Native Responses to European Intrusion: Cultural Persistence and Agency among Mission Neophytes in Spanish Colonial Northern California

Arkush, Brooke S.

doi:10.1007/bf03377306

Cited by 30 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…As part of the widespread economic and social connections linking the missions and autonomous communities, native people manipulated a system of temporary leaves, called paseo, to achieve a degree of autonomy and flexibility in the face of reducción (Arkush, 2011;Newell, 2009;Schneider, 2010, in press-a). These permitted furloughs-in addition to rampant fugitivism-created opportunities for some native people to return to home villages for short durations, to give birth, to die, or to disappear entirely.…”

Section: Contested Landscapes In Central Californiamentioning

confidence: 98%

Expanding mission archaeology: A landscape approach to indigenous autonomy in colonial California

Panich

Schneider

2015

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

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a b s t r a c tRather than simply an arena for Euroamerican domination, recent archaeological research on Spanish missionization along the North American Borderlands points to opportunities for indigenous autonomy under missionary colonialism. We build from these discussions to foreground autonomy as it was expressed in multiple spatial contexts during the colonial period (ca. 1770s-1850s) in central California.Our goals are to evaluate freedom of action within the situational constraints imposed by Spanish missions in California and also to challenge archaeologists to move beyond prevailing narratives of decline to critically assess how native people negotiated colonialism across the landscape. Drawing on three archaeological examples from central California-including Mission Santa Clara de Asís, the marshlands of the San Joaquin Valley, and persistent Coast Miwok villages in the northern San Francisco Bay region-we outline a conceptual model comprised of three spatial zones: colonial settlements as native places; native homelands/colonial hinterlands; and interior worlds and interspaces. The model offers a way in which to expand mission archaeology by illuminating the opportunities for indigenous autonomy in social, political, and economic relationships that intersected colonial modes in various ways across time and space.

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Section: Contested Landscapes In Central Californiamentioning

confidence: 98%

Expanding mission archaeology: A landscape approach to indigenous autonomy in colonial California

Panich

Schneider

2015

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

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“…These works have indicated that even within seemingly opposed groups (colonizer/colonized, indigenous/foreign, etc.) multiple strategies existed for mitigating the effects of contact (Ferris 2009;Arkush 2011;. Some strategies were successful, many were not.…”

Section: Culture Contactmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Araucanian Resilience

Sauer

2015

Contributions to Global Historical Archaeology

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“…The Indian neophyte families typically resided in the near hinterland of the mission, within earshot of the mission bells, where adobe dormitories and traditional thatched houses were built (48). Considerable archaeological work has been undertaken examining the spatial layout of the Spanish California missions, including excavations of the central quadrangles, including the churches, conventos, and unmarried women's dormitory, the soldiers' quarters, and the outlying neophyte villages (79)(80)(81).…”

Section: The Investigation Of Ethnic Neighborhoodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics of change in multiethnic societies: An archaeological perspective from colonial North America

Lightfoot

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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This Perspective presents an overview of the archaeology of pluralistic colonies (approximately late 1500s-1800s) in North America. It complements the other special feature papers in this issue on ancient societies in Mesoamerica, the Near East, the Armenian Highlands, Peru, and China by presenting another body of literature for examining the dynamics of change in multiethnic societies from a different time and place. In synthesizing archaeological investigations of mercantile, plantation, and missionary colonies, this Perspective shows how this research is relevant to the study of pluralism in both historic and ancient societies in three ways. (i) It enhances our understanding of interethnic relationships that took place in complex societies with imposing political hierarchies and labor structures. (ii) It helps us to refine the methods used by archaeologists to define and analyze multiethnic communities that were spatially delimited by ethnic neighborhoods. Finally, (iii) it presents more than a half century of experimentation with various models (e.g., acculturation, creolization, ethnogenesis, and hybridity) that have been used to study the dynamics of culture change in multiethnic societies.European colonies | indigenous peoples | enslaved laborers | colonial hierarchies | ethnic neighborhoodsAn important issue in the study of the dynamics of change in multiethnic societies is understanding how pluralism may have created new forms of social relationships, cultural practices, and sociopolitical organizations over time. Archaeologists have long been interested in documenting ancient places where large, pluralistic populations resided. There is growing interest in the investigation of culture contact, pluralism, and social dynamics in ancient cultures using crosscultural, comparative analyses (1-3). The comparative study of social formations in complex societies is particularly timely for the field of archaeology (4, 5). That is why the papers in this PNAS Special Feature are so important: they make a significant contribution in broadening our perspective and understanding about the social dynamics of complex, multiethnic polities in Mesoamerica, the Near East, the Armenian Highlands, Peru, and China.The purpose of this Perspective is to place the PNAS papers into the broader archaeological literature on pluralistic places. It is important to recognize that an extensive body of research exists for the study of multiethnic communities. Since the 1960s historical archaeologists have used a diverse range of datasets, including archaeological materials, archival documents, ethnographic accounts, and oral traditions to examine interethnic interactions in colonial settings. I begin by presenting a brief overview on the archaeology of colonialism in North America that has focused on settler, managerial, and missionary colonies. I then outline how this research may be relevant for scholars working elsewhere in the world who are examining the dynamics of change in multiethnic societies characterized by notable politica...

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Native Responses to European Intrusion: Cultural Persistence and Agency among Mission Neophytes in Spanish Colonial Northern California

Cited by 30 publications

References 12 publications

Expanding mission archaeology: A landscape approach to indigenous autonomy in colonial California

Expanding mission archaeology: A landscape approach to indigenous autonomy in colonial California

The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Araucanian Resilience

Dynamics of change in multiethnic societies: An archaeological perspective from colonial North America

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