Remote Places As Post-Contact Refugia

ABSTRACT

The arrival of Europeans, and later Americans, to California in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to complex social and economic turmoil for Native Americans. Throughout this period, Native Americans found myriad ways of resisting colonial influence and maintaining traditional ways. In this article, we explore how two places considered “remote” by colonial powers (San Clemente Island and the Coso Range in the Mojave Desert) served as ideal locations for those seeking to remove themselves from the colonial system. Although local cultural and economic circumstances were different, both locations were less desirable to Euroamerican settlers until relatively late in time. Using the ideal free distribution model as a theoretical framework, this article argues that the remoteness of these areas allowed Native cultures to continue in traditional ways until the 1850s on the Channel Islands and the 1870s in the Coso Range.

RESUMEN

La llegada de los europeos, y más tarde los estadounidenses, a California en los siglos XVIII y XIX resultó en una compleja agitación social y económica para los pueblos nativos. A lo largo de este período, los pueblos nativos encontraron innumerables formas de resistir la influencia colonial y mantener las costumbres tradicionales. En este artículo, exploramos como dos lugares considerados “remotos” por las potencias coloniales (la isla de San Clemente y la cordillera de Coso en el desierto de Mojave) sirvieron como lugares ideales para aquellos que buscaron alejarse del sistema colonial. Aunque las circunstancias culturales y económicas locales eran diferentes, ambos lugares eran menos deseables para los colonos euroamericanos hasta un período relativamente tardío. Utilizando el modelo de distribución gratuita ideal como marco teórico, este artículo argumenta que la lejanía de estas áreas permitió que las culturas nativas continuaran de manera tradicional hasta la década de 1850 en las Channel Islands y la década de 1870 en la cordillera de Coso.

KEYWORDS:

• Refuge sites
• mission period
• ideal free distribution
• Channel Islands
• Coso Mountains
• culture contact
• ideal despotic distribution
• Mojave Desert

Acknowledgments

This manuscript was first developed as part of a symposium on “Lonesome Landscapes” at the 2014 Society for American Archaeology meetings in Austin, Texas. We thank Daron Duke and Matthew Des Lauriers for organizing that symposium and causing us to bring together two disparate case studies from southern California after a discussion of refuge sites over the half-wall that separated our offices. The original manuscript was greatly improved by initial comments from Bill Hildebrandt and formal review comments from Rebecca Allen, L. Mark Raab, and two anonymous reviewers. A final thank you goes to Mark Allen and Jill Gardner, who shepherded the manuscript through the California Archaeology editorial process. Any remaining errors in fact or interpretation are, of course, our own.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.