The Spanish word ranchería, or rancherío, refers to a small, rural settlement. In the Americas the term was applied to native villages or

bunkhouses A bunkhouse is a barracks-like building that historically was used to house working cowboys on ranches, or loggers in a logging camp in North America. As most cowboys were young single men, the standard bunkhouse was a large open room with narro ...

. Anglo-Americans adopted the term with both these meanings, usually to designate the residential area of a

rancho Rancho or Ranchos may refer to: Settlements and communities *Rancho, Aruba, former fishing village and neighbourhood of Oranjestad *Ranchos of California, 19th century land grants in Alta California **List of California Ranchos *Ranchos, Buenos Ai ...

in the American Southwest, housing aboriginal ranch hands and their families. The term is still used in other parts of Spanish America; for example, the Wayuu tribes in northern

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

call their villages ''rancherías''. The ''Columbia Encyclopedia'' describes it as: :a type of communal settlement formerly characteristic of the

Yaqui Indians The Yaqui, Hiaki, or Yoeme, are a Native American people of the southwest, who speak a Uto-Aztecan language. Their homelands include the Río Yaqui valley in Sonora, Mexico, and the area below the Gila River in Arizona, Southwestern United St ...

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is d ...

, Tepehuanes of

Durango Durango (), officially named Estado Libre y Soberano de Durango ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Durango; Tepehuán: ''Korian''; Nahuatl: ''Tepēhuahcān''), is one of the 31 states which make up the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico, situated in ...

, Mexico, and of various small Native American groups of the

Southwestern U.S. The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Ne ...

, especially in California. These clusters of dwellings were less permanent than the pueblos (see Pueblo) but more so than the camps of the migratory Native Americans.Rancheria.
''The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.'' 2001-07 (retrieved 12 April 2009) The term could be applied to the settlements of the California Mission Indians beyond the Spanish missions, such as Maugna of the Tongva people.

History

In California, the term refers to a total of 59 Indian settlements established by the

U.S. government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...

, 54 of them between 1906 and 1934, for the survivors of the aboriginal population. San Diego State University maintains a reference titled ''California Indians and Their Reservations: An Online Dictionary''. It says: The word migrated north with the 49ers to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in an adapted form, "'' rancherie"''. It survives in British Columbia as a somewhat archaic but still commonly used word, in rural areas and small towns, as well as in general First Nations English usage, meaning the residential area of an Indian reserve. It especially means the historical residential area, as opposed to newer subdivisions. It was further extended to refer to other non-white residential communities, such as the Kanaka Rancherie in early Vancouver, British Columbia, which came to house the city's Kanaka (Hawaiian) residents. In an even more truncated form, ''the Ranche'' was used to refer to the Tlingit portion of

Sitka, Alaska russian: Ситка , native_name_lang = tli , settlement_type = Consolidated city-borough , image_skyline = File:Sitka 84 Elev 135.jpg , image_caption = Downtown Sitka in 1984 , image_size ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rancheria Indigenous peoples of California topics Former populated places in California Mexican California Native American populated places American Indian reservations Aboriginal title in the United States Lands inhabited by indigenous peoples

History

See also

References