Pottery-Making in Spanish California: Creating Multi-Scalar Social Identity through Daily Practice

Abstract

Between 1769 and 1834, the Spanish missions of Alta California were pluralistic communities. Faced with cultural entanglement, residents of particular missions formed communities of practice, out of which a shared social identity may have emerged. This process of colonial identity construction is illustrated by the patterned ways potters at one mission, Mission San Antonio de Padua, constructed Plainwares. Potters within this mission community selected the same local raw materials and fired ceramics in open fires. As potters participated in shared traditions of ceramic production, with regard to these steps in the manufacturing sequence, they may have created a shared social identity. In addition to the creation of a shared community identity, potters may have produced and reproduced other social identities that served to create arenas of division. For example, variability in primary forming techniques may suggest that gender identities were created out of the way some potters, possibly women, hand modeled vessels while others, possibly men, threw vessels on a wheel. Through ceramic production, potters at Mission San Antonio de Padua may have at one scale fostered a sense of belonging to the mission community, but at other scales created arenas for social distinction within the indigenous population.