The Esselen are a
Native American people belonging to a linguistic group in the hypothetical
Hokan language
The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families that were spoken mainly in California, Arizona and Baja California.
Etymology
The name ''Hokan'' is loosely based on the word for "two" in the various Hokan ...
family, who are
indigenous
Indigenous may refer to:
*Indigenous peoples
*Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention
*Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band
*Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
to the
Santa Lucia Mountains
The Santa Lucia Mountains (sæntə luˈsiːə) or Santa Lucia Range is a rugged mountain range in coastal central California, running from Carmel southeast for to the Cuyama River in San Luis Obispo County. The range is never more than from t ...
of a region south of the
Big Sur River
The Big Sur River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 15, 2011 river on the Central Coast of California. The river drains a portion of the Big Sur area, a thinly ...
in
Big Sur
Big Sur () is a rugged and mountainous section of the Central Coast of California between Carmel and San Simeon, where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. It is frequently praised for its dramatic scenery. Big Sur ha ...
,
Monterey County
Monterey County ( ), officially the County of Monterey, is a county located on the Pacific coast in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, its population was 439,035. The county's largest city and county seat is Salinas.
Montere ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. Prior to Spanish colonization, they lived seasonally on the coast and inland, surviving off the plentiful seafood during the summer and acorns and wildlife during the rest of the year.
During the
mission period of California history, Esselen children were baptized by the priests when they left their villages and relocated as family units to live in the missions where they learned reading writing and various trades. The Esselen were required to labor at the three nearby missions,
Mission San Carlos,
Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad
Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad ( es, Misión Nuestra Señora de la Soledad), commonly known as Mission Soledad, is a Spanish mission located in Soledad, California. The mission was founded by the Franciscan order on October 9, 1791 to con ...
, and
Mission San Antonio de Padua
Mission San Antonio de Padua is a Spanish mission established by the Franciscan order in present-day Monterey County, California, near the present-day town of Jolon. Founded on July 14, 1771, it was the third mission founded in Alta Californi ...
. Like many Native American populations, their members were decimated by starvation, forced labor, over work, torture, and diseases that they had no natural resistance to.
Historically, they were one of the smallest Native American populations in California. Various experts estimate there were from 500-1,285 individuals living in the steep, rocky region at the time of the arrival of the Spanish. Due to their proximity to three Spanish missions, they were likely one of the first whose culture was virtually eliminated as a result of European contact and domination. The people were believed to have been exterminated but some tribal members avoided the mission life and emerged from the forest to work in nearby ranches in the early and late 1800s. Descendants of the Esselen are currently scattered, but many still live in the Monterey Peninsula area and nearby regions.
Origins
![Esselen language distribution before 1602](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Esselen_language_distribution_before_1602.jpg)
Archaeological and linguistic evidence indicates that the original people's territory once extended much farther north, into the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
, until they were displaced by the entrance of
Ohlone people
The Ohlone, formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the ...
. Based on linguistic evidence, Richard Levy places the displacement at around
AD 500. Breschini and Haversat place the entry of Ohlone speakers into the Monterey area prior to 200 B.C. based on multiple lines of evidence.
Carbon dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.
The method was dev ...
of excavated sites places the Esselen in the Big Sur since
circa
Circa is a word of Latin origin meaning 'approximately'.
Circa or CIRCA may also refer to:
* CIRCA (art platform), art platform based in London
* Circa (band), a progressive rock supergroup
* Circa (company), an American skateboard footwear com ...
2630
BCE
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
.
Recently, however, researchers have obtained a radiocarbon date from coastal Esselen territory in the Big Sur River drainage dated prior to 6,500 years ago (archeological site CA-MNT-88).
[
]
Etymology
The name Esselen is uncertain. One theory is that it refers to the name of a major native village, possibly ''Exse'ein'', or the place called ''Eslenes'' (said to be near the current site of the Mission San Carlos). The village name may be derived from a tribal location known as Ex'selen, "the rock," which is in turn derived from the phrase ''Xue elo xonia eune'', "I come from the rock." "The Rock" may refer to the tall promontory, visible for miles both up and down the coast, on which the Point Sur Lighthouse
Point Sur Lighthouse is a lightstation at Point Sur south of Monterey, California at the peak of the rock at the head of the point. It was established in 1889 and is part of Point Sur State Historic Park. The light house is tall and above ...
is situated.
The Spanish extended the term to mean the entire linguistic group. Variant spellings exist in old records, including ''Aschatliens, Ecclemach, Eslen, Eslenes, Excelen,'' and ''Escelen''. "Aschatliens" may refer to a group around Mission San Carlos, in and around the village of Achasta.
Achasta was a Rumsen Ohlone village, and totally unrelated to the Esselen. Achasta was possibly founded only after the establishment of Mission San Carlos. It was the closest village to Mission San Carlos, and was 10+ miles from Esselen territory. "Eslenes" was nowhere near Mission San Carlos. On January 3, 1603, explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno
Sebastián Vizcaíno (1548–1624) was a Spanish soldier, entrepreneur, explorer, and diplomat whose varied roles took him to New Spain, the Baja California peninsula, the California coast and Asia.
Early career
Vizcaíno was born in 154 ...
found a deserted Indian village about a mile from what later became the site of the Carmel Mission.
Language
The Esselen language
Esselen was the language of the Esselen (or self-designated ''Huelel'') Nation, which aboriginally occupied the mountainous Central Coast of California, immediately south of Monterey (Shaul 1995). It was probably a language isolate, though has be ...
is a language isolate
Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...
. It is hypothetically part of the Hokan family. The language was spoken in the northern Santa Lucia Range
The Santa Lucia Mountains (sæntə luˈsiːə) or Santa Lucia Range is a rugged mountain range in coastal central California, running from Carmel southeast for to the Cuyama River in San Luis Obispo County. The range is never more than from t ...
. Prior to contact with European culture, there were between 500 and 1000 speakers. French explorer Jean La Pérouse, who visited Monterey in 1786, recorded 22 words in 1786. He wrote in his journal during the expedition:
In 1792, Spanish ship captain Dionisio Alcalá Galiano
Dionisio Alcalá Galiano (8 October 1760 – 21 October 1805) was a Spanish naval officer, cartographer, and explorer. He mapped various coastlines in Europe and the Americas with unprecedented accuracy using new technology such as chronomete ...
recorded 107 words and phrases. In 1832, Father Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta (1780–1842) was a Spanish Franciscan missionary and linguist notable for his work on native languages.
Arroyo de la Cuesta was born in Cubo de Bureba, Burgos, Spain in 1780. He arrived in the Spanish territory of A ...
recorded another 58 words and 14 phrases at Mission Soledad. The speakers were from the Arroyo Seco area to the east. The neighboring Rumsen people
The Rumsen (also known as Rumsien, San Carlos Costanoan, and Carmeleno) are one of eight groups of the Ohlone, an indigenous people of California. Their historical territory included coastal and inland areas within what is now Monterey County, Cal ...
were fluent in Esselen and they provided de la Cuesta with some language. A total of about 300 words along with some short phrases have been identified. Examples include ''mamamanej'' (fire); ''koxlkoxl'' (fish); and ''ni-tsch-ekė'' (my husband). Isabel Meadows, who also spoke Rumsen, was the last fluent Esselen speaker. She died in 1939.
Geography
The Central California coast in this region is marked by high, steep cliffs and rocky shores, interrupted by small coastal creeks with occasional, small beaches. The mountains are very rugged with narrow canyons. The terrain makes the area relatively inaccessible, long-term habitation a challenge, and limited the size of the native population.[ The tribe were neighbors to the ]Salinan
The Salinan are a Native American tribe whose ancestral territory is in the southern Salinas Valley and the Santa Lucia Range in the Central Coast of California. Today, the Salinan governments are now working toward federal tribal recognition f ...
people who inhabited present-day southern Monterey County, southern San Benito County, and northern San Luis Obispo county.
Locations
It is believed there were three Esselen geo-political districts: Imunahan, comprising the central Arroyo Seco watershed; Excelen, including the upper Carmel River; and Ekheahan, including the upper watersheds of the Arroyo Seco and Big Sur River
The Big Sur River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 15, 2011 river on the Central Coast of California. The river drains a portion of the Big Sur area, a thinly ...
s along with a section of the Big Sur coast between Posts and Big Creek further south.[ The Esselen resided along the upper ]Carmel
Carmel may refer to:
* Carmel (biblical settlement), an ancient Israelite town in Judea
* Mount Carmel, a coastal mountain range in Israel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea
* Carmelites, a Roman Catholic mendicant religious order
Carmel may also ...
and Arroyo Seco River, and along the Big Sur coast from near present-day Hurricane Point to the vicinity of Vicente Creek in the south. The Esselen's territory extended inland through the Santa Lucia Mountains
The Santa Lucia Mountains (sæntə luˈsiːə) or Santa Lucia Range is a rugged mountain range in coastal central California, running from Carmel southeast for to the Cuyama River in San Luis Obispo County. The range is never more than from t ...
as far as the Salinas Valley. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, they were hunter-gatherer
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
s who resided in small groups with no centralized political authority. Modern researchers believe there were five distinct Esselen districts: Excelen, Eslenahan, Imunahan, Ekheahan, and Aspasniahan. Each are believed to have had a relatively stable resident population.
Jean La Pérouse reported that, "The country of the Ecclemachs sselenextends above 20 leagues to the outh-astward of Monterey."
Within each district the people occupied several villages depending on the season and availability of food, water, and shelter. Carbon dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.
The method was dev ...
tests of artifacts found near Slates Hot Springs
Slates Hot Springs (also known as Big Sur Hot Springs, Slate's Hot Springs, Slate's Springs, and Slate's Hot Sulphur Springs) is the site of a hot spring in the Big Sur region of Monterey County, California. It is located north-northwest of Lope ...
, presently owned by the Esalen Institute
The Esalen Institute, commonly called Esalen, is a non-profit American retreat center and intentional community in Big Sur, California, which focuses on humanistic alternative education. The institute played a key role in the Human Potential ...
, indicate human presence as early as 3500 BC. With easy access to the ocean, fresh water and hot springs, the Esselen people used the site regularly, and certain areas were reserved as burial grounds.[
A large boulder with a dozen or more deep mortar bowls worn into it, known as a ]bedrock mortar
A bedrock mortar (BRM) is an anthropogenic circular depression in a rock outcrop or naturally occurring slab, used by people in the past for grinding of grain, acorns or other food products. There are often a cluster of a considerable number of ...
, is located in Apple Tree Camp on the southwest slope of Devil's Peak, north of the Camp Pico Blanco
Camp Pico Blanco is an inactive camp of (originally ) in the interior region of Big Sur in Central California. It is operated by the Silicon Valley Monterey Bay Council, of the Boy Scouts of America, a new council formed as a result of a merger ...
. The holes were hollowed out over many generations by Indians who used it to grind the acorns into flour. Other mortar rocks have also been found within the Boy Scout camp at campsites 3 and 7, and slightly upstream from campsite 12, while a fourth is found on a large rock in the river, originally above the river, between campsites 3 and 4.
Culture
Archeological evidence of settlements have been found throughout Esselen territory. Artifacts found at a site in the Tassajara area (archaeological site CA-MNT-44) included bone awls, antler flakers, projectile points including desert side-notched points, and scrapers. Excavation at a second site at the mouth of the Carmel River (archaeological site CA-MNT-63) found more projectile points, a variety of cores and modified flakes, bone awls, a bone tube, a bone gaming piece, and mortars and pestles.[ Many sites show aesthetic illustrations of numerous pictographs in black, white, and red.][
]
Dress and living standards
Prior to European contact, the people wore little clothing. The men were naked year-round and the women and girls may have worn a small apron. In cold weather they may have covered themselves with mud or rabbit or deerskin capes.[ No evidence of sandals or foot wear have been found.
Explorer and later Governor of Alta California ]Pedro Fages
Pedro Fages (1734–1794) was a Spanish soldier, explorer, first Lieutenant Governor of the Californias under Gaspar de Portolá. Fages claimed the governorship after Portolá's death, acting as governor in opposition to the official governor ...
described their dress in an account written before 1775:
Food sources
Due to the relative abundance of food resources, the Esselen people never developed agriculture and remained hunter-gatherers. They followed local food sources seasonally, living near the coast in winter, where they harvested rich stocks of mussels
Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve mollusc
Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,0 ...
, limpet
Limpets are a group of aquatic snails that exhibit a conical shell shape (patelliform) and a strong, muscular foot. Limpets are members of the class Gastropoda, but are polyphyletic, meaning the various groups called "limpets" descended indep ...
s, abalone
Abalone ( or ; via Spanish , from Rumsen ''aulón'') is a common name for any of a group of small to very large marine gastropod molluscs in the family (biology), family Haliotidae. Other common name
In biology, a common name of a taxon o ...
and other sea life.
Evidence of baskets have been found and were probably the principal item used to furnish households. Basket design included large conical baskets for carrying burdens, hemispherical-shaped cooking bowls, flat trays, and small boat-shaped baskets which may have been seed-beaters.[
In the summer and fall they moved inland to harvest one of their staple foods, acorns, which were very abundant throughout Big Sur. They gathered acorns from the ]Black Oak
Black Oak may refer to:
Places in the United States
* Black Oak, Arkansas
* Black Oak, Daviess County, Indiana
* Black Oak, Lake County, Indiana, a neighborhood of Gary, Indiana
* Black Oak, Missouri
Other
* Black Oak Arkansas
Black Oak Ar ...
, Canyon Live Oak
''Quercus chrysolepis'', commonly termed canyon live oak, canyon oak, golden cup oak or maul oak, is a North American species of evergreen oak that is found in Mexico and in the western United States, notably in the California Coast Ranges. This ...
and Tanbark Oak
''Notholithocarpus densiflorus'', commonly known as the tanoak or tanbark-oak, is a broadleaf tree in the family Fagaceae, and the type species of the genus ''Notholithocarpus''. It is native to the far western United States, particularly Orego ...
, primarily on upper slopes above the narrow canyons. They first soaked the acorns in running water to leach the bitter tannin from them. They then ground the acorns using a mortar. Over many years they hollowed out bedrock mortar
A bedrock mortar (BRM) is an anthropogenic circular depression in a rock outcrop or naturally occurring slab, used by people in the past for grinding of grain, acorns or other food products. There are often a cluster of a considerable number of ...
s in granite rock outcroppings that they used to grind plant seeds and acorns into flour. A large bedrock mortar is located in Apple Tree Camp on the southwest slope of Devil's Peak, north of the Camp Pico Blanco
Camp Pico Blanco is an inactive camp of (originally ) in the interior region of Big Sur in Central California. It is operated by the Silicon Valley Monterey Bay Council, of the Boy Scouts of America, a new council formed as a result of a merger ...
. More than across, the boulder contains a dozen or more deep mortar bowls worn into it over several generations. Other mortar rocks have also been found within the Pico Blanco Boy Scout camp at campsites 3 and 7, and slightly upstream from campsite 12, while a fourth is found on a large rock in the river, originally above the river, between campsites 3 and 4. Several Esselen mortars are located in boulders near Clover Basin Camp in Miller Canyon.[ Once ground, they cooked the acorns into a mush or baked as bread.
Spanish explorer ]Sebastián Vizcaíno
Sebastián Vizcaíno (1548–1624) was a Spanish soldier, entrepreneur, explorer, and diplomat whose varied roles took him to New Spain, the Baja California peninsula, the California coast and Asia.
Early career
Vizcaíno was born in 154 ...
reported,
They hunted rabbits and deer likely with bow and arrow, although no stone arrow points have been found. Arrows were made of cane and pointed with hardwood foreshafts. They traded acorns, fish, salt, baskets, hides and pelts, shells and beads with other tribes.
Dwellings
There are virtually no contemporary records of the Esselen people's lives. Researchers believe that they lived in a manner very much like the Ohlone people
The Ohlone, formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the ...
to the north and the Costonoan people near present-day Monterey. Miguel Constanso, who traveled with Portola's expeditions 175 years later, wrote about the homes of the Indians who lived on the Santa Barbara Channel. He described how they lived in dome-shaped dwellings covered with bundled mats of tule
''Schoenoplectus acutus'' ( syn. ''Scirpus acutus, Schoenoplectus lacustris, Scirpus lacustris'' subsp. ''acutus''), called tule , common tule, hardstem tule, tule rush, hardstem bulrush, or viscid bulrush, is a giant species of sedge in the pl ...
s. The homes were up to across and three or four families lived in a single dwelling. They built a fire pit in the middle and left a vent or chimney in the center of the roof.[
In mountainous regions where ]redwood
Sequoioideae, popularly known as redwoods, is a subfamily of coniferous trees within the family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affini ...
trees grew, they may have built conical houses from redwood bark attached to a frame of wood. One of the main village buildings, the sweat lodge
A sweat lodge is a low profile hut, typically dome-shaped or oblong, and made with natural materials. The structure is the ''lodge'', and the ceremony performed within the structure may be called by some cultures a purification ceremony or simply ...
, was built low into the ground, its walls made of earth and roof of earth and brush. They built boats
A boat is a watercraft of a large range of types and sizes, but generally smaller than a ship, which is distinguished by its larger size, shape, cargo or passenger capacity, or its ability to carry boats.
Small boats are typically found on inl ...
of tule to navigate on the bays propelled by double-bladed paddles.
Spiritual beliefs
The Esselen left hand prints on rock faces in a few locations. About 250 have been found in a single rock shelter located a few miles from Tassajara (designated by archeologists as CA-MNT-44). Smaller numbers of handprints have been found in a few caves or rock shelters in the same area and in the next valley to the west.
Climate
Rainfall varies from throughout the range, with the most falling on the higher mountains in the north; almost all precipitation falls in the winter. During the summer, fog and low clouds are frequent along the coast up to an elevation of several thousand feet. Surface runoff from rainfall events is rapid, and many streams dry up entirely in the summer, except for some perennial streams in the wetter areas in the north.
European contact
Viscaino, likely the first European to land on the Central Coast of California, wrote about his visit to Monterey Bay from December 16, 1602 to January 3, 1603.
Father Junipero Serra first established the original mission in Monterey on June 3, 1770, near the native village of Tamo. It was also adjacent to the Presidio and headquarters of Pedro Fages, who served as military governor of Alta California between 1770 and 1774.
Fages worked his men very harshly and complaints mounted until Serra intervened. He told Fages that, as a Christian, he had to observe the sabbath
In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, commanded by God to be kept as a holy day of rest, as G ...
and let his men rest on Sundays. But the soldiers raped the Indian woman and took them as concubines
Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want, or cannot enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive.
Concubin ...
. At Serra's urging, Fages punished some of the more excessive incidents of sexual abuse, but it did not stop.[
Fages regarded the natives with disrespect. In 1787, he described the area's Indians as the laziest, most brutish and least rational of all the natives discovered between San Diego and San Francisco. He reckoned those qualities — along with the foggy and windy climate, shortage of potable water, high death rate, and language barriers — accounted for the painfully slow progress of mission Carmel. Fages regarded the Spanish installations in California as military institutions first and religious outposts second. Fages and Serra were engaged in a heated power struggle and Serra decided to move the mission.
]
Spanish missions
In May 1771, the viceroy approved Serra's petition to relocate the mission to its current location near the Carmel River and present-day town of Carmel-by-the-Sea
Carmel-by-the-Sea (), often simply called Carmel, is a city in Monterey County, California, United States, founded in 1902 and incorporated on October 31, 1916. Situated on the Monterey Peninsula, Carmel is known for its natural scenery and ric ...
and named it Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo
Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Río Carmelo, or Misión de San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, first built in 1797, is one of the most authentically restored Catholic mission churches in California. Located at the mouth of Carmel Valley, Californi ...
. Serra's goal in part was to put some distance between the mission's neophytes and from Fages and his troops.[
The new mission was on land better suited to farming and within a short distance of the Rumsen ]Ohlone
The Ohlone, formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the ...
villages of Tucutnut and Achasta.[ The latter village may have been founded after Mission San Carlos was relocated to Carmel. The mission was about from the nearest Esselen territory, Excelen.][ On May 9, 1775, Junípero Serra baptized what appears to be the first Esselen, ''Pach-hepas'', who was the 40-year-old chief of the Excelen. His baptism took place at Xasáuan, 10 ]league
League or The League may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band
* ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football
Sports
* Sports league
* Rugby league, full contact footba ...
s (about ) southeast of the mission, in an area now named Cachagua, a close approximation of the Esselen name.
Baptisms and forced labor
King Charles V Charles V may refer to:
* Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558)
* Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain
* Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise
* Charles V, Duke of Lorraine (1643–1690)
* Infan ...
of Spain issued the New Laws (in Spanish, ''Leyes Nuevas'', or "New Laws of the Indies
The Laws of the Indies ( es, Leyes de las Indias) are the entire body of laws issued by the Spanish Crown for the American and the Asian possessions of its empire. They regulated social, political, religious, and economic life in these areas. Th ...
for the Good Treatment and Preservation of the Indians") on November 20, 1542. These were replaced around the beginning of the 17th century with Repartimiento
The ''Repartimiento'' () (Spanish, "distribution, partition, or division") was a colonial labor system imposed upon the indigenous population of Spanish America. In concept, it was similar to other tribute-labor systems, such as the ''mit'a'' of t ...
, which entitled a Spanish settler or official to the labor of a number of indigenous workers on their farms or mines. The Spanish state based its right over the land and persons of the Indies
The East Indies (or simply the Indies), is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in East (disambiguation)#Geography, the East or the Eastern hemisphere, particularly the islands and ...
on the Papal
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
charge to evangelize the indigenous population. This motivated the Jesuits to build missions across California.
Under Spanish law, the Esselen were technically free individuals, but they could be compelled by force to labor without pay. With the help of the soldiers who guarded the mission, the Esselen and Ohlone
The Ohlone, formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the ...
Indians who lived near the mission were forcibly relocated, conscripted, and trained as plowmen, shepherds, cattle herders, blacksmiths, and carpenters on the mission. Disease, starvation, over work, and torture decimated the tribe.
The Esselen had ongoing conflicts with the neighboring Rumsen tribe over crops and hunting grounds. The Rumsen initially assisted the Franciscans and when they fell on hard times, taught the missionaries what they could harvest from the wild for food.[ When a tribal member entered Mission San Carlos to be baptized, the priests tried to communicate to them that they could not leave the mission and wander the forests and fields on their own as they had done before. They became in effect vassals of the mission. They were given a new Christian name at their baptism as well. If an Indian left the mission and attempted to return to his or her village, Spanish law required the soldiers to track them down and bring them back to the Mission. When they were brought back, they were beaten and confined.]
The priests baptized a number of Esselen during 1776, most of them children, and a few more in the following years. The priests allowed the children after baptism to continue to live with their parents in their village until they reached the "age of reason," which was about nine years old. In 1783, the soldiers fought the Excelen and killed a few of them. The battle may have resulted from the soldiers' attempts to collect the children and force them to live at the mission. Baptisms picked up again after this date, perhaps because the Excelen saw they could not defeat the soldiers and decided they wanted to be with their children. Upon baptism the Esselen were considered to be part of a monastic order and subject to the rules of that order. This placed them, by Spanish law, under the direct authority of the padres.[
]
The families lived in small rooms in generally unsanitary conditions. Over half the children born at a California mission died before age 4 and only about two of every ten lived to be teenagers. The girls were separated from their families at age 8 and required to sleep in a segregated, locked dormitory called the ''monjero'' (nunnery). Once they rose, they worked inside until they finished their chores around lunch time, they were allowed some time to visit their family's homes in the mission village. Married women whose husbands were absent and widows were also required to sleep there. The boys and unmarried men also had their own dormitory, though it was less confining.
French explorer Jean La Pérouse visited Monterey with two ships on September 14, 1786. Two days after he arrived, he visited Mission San Carlos Borromeo. In honor of his reception, the Indian neophytes were given an extra ration of food and lined up to see him. La Pérouse's described the natives as lifeless, robbed of spirit, traumatized, and depressed. Among other things, he described severe punishments inflicted on the Indians by the friars. He thought they considered the Indians "too much a child, too much a slave, too little a man." Until western contact, the native people lived in small villages of between 30 and 100 people.[ In 1786, there were 740 native men, women and children living in the village next to the Mission.][ The priests were ignorant of the cultural differences between the tribes and forced the Rumsen and Esselen Indians to live together. The two tribes were very hostile to one another and their proximity brought ongoing strife.][ Galaup described them as ill-fed and depressed by the strict mission routines. He said they were treated like slaves on a plantation.]
From 1783–1785, about 40% of the Excelen were baptized. Another three Esselen were baptized at the Mission Soledad in the early 1790s, but by 1798 the majority of the Indians had been baptized. A new priest, Father Amoró, arrived in September 1804 and injected fresh energy into baptism efforts. From 1804 to 1808, 25 individuals from Excelen were baptized during these final four years. They comprised nearly 10% of the total Excelen population who were baptized. They had held out for 33 years after proselytizing began in their area. The last five baptized were all older, from 45 to 80 years. The total number of Esselen baptized is estimated to range from 790 to 856.
It may be that the older Esselen were baptized last because they were left alone and unable to support themselves after their children and grandchildren had already been coerced into living at the mission. There is some evidence that a few Esselen hid in the rugged, higher reaches of the mountains where the Spanish soldiers could not find them.[
In 1795, the Spanish crown dictated that all religious instruction should be conducted in Spanish and that the native languages should be suppressed. This edict overturned the New Laws of 1542 which directed the missionaries to teach the natives in their own tongue. But the priests were still required to adhere to the third provincial council of Lima in 1583, which stated that the priests must give sermons and receive confession in the native people's own tongue.
]
Population
The Esselen were and are one of the least numerous indigenous people in California.[ The Spanish mission system led to severe decimation of the initially small Esselen population. Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California, including the Esselen, vary substantially. ]Alfred L. Kroeber
Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the first ...
suggested that the 1770 population for the Esselen of 500. Sherburne F. Cook
Sherburne Friend Cook (1896-1974) was an American physiologist, who served as professor and chairman of the department of physiology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was notable as a pioneer in population studies of the native peopl ...
raised this estimate to 750.[ Based on ]baptism
Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...
records and population density, Breschini calculated that they numbered 1,185-1,285.[
The Esselen are too often regarded as the first California Native American tribe to become culturally extinct, much to the frustration of current generations of Esselen people.][ By about 1822, much of the California Indian population in proximity to the missions had been forced into the Spanish mission system. Due to the proximity of the Esselen people to three of the Spanish missions, Mission San Carlos in ]Carmel
Carmel may refer to:
* Carmel (biblical settlement), an ancient Israelite town in Judea
* Mount Carmel, a coastal mountain range in Israel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea
* Carmelites, a Roman Catholic mendicant religious order
Carmel may also ...
, Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad
Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad ( es, Misión Nuestra Señora de la Soledad), commonly known as Mission Soledad, is a Spanish mission located in Soledad, California. The mission was founded by the Franciscan order on October 9, 1791 to con ...
in Soledad, and Mission San Antonio de Padua
Mission San Antonio de Padua is a Spanish mission established by the Franciscan order in present-day Monterey County, California, near the present-day town of Jolon. Founded on July 14, 1771, it was the third mission founded in Alta Californi ...
in Jolon, the tribe was heavily impacted by their presence.[ The native population was decimated by disease, including ]measles
Measles is a highly contagious infectious disease caused by measles virus. Symptoms usually develop 10–12 days after exposure to an infected person and last 7–10 days. Initial symptoms typically include fever, often greater than , cough, ...
, smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
, and syphilis
Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, an ...
, which wiped out 90 percent of the native population, and by conscript labor, poor food, and forced assimilation. Most of the Esselen people's villages within the current Los Padres National Forest
Los Padres National Forest is a United States national forest in Southern California, southern and central California. Administered by the United States Forest Service, Los Padres includes most of the mountainous land along the California coast ...
were left largely uninhabited. Professor Sherburne Cook
Sherburne Friend Cook (1896-1974) was an American physiologist, who served as professor and chairman of the department of physiology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was notable as a pioneer in population studies of the native peopl ...
, an expert in Native American populations, described the causes of the population decline:
Some anthropologists and linguists assumed that the Esselen people's culture had been virtually extinguished by as early as the 1840s. However, existing tribe members cite evidence that some Esselen were able to move beyond the reach of the Spanish soldiers, who rode on horseback, by hiding in the rugged interior of the Santa Lucia Mountains
The Santa Lucia Mountains (sæntə luˈsiːə) or Santa Lucia Range is a rugged mountain range in coastal central California, running from Carmel southeast for to the Cuyama River in San Luis Obispo County. The range is never more than from t ...
. In the 1840s, some Esselen are believed to have migrated to the ranchos and rural areas outside the growing towns. Archaeologists located the grave of a girl estimated to be about six years old buried in Isabel Meadows Cave in the Church Creek area. They calculated the date of her burial to be about 1825. Two experts received reports of Indians living in the area through the 1850s.[ Today, contemporary generations of Esselen trace their ancestry to Esselen who were counted in early U.S. census efforts.
In 1909, forest supervisors reported that three Indian families still lived within what was then known as the Monterey National Forest. The Encinale family of 16 members and the Quintana family with three members lived in the vicinity of The Indians (now known as Santa Lucia Memorial Park west of Ft. Hunger Liggett). The Mora family consisting of three members was living to the south along the Nacimiento-Ferguson Road.]
Federal recognition
About 460 individuals have identified themselves as descendants of the original Esselen people and banded together to form a tribe. The Department of the Interior
The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...
has set aside of Fort Ord
Fort Ord is a former United States Army post on Monterey Bay of the Pacific Ocean coast in California, which closed in 1994 due to Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) action. Most of the fort's land now makes up the Fort Ord National Monument, m ...
that the tribe can use to build a cultural center and museum. But they must first obtain federal recognition. They have been assisted by Alan Leventhal, a lecturer and volunteer at San Jose State University
San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) sys ...
, and Dr. Les Field of the University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...
, who have helped establish the tribe's cultural identity.[
The tribe was briefly formally identified in 1883 as a tribe by Indian Affairs agent Helen Hunt Jackson. It was also identified on official Indian census rolls, maps, and in a land-rights petition sent to President Theodore Roosevelt. But in 1899, anthropologist ]Alfred Kroeber
Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the first ...
declared that the tribe was extinct because most tribal members had intermarried, taken Spanish names, and converted to Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. Kroeber wrote in 1925:
In 1955, Kroeber decided he had made a mistake and tried to persuade the BIA, but the agency refused to listen to his arguments or accept his evidence.
In 1927, the superintendent of the Sacramento agency of the Bureau of Indian Affairs listed California tribes that should be given land rights, but he excluded the Esselen along over 135 other tribes from the list.[ A tribal member and researcher has identified more than 100 individual Esselen who were living in Monterey County in 1923 while the group was still federally recognized. The tribe says their exclusion as a recognized tribe was a mistake that should be rectified.]
Many anthropologists believed that the Costanoan-speaking people encompassed a geographical area from north of San Francisco to Monterey. The name Costanoan is derived from a generic name Costaños ('coast-men) applied by the Spanish to all native people on the coast. It was later corrupted as Costanoan in the English language. As a result of the 1928 California Indian Jurisdictional Act enrollment, almost every Bureau of Indian Affairs "enrollee" of Esselen descent was categorized as Costanoan by the agency.
In 2010 the Esselen Nation petitioned the federal government for recognition as a tribe. The Bureau of Indian Affairs says the tribe does not meet the formal criteria used to recognize a tribe.
Tribal land
In the 20th century, Axel Adler built a cabin on the former Bixby Ranch and gradually acquired more land. In 2013, descendants of the Adler family who lived in Sweden put of the Adler Ranch on the market for $15 million. It is located at the end and south of Palo Colorado Road. The ranch is located along the Little Sur River
The Little Sur River is a long river on the Central Coast of California. The river and its main tributary, the South Fork, drain a watershed of about of the Big Sur area, a thinly settled region of the Central California coast where the Sant ...
at the northwestern edge of the Ventana Wilderness
The Ventana Wilderness of Los Padres National Forest is a federally designated wilderness area located in the Santa Lucia Range along the Central Coast of California. This wilderness was established in 1969 when the Ventana Wilderness Act redesig ...
adjacent to the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District's Mill Creek Redwood Preserve and the Los Padres National Forest
Los Padres National Forest is a United States national forest in Southern California, southern and central California. Administered by the United States Forest Service, Los Padres includes most of the mountainous land along the California coast ...
, and includes the peak of Bixby Mountain and the upper portions of Mescal Ridge. The El Sur Ranch
The El Sur Ranch, located on the Big Sur coast of California, has been continuously operated as a cattle ranch since 1834. The approximately ranch straddles Highway 1 for from the mouth of the Little Sur River to the mouth of the Big Sur R ...
and Pico Blanco
Pico Blanco is a peak on the coast of Big Sur in the Santa Lucia Range of the Los Padres National Forest. The Little Sur River and its tributaries almost surround the mountain. The North Fork wraps around the northern flank and eastern edge of t ...
Mountain are to the south. The tract contains old-growth redwoods, grasslands, oak woodlands, chaparral, and madrone forest. The ranch is an important habitat for California spotted owls, California condors, California red-legged frogs, marbled murrelets, and bald and golden eagles. The property is especially valuable because it includes nine legal parcels, five of which could be developed. The Big Sur Land Trust
The Big Sur Land Trust is a private 501(c)(3) non-profit located in Monterey, California, that has played an instrumental role in preserving land in California's Big Sur and Central Coast (California), Central Coast regions. The trust was the f ...
stated it was not interested in acquiring the property.
The nonprofit Western Rivers Conservancy, which buys land with the goal to protect habitat and provide public access, secured a purchase agreement. It was initially interested in selling the land to the US Forest Service, which would make it possible for hikers to travel from Bottchers Gap to the sea. But some local residents were opposed to the forest service acquiring the land. They are concerned about a lack of federal funding to maintain a critical fire break on the land.
On October 2, 2019, the California Natural Resources Agency
The California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) is a state cabinet-level agency in the government of California. The institution and jurisdiction of the Natural Resources Agency is provided for in California Government Code sections 12800 and 128 ...
announced it was seeking funding through Proposition 68, a bond measure approved by voters in 2018, to obtain the land for the tribe. The Adler family agreed to sell of the Adler Ranch. The land was purchased through a $4.52 million grant from the California Natural Resources Agency. In late July 2020 the purchase of the Adler Ranch successfully closed and the property was transferred to the Esselen tribe. The land acquisition could help facilitate federal recognition of the tribe.
"It is beyond words for us, the highest honor," said Tom Little Bear Nason, chairman of the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County. "The land is the most important thing to us. It is our homeland, the creation story of our lives. We are so elated and grateful." The Esselen tribe has 214 members and intends to share it with other Central Coast tribes such as the Ohlone, the , and the Rumsen people who also were decimated during the Mission Era
In popular culture
The Esalen Institute
The Esalen Institute, commonly called Esalen, is a non-profit American retreat center and intentional community in Big Sur, California, which focuses on humanistic alternative education. The institute played a key role in the Human Potential ...
in Big Sur is named after this tribe as was the former Boy Scouts of America Monterey Bay Area Council Order of the Arrow
The Order of the Arrow (OA) is the honor society of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), composed of Scouts and Scouters who best exemplify the Scout Oath and Law in their daily lives as elected by their peers. The society was created by E. Urner G ...
Esselen Lodge #531.
See also
* Kuksu (religion)
Kuksu, was a religion in Northern California practiced by members within several Indigenous peoples of California before and during contact with the arriving European settlers. The religious belief system was held by several tribes in Central Ca ...
Notes
References
* Bean, Lowell John, editor. 1994. ''The Ohlone: Past and Present Native Americans of the San Francisco Bay Region.'' Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication. . Includes Leventhal et al. ''Ohlone Back from Extinction.''
* Breschini, Gary S. and Trudy Haversat 2004. ''The Esselen Indians of the Big Sur Country: The Land and the People.'' Salinas, CA: Coyote Press.
* Breschini, Gary S. and Trudy Haversat 2005.
A Brief Overview of the Esselen Indians of Monterey County
'. File retrieved Sep 7, 2007.
* Levy, Richard. 1978. ''Costanoan'', in ''Handbook of North American Indians
The ''Handbook of North American Indians'' is a series of edited scholarly and reference volumes in Native American studies, published by the Smithsonian Institution beginning in 1978. Planning for the handbook series began in the late 1960s and ...
, vol. 8 (California)''. William C. Sturtevant, and Robert F. Heizer, eds. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. / 0160045754
* Cook, Sherburne F. 1976. ''The Conflict between the California Indian and White Civilization''. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
* Kroeber, Alfred L. 1925.
Handbook of the Indians of California
'. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C.
* Hester, Thomas R. 1978. ''Esselen'', in ''Handbook of North American Indians
The ''Handbook of North American Indians'' is a series of edited scholarly and reference volumes in Native American studies, published by the Smithsonian Institution beginning in 1978. Planning for the handbook series began in the late 1960s and ...
'', vol. 8 (California). William C. Sturtevant, and Robert F. Heizer, eds. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978, pages 496–499. / 0160045754
External links
Esselen Tribal Website
Ohlone Costanoan Tribal Website
- Big Sur Chamber of Commerce
{{authority control
California Mission Indians
Native American tribes in California
People from Monterey County, California
History of Monterey County, California
Native American history of California
Big Sur