No Somos Animales - Indigenous Survival and Per..

423 Pages·2017·5.03 MB·English

University of California
Santa Cruz
NO SOMOS ANIMALES: INDIGENOUS SURVIVAL AND PERSEVERANCE
IN 19TH CENTURY SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA
A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction
of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in
HISTORY
with emphases in AMERICAN STUDIES and LATIN AMERICAN & LATINO STUDIES
by
Martin Adam Rizzo
September 2016

The Dissertation of Martin Adam Rizzo
is approved:
________________________________
Professor Lisbeth Haas, Chair
_________________________________
Professor Amy Lonetree
_________________________________
Professor Matthew D. O’Hara
________________________________
Tyrus Miller
Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies
Copyright ©by
Martin Adam Rizzo
2016
Table of Contents
List of Figures iv
Abstract vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: “First were taken the children, and then the parents followed” 24
Chapter 2: “The diverse nations within the mission” 98
Chapter 3: “We are not animals” 165
Chapter 4: Captain Coleto and the Rise of the Yokuts 215
Chapter 5: ”Not finding anything else to appropriate...” 261
Chapter 6: “They won’t try to kill you if they think you’re already dead” 310
Conclusion 370
Appendix A: Indigenous Names 388
Bibliography 398

iii
List of Figures
1.1: Indigenous tribal territories 33
1.2: Contemporary satellite view 36
1.3: Total number baptized by tribe 46
1.4: Approximation of Santa Cruz mountain tribal territories 48
1.5: Livestock reported near Mission Santa Cruz 75
1.6: Agricultural yields at Mission Santa Cruz by year 76
1.7: Baptisms by month, through 1796 78
1.8: Indigenous baptisms, population of Christianized Indians 93
1.9: Baptisms by tribal affiliation, through end of 1796 95
2.1: Percentage of local tribes in overall Mission Santa Cruz population 104
2.2: Number of local people still alive in 1810, by tribe 104
2.3: Agricultural crops planted, in fanegas, at Mission Santa Cruz 108
2.4: Livestock in pasturelands surrounding Mission Santa Cruz 110
2.5: Tribal boundaries of larger region 112
2.6: Missionaries assigned to Mission Santa Cruz 114
2.7: Map of territories and tribal regions 117
2.8: Cup-and-ring petroglyph stone from Chitactac-Adams County Park, Gilroy, CA 118
2.9: Fugitive deaths by region 126
2.10: Indigenous alcaldes 153
2.11: Indigenous regidores 156
2.12: Baptisms with Indigenous godparents (padrinos) 158
3.1: Conspirators arrested for the assassination 173
3.2: Mission population numbers 177
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3.3: Percentage of population of local tribes 177
3.4: Mission population at time of Padre Quintana’s assassination 178
3.5: Map of Native local tribes and language areas of the Monterey Bay 182
3.6: Conspirators arrested, their sentences, burial years and locations 209
3.7: Map of Native local tribes and language areas around San Francisco Bay 214
4.1: Population of Santa Cruz County 220
4.2: Mission Santa Cruz demographics between 1813 and 1834 224
4.3: Village or tribal identification of Indigenous baptisms between 1813 and 1834 226
4.4: Alcaldes 227
4.5: List of occupations in 1825 239
4.6: Jobs listed for Indigenous individuals on the 1834 census 241
4.7: Indigenous overseers 242
4.8: Gender of incoming Yokuts 248
4.9: Burials at Mission Santa Cruz between 1813 and 1834 248
4.10: Marriage patterns between 1810 and 1834 249
5.1: Distribution of Indigenous in the region 264
5.2: 1841 Padron, name given to Indigenous communities 264
6.1: Overall population figures, including “Indians” 318
6.2: Macedonio Lorenzana and Jose Joaquin Juarez 333
6.3: Justiniano Roxas drawing 347
6.4: Justiniano Roxas photo 347
6.5: Headstone for Justiniano Roxas 348
6.6: Family of Meregildo and Maria Agueda 353
6.7: Jose “Cache” Lend 359
v
6.8: Rafael “Tahoe” Castro 366
7.1: Native American participants in the 2nd annual Zayante Indian Conference, in 1907 374

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Abstract: “No Somos Animales”: Indigenous Resistence and Perseverance
in Nineteenth Century Santa Cruz
Martin A. Rizzo
This study sets out to answer the questions: who were the Indigenous people in the
Santa Cruz region and how did they survive through the nineteenth century? Between 1770
and 1900, I argue, the linguistically and culturally diverse Ohlone and Yokuts tribes adapted
to and expressed themselves politically and culturally over three distinct types of colonial
encounters involving Spain, Mexico, and the U.S. They persevered through a variety of
strategies developed through social, political, economic, and kinship networks that tied
together Indigenous tribes, families, and individuals throughout the greater Bay Area.
Survival tactics included organized attacks on the mission, the assassination of an abusive
padre, flights of fugitives, poisonings, and arson. In some cases, strategies included
collaboration with certain padres, tracking down of fugitives, service, labor, or musical
performance. Indigenous politics informed each of these choices, as Indigenous individuals
and families made decisions of vital importance within a context of immense loss and
violent disruption.
This project examines Indigenous survival and persistence through different colonial
circumstances. The dissertation begins with a look at local Indigenous landscape and the
tribes that lived in the coastal mountain range and continues to explore the establishment
of Mission Santa Cruz, relocation of local Indigenous tribes, and the Quiroste led attack on
the new establishment (chapter 1). Between 1798 and 1810, the mission population
expanded to include Mutsun speaking tribes and families from the east, forming new social,
economic, political, and kinship relations (chapter 2). In 1812, a recently arrived female
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Spiritual leader collaborated with a local kinship network to orchestrate the assassination of
the sadistic Padre Quintana (chapter 3). Newly arrived Yokuts filled the leadership vacuum
after the arrest of these conspirators, during a time of transition into Mexican political rule
(chapter 4). Surviving Indigenous families expanded onto small plots of adjacent lands in the
years following secularization in 1834 (chapter 5). In the American era after 1850, families
struggled to survive despite genocidal policies and demographic eclipse (chapter 6).
Throughout, Indigenous peoples relied on community and networks, drew on spiritual and
cultural practices, and fought back to persevere through over a century of violent
disruption.

viii
Acknowledgments
I have been blessed by the support of many throughout the writing of my
dissertation. I am grateful for the faculty, fellow graduate students, staff, undergraduates,
friends, and family who have inspired and supported me. I have been extremely fortunate to
work with my advisor Lisbeth Haas. Her guidance, constructive criticisms, and enthusiasm
has greatly shaped my growth and my work. I have enjoyed our collaborations and
conversations and look forward to much more. Amy Lonetree, who I’ve been lucky to have
as a mentor for over a decade, has always encouraged me to face the hard truths of
colonialism. Matthew O’Hara has challenged me to investigate the larger colonial context of
my project. I am especially grateful for my teacher and dear friend Stan Rushworth, his early
encouragement helped me to have the confidence and courage to undertake this journey.
I have also benefitted and been inspired by the work and feedback of many
additional faculty and scholars, including Pedro Castillo, Boyd Cothran, Jon Daehnke,
Melanie Mayer, Randy Milliken, Lee Panich, Sarah Peelo, Eric Porter, Renya Ramirez,
Rebecca Rosser, Tsim Schneider, and Alice Yang. I am also grateful for the feedback and
critiques offered by wonderful colleagues including Natalie Baloy, Elyse Banks, Rick Flores,
Alicia Romero, Jeff Sanceri, Jeremy Thai, Dustin Wright, and especially Noel Smyth.
I am fortunate to have received the financial support generously offered by several
institutions, including UCSC’s History department, UCSC Institute for Humanities Research,
UC Mexus, Pacific Rim Research Program, Center for New Racial Studies, and the Eugene
Cota-Robles Fellowship. And finally, I am most of all grateful for my wife Rebecca, whose
vast reservoir of patience, love, and support has helped me every step of the way.
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Introduction

Introduction
In 1793, a pan-tribal Indigenous group attacked the newly founded Mission Santa
Cruz. Nearly twenty years later, an Indigenous woman named Fausta helped to strategize
and lead an assassination of an abusive padre. Rebellions, assassinations, fugitive flights,
and poisonings; Santa Cruz Indigenous communities resisted and challenged colonial
violence throughout the nineteenth century. Outside of the gaze of the missionary, soldier,
or pioneer, Indigenous people gathered, sang their songs, prayed their prayers, sweat, and
built community with other survivors. A diverse group of Indigenous tribes and families
adapted to and expressed themselves politically and culturally through three distinct types
of colonial encounters involving Spain, Mexico, and the U.S. They formed new alliances and
expanded kinship networks, and relied upon traditional knowledge and practices to help
ensure their survival and make sense of their rapidly changing world. This is a story of
Indigenous resistance and leadership; revealing a dynamic world of Indigenous politics and
negotiations. These diverse tribes, kinship networks, and families devised a variety of tactics
to survive through this time of little choice.1 This is a history of the many tribes, brought
together by colonial disruption; a history of individuals and families who persevered through
a time of incredible upheaval and loss.
At the time of initial Spanish colonial settlement in 1791, around fourteen hundred
Indigenous people from seven independent tribes knew the region known today as Santa

1 Randall Milliken, A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay
Area, 1769–1810 (Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press, 1995). Milliken’s book is the most thorough study of
San Francisco Bay Area Indigenous history, and serves as a starting point for my study. Milliken
correctly characterized the Spanish colonial occupation of the region as “a time of little choice” for
local Indigenous families.
1