The Colorado Delta, 1771–1776: Rereading Francisco Garcés

Abstract

The ethnohistory of the Colorado River delta has been substantively misunderstood, owing to the widespread neglect and/or misinterpretations of the writings of Francisco Garcés. In 1771, 1774, and 1775–76, Garcés undertook three entradas into the delta, and wrote a series of valuable ethnographic accounts. Not only have Garcés’s locations and routes frequently been misidentified by earlier scholars, his observations on agricultural production and population size have been ignored or marginalized, enabling misconceptions about delta historical demography and adaptation to flourish. The present paper seeks to restore Garcés’s accounts, making his locations and ethnographic observations intelligible and interpretable, and to show how these can help resolve extant misconceptions. Part I focuses on some key texts, tying his locations to a master map. Part II focuses on ethnolinguistic groups and settlement sites, and discusses the implications for a better understanding of historical demography and agricultural adaptation in the delta.