Mission Indians

Mission Indians, as an appellation, identifies various California native tribes and bands, mostly coastal or adjacent inland valleys and uplands. The Shoshone formed a large group mostly in Southern California. These Native Americans were brought to live in the 21 Spanish missions in California.

History

They Mission Indians were baptized as Catholics, under the patronage of Franciscan fathers, as early as 1769, when the first of the missions was established in California. Mission Indians were from many tribes who were brought together, forming new groupings but also retaining original linguistic and culural practices.

The term was initially applied to Southern California nations and tribes circa 1906 by Alfred L. Kroeber and Constance G. Du Bois. Today it is used also in Northern California to include the natives of the seven Northern California missions.

Tribes in Southern California who stem from the original Mission Indians include those identified with the missions at San Diego, San Luis Rey, San Juan Capistrano, San Gabriel, Santa Buena Ventura, and Santa Barbara. These include:

• Barona Indian Reservation or Barona Band of Mission Indians
• Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeño Mission Indians
• Morongo Band of Mission Indians
• Sycuan Band of Diegueño Mission Indians
• Rincon Band of Diegueño Mission Indians
• Ramona Band or Village of Cahuilla Mission Indians
• Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation
• San Manuel Band of Mission Indians
• Pauma Yuima Band of Mission Indians
• Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians also known as the Soboba Band of Mission Indians

Most of the Indian bands from Santa Barbara County south, from the coast inland, to the Mexican border, and extending into the Coachella Valley and parts of the Mohave Desert identify with the term Mission. Many have an historic association with the Catholic missions and some also occupy trust lands--reservations-- identified under the Mission Indian Agency. The Mission Indian Act of 1891 affirmed the administrative unit which governs Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Santa Barbara counties. There is one Chumash reservation in the latter county, but more than two-and-half dozen reservations scattered in the other counties.

Los Angeles and Orange counties do not contain any tribal trust lands. Resident tribes, however, the Gabrielino in the former and Juaneño]] tribe in the latter, as well as the Coastal Chumash in Santa Barbara County, still pursue federal recognition by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Eleven of the reservations came under early 20th century allotment programs, which broke up common tribal holdings to assign property to individual tribal members, identified on such lists as the Dawes Rolls. The most important of these include Agua Caliente (Palm Springs), which occupies alternate sections (approx.640 acreseach) with former railroad grant lands that form much of the City of Palm Springs; Morongo, which lies in the San Gorgonio Pass; and Pala, which is also the site of an assistencia of the San Luis Rey mission. These and a total of eighteen reservations operate casinos today. The total acreage of the Mission group of reservations constitutes approximately 250,000 acres.

References

• Du Bois, Constance Goddard. 1904-1906. "Mythology of the Mission Indians", The Journal of the American Folk-Lore Society, Vol. XVII, No. LXVI. p. 185-8 [1904]; Vol. XIX. No. LXXII pp. 52-60 and LXXIII. pp. 145-64. [1906]. ("the mythology of the Luiseño and Diegueño Indians of Southern California")
• Dale, E. E., 1949. The Indians of the Southwest (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press)
• Kroeber, Alfred. 1906. "Two Myths of the Mission Indians of California", Journal of the American Folk-Lore Society, Vol. XIX, No. LXXV pp. 309-21.
• Shipek,Florence C., 1978. "History of Southern California Mission Indians," in California, vol. 8, ed. Robert F. Heizer, Handbook of North American Indians (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution)
• Shipek, Florence, 1988. Pushed into the Rocks: Southern California Indian Land Tenure, 1767–1986 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press).
• Sutton,Imre,1964, "Land Tenure and Changing Occupance on Indian Reservations in Southern California," Ph. D. diss. in Geography, U. C. L. A.
• Sutton, Imre,1967. "Private Property in Land Among Reservation Indians in Southern California," Yearbook, Assn of Pacific Coast Geographers, 29:69-89.
• Valley, David J., 2003. Jackpot Trail: Indian Gaming in Southern California (San Diego: Sunbelt Publications).
• White, Raymond C.,1963. "A Reconstruction of Luiseño Social Organization", University of California, Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, 49, no.2.

External links

• Mythology of the Mission Indians, by Du Bois, 1904-1906.
• Two Myths of the Mission Indians of California, by Kroeber, 1906.