial revolution and the China trade to new and ever-expanding consumer markets. Residents of Alta California capitalized on the livestock economy begun by the missionaries, trading huge quantities of cowhides and tallow destined for the factories of Britain and New England for newly available imported consumer goods. San Diego became an important port for this trade and the adopted home of foreign merchants, including a number of prominent Americans. In 1846, expanding U.S. imperial and economic interests precipitated the Mexican-American War, during which Alta California was captured and San Diego was occupied by U.S. troops. Native American Ceramics Found at Old Town San Diego 219 Over 150 years later, excavations in Block 408 in Old Town San Diego exposed archaeological deposits, building foundations, and artifacts associated with several households from the Mexican republic and early American periods. The artifacts recovered included the expected consumer goods from Britain, China, Mexico, and elsewhere. More surprising , however, was the overwhelming indication in these same deposits of a substantial Native American presence. This included large volumes of Native American ceramics and flaked stone and other artifacts that suggest Native American occupants and material culture. This ample archaeological signature contrasted sharply with representation of Native Americans in traditional historical and interpretive presentations, wherein Indians are ephemeral presences, especially after the demise of the missions in the mid-1830s. How might we explain the overwhelming but enigmatic suggestion of Native Americans in the Pueblo of San Diego in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s? To paraphrase Noël Hume’s book title, “if these potsherds could talk,” we would have posed the following questions to them: • What might explain the huge numbers of Indian-made ceramics on a site historians have stated was occupied primarily by retired Spanish soldiers and their families? Was there perhaps a more substantial Native American community living in the pueblo than is suggested by traditional historical sources? • Would Hispanic families have utilized such an abundance of Native American wares rather than familiar Mexican-made pottery or massproduced wares imported from England or China? • Were the ceramics in fact of Native American origin, or did they represent similar traditions brought by the colonists from Mexico or elsewhere? • What were the original vessel forms and how were they made and used? We recovered over 23,000 pieces of unglazed brown ware. All of them were broken and many consisted of only tiny fragments, so identifying the vessel forms represented was itself a significant challenge. • Where and by whom were these vessels made, transported, and marketed ? Were they manufactured in town from waterborne clay deposits readily available from the San Diego River bed or at more distant locations near traditional Native American clay sources and kiln sites? 220 Part IV. Assessing Variation in Ceramic Composition • Did the same people use the same materials to make the roof and paving tiles that are so common to Spanish colonial architecture and so well represented in the same deposits as the pottery? These were among the questions we posed as we embarked on the research reported here. We used traditional archaeological ceramic classification approaches, archival research, and scientific analyses that quantified the minerals and elements present in pottery, tile, and clay samples. The results are gratifying and frustrating, definitive and circumstantial. The sherds have spoken, but they have revealed only incomplete stories in faint and distant voices. Historical Context The pueblo of San Diego, located on the flood plain at the foot of the bluff on which the presidio once stood, was first identified in...