The indigenous people of California consisted of different tribes of Native Americans accounting for about 1/3 of the total Native Americans in the United States. On the eve of European colonization, the indigenous people of California were hunter-gatherers and practiced different forms of fire-stick farming and forest gardening in the land’s diverse ecology (forests, wetlands, grassland and mixed woodlands) to ensure medicine and food plants continued to thrive (Starr, 2007, p. 5-12). These people were clearly blessed with spectacular natural beauty and astonishing human diversity leading to a wide range of similarities and difference. The Native people in the United States with reference to the population found in California shared a striking similarity in physical appearances, use of turquoise jewelry, abundant use of coral and silver, the patterns and colors of clothing and maintenance of long hair worn by both the male and female gender. The material aspect of equipments used to create hunting tools and homes also showed great similarity. The most outstanding difference was the vernacular language of each group whereby although speaking technologies were similar, there existed differences in clichés. The population densities of each group also varied depending on available plants, animals and water implying that settlement patterns of each tribe adjusted to its environment. The Europeans never foresaw the complexity of the people they were about to encounter.
The arrival of the Spanish in the early 16th century was characterized by rapid conquest although it almost took two centuries for Spain to completely exert control over Upper California via the chain of missions that exist up to the present day. The gold rush in 1848 had a disastrous impact on the indigenous population citing the loss of the naturally productive lands to incoming miners, farmers and ranchers, native people were enslaved and massacres such as the bloody island massacre led to the killing of hundred of indigenous people (Starr, 2007, p. 243-251). The native inhabitants experienced great tragedy and hardship making the come together in the bid to fight the Spanish so as to regain their land and their way of life. In the following decades, the indigenous people were placed in Rancherias and reservations which were in most cases small, isolated and lacked adequate natural resources to sustain persons living on them but somehow the populations adapted. It was evident that the Spanish contact did not replace the already existing way of life of the indigenous people of California but rather marked the beginning of an innovative society founded on a blend of diverse folkways.
References
Starr, K. (2007). California: A history. New York: Modern Library.
