Mission Indians Research Articles

Helen Hunt Jackson and Southern California's Mission Indians

Helen Hunt Jackson and Southern California's Mission Indians

Electroencephalographic responses to alcohol challenge in Native American Mission Indians

Background: Native Americans have some of the highest rates of alcohol abuse and dependence, yet potential central nervous system risk factors responsible for the problem drinking seen in some tribes remain relatively unknown. Methods: Background electroencephalographic (EEG) variants and response to alcohol were investigated in 48 Native American Mission Indian men between 18 and 25 years old. Results: Subjects with 50% or greater Native American heritage had a significantly higher proportion of low-voltage EEG variants. Within this sample of Mission Indian men, however, a family history of alcohol dependence was associated with a greater incidence of high-voltage alpha EEGs. Mission Indian men also evidenced a “less depressant, more stimulating” response to alcohol as quantified by less alcohol-induced reductions in alpha, greater EEG stability, and increased alcohol-induced beta activity. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that certain genetically regulated EEG variants that have been previously associated with risk for alcoholism in Caucasians may also be more common in these Mission Indian men. Additionally, EEG measures of response to alcohol do not provide support for the commonly held idea that Indians are more sensitive to the depressant effects of alcohol.

Determinants of P3 Amplitude and Response to Alcohol in Native American Mission Indians

Native Americans have some of the highest rates of alcohol abuse and dependence, yet potential biological risk factors associated with the problem drinking seen in some tribes remain relatively unknown. The amplitude of the P3 component of the event-related potential (ERP) is perhaps the most studied electrophysiological “marker” of potential vulnerability to alcohol dependence, yet it has not been investigated in Native Americans. Forty-seven, non-alcohol-dependent Native American Mission Indian men between the ages of 18 and 25 years participated in the study. ERPs were collected at 60 minutes following both alcohol (0.56 g/kg) and placebo intake. No relationship was found between P3 amplitude and degree of Native-American heritage (NAH), or family history (FH) of alcohol dependence. The results of this study did, however, replicate previous findings that the P3 component of the ERP is sensitive to the effects of alcohol. A reduction in the P3a component across the scalp was found in these Native American men following alcohol when compared with placebo ingestion. P3 response to alcohol, although not influenced by a subject’s NAH or FH, was influenced by the presence of a polymorphism in the alcohol metabolizing enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH). Men with an ADH2*3 allele had significantly higher amplitude P3 components at placebo and also demonstrated more alcohol-induced reductions in P3 amplitude than men with ADH2*1 alleles only. In addition, individuals with low P3 amplitude in the placebo condition had less of a reduction or an actual increase in P3a and P3b amplitudes following alcohol intake. Given that a less intense response to alcohol has been associated with greater risk for the development of alcohol-related problems, these data suggest the presence of certain biological variables within this Native American population that may confer both risk and protection for the future development of alcohol dependence.

Gaming: The Apex of a Long Struggle

I ndian gaming and gambling enterprises have had a profound economic effect on a dozen or so American Indian communities and their non-Indian neighboring communities. The very successful American Indian gaming nations such as the Mashantucket Pequot, the Shakopee Mdewakonton Dakota, the Oneida of Wisconsin, and the Sycan Mission Indians have realized great economic success because of hard work, perseverance, and luck of geographical location. In assessing the effects of gaming on contemporary American Indian communities and their non-Indian neighbors, we must keep in mind that the majority of the two hundred Indian nations involved in some form of gaming have 5 had much more modest success with their gaming enterprises. Loca- ; tion, location, location, the mantra of the real estate industry, plays a significant role in determining whether an Indian gaming enterprise will achieve a huge success or more modest success.1 o N

Taxation, Coercion, Trade and Development in a Frontier Economy: Early and Mid Colonial Paraguay

This article explores the effects of changing exposure to world trade and relative factor abundance on the institutional and economic development of a paradigmatic Spanish-American frontier colony, Paraguay. The problem is conceptualized within a neoinstitutionalist staples model in which – during the long sixteenth-century trade expansion – the colonial state delegated the provision of defence onto individuals who financed it by restricting indigenous labour mobility and extracting the resulting monopsony rents. Despite the encomienda's stated intentions, its inefficient incentive system actually contributed to the decline in indigenous population and provincial security shortcomings. As trade contracted and defence needs rose during the seventeenth-century crisis the crown commuted the labour services of Jesuit mission Indians for contributions to defence and payments in kind and money. The mestizo peasantry remained free, but was increasingly burdened with military obligations as well.

The Staff of Leadership: Indian Authority in the Missions of Alta California

I N I769, Spain set out to defend the Pacific Coast against settlement by other European powers by developing a series of colonial outposts that eventually stretched from San Diego to San Francisco. In this region, known to Europeans as Alta California, Spain depended on religious missions more than military fortifications or civilian towns to solidify its control. During the second half of the eighteenth century, missions had declined in importance in the rest of northern New Spain. In I767, the crown expelled the Jesuits from Spain and its colonies and gradually converted most surviving missions in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to parishes overseen by secular priests.1 But in Alta California, Franciscan missions steadily increased in number and power as the most important centers of interaction between Indians and Spaniards. By i82I, when Spanish rule gave way to Mexican independence, roughly 70,000 Indians had been baptized in the region's twenty missions. Even after more than five decades of demographic disaster brought on by the ravages of disease, mission Indians still outnumbered Spanish settlers and soldiers 2I,750 to 3,400; missions outnumbered military garrisons by a ratio of five to one and civilian settlements by six to one.2 The Franciscans' strategies to convert and control Indians in Alta California have sparked an intense debate that has recently involved the general public as well as scholars. Public interest has focused on the canonization of Fray Junipero Serra, founding father of the California missions, and more generally on Indian-Spanish relations in those missions.3 Promoters of the Spanish colonial past portray the Franciscans as saving childlike Indians

Alcohol dehydrogenase polymorphisms in Native Americans: identification of the ADH2*3 allele.

Alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) polymorphisms were evaluated among 95 Native American Mission Indians. Approximately equal frequencies of ADH3*1 and ADH3*2 alleles were found. Twelve individuals were heterozygous for ADH2*3, an allele previously identified only in persons of African origin. None of the individuals with ADH2*3 alleles was of purely Native American descent, although none had known African ancestry. These results suggest that these candidate genes deserve broader study among Native Americans and may provide increased understanding of the likely polygenic contributions to alcohol-related disorders in this population.

Alcohol expectancies in a Native American population.

Native Americans, as a group, have a high prevalence of alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence, although specific risk factors for alcoholism among this population have yet to be clearly identified. One set of factors that may contribute to the development of alcoholism are expectations of alcohol's effects. Previous research has shown that heavy drinkers and alcoholics have higher alcohol-related expectancies. Some studies have also shown an association between alcohol expectancies and a positive familial history of alcoholism. To examine factors that are related to expectations of alcohol's effects in a Native American population, this study evaluated healthy, nonalcoholic Mission Indian men between the ages of 18 and 25 years using the short form of the Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire (AEQ). The influence of recent drinking history, family history of alcoholism, and degree of Native American heritage on alcohol-related expectancies was determined using regression analyses for the total AEQ score and for each of the six AEQ subscales. Recent drinking history accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in the total score, as well as scale I (global positive changes) and scale VI (arousal and power) of the AEQ. Degree of Native American heritage and family history of alcoholism did not account for a significant amount of variability in alcohol expectancies. These results suggest that, consistent with findings in other populations, alcohol expectancies are related to drinking patterns in Mission Indians. However, no association with two other potential risk factors were found in this sample of Native Americans.

Alcohol elimination in Native American Mission Indians: an investigation of interindividual variation.

The high prevalence of alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence among Native Americans may be mediated by unique environmental and genetic factors in this population. One factor that may influence the development of alcoholism is variability in alcohol metabolism. To determine factors that contribute to differences in alcohol elimination rates within a Native American population, this study evaluated healthy southern California Mission Indian men between the ages of 18 and 25 years. Each man drank a dose of alcohol, 0.56 g/kg of body weight as a 20% by volume solution, at approximately 9:00 AM after eating a low-fat breakfast and having fasted overnight. The drink was consumed within 7 min, and the concentrations of alcohol in blood were determined before and at 15, 30, 60, 90, 120, and 150 min after beverage ingestion. Rates of alcohol elimination were calculated from the pseudolinear slope of the blood alcohol versus time curve. The influences of estimated body water, recent drinking history, recent smoking history, polymorphism at the ADH2 and ADH3 loci, family history of alcoholism, and percentage Native American heritage on alcohol elimination rate were determined using multiple regression analyses. Estimated body water accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in alcohol elimination rate. There was also a nonsignificant trend for subjects with an ADH2*3 allele (n = 6) to have faster rates of alcohol elimination than those with ADH2*1 alleles only (n = 33). Given the high prevalence of alcoholism and alcohol-related health problems among Native Americans, the results from this study suggest that evaluation of alcohol metabolism and genotypes of the alcohol-metabolizing enzymes in Native American populations merits further study.

The Luiseño Culture Bank Project: From Museum Shelves to HyperCard

On a small reservation in rural San Diego County, tribal elders, progressive administrators, university librarians, and technical advisors have forged a collaborative partnership to preserve the Luiseiio cultural heritage. In the 1970s, Luiseiio elders and volunteers secured a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to fund a project involving the gathering of secondary information on Luiseiio artifacts and information from a variety of museums, libraries, and private collections. Following up on the creation of the Luiseiio Culture Bank, university librarians from California State University, San Marcos, are now engaged in a project that eventually will mount this “bank” onto a Hypercard database. The San Luiseiio Band of Mission Indians derive their name from their association with Mission San Luis Rey in northern San Diego County.’ Established in 1798 by Franciscan fathers, Mission San Luis Rey is known as the ”king of the missions.” However, the treatment of the native peoples by Spanish missionaries was anything but royal. Contact between native peoples and Europeans had a devastating effect on the social, cultural, and economic life of the Indians. Within sixty-five years of the arrival of Juniper0 Serra in 1769, the population of California Indians was reduced by

Reading the Indians: The Ramona Myth in American Culture

Despite, or perhaps because of, its popularity in 19th-century America,Ramona(1884), Helen Hunt Jackson's nostalgic novel of the California mission Indians, has seemed to offer little to academic readers. Seldom appearing on the lists of required reading for college courses in American literature, Jackson's novel has also been virtually ignored by literary and cultural scholars. Nevertheless,Ramonahas had an active and influential “cultural life.” Jackson's Indian novel appealed to generations of readers from a wide variety of regions and socioeconomic classes. Published in the same year asHuckleberry Finn, Ramonafirst ran as a six-month serial in theChristian Unionand subsequently amassed tremendous sales figures both in the United States and abroad. In 1885; for example,Ramonasold 21,000 copies as one of the year's best-sellers, and by 1900 readers had purchased more than 74,000 copies. Despite the lack of cheap, reprint editions, the novel continued to sell roughly 10,000 copies per year for most years through 1935. Held by 68 percent of U.S. libraries in 1893, it was one of only three contemporary novels held by 50 percent or more of the public libraries in the United States. Indeed, at least one of them had enormous trouble meeting public demand for the novel: in 1914 the Los Angeles Public Library was circulating 105 copies ofRamona, but it still had a waiting list; by 1946 the library had bought over a thousand copies of the novel. Never out of print,Ramonahas been translated into “all known languages” and has been printed hundreds of times in dozens of editions. The popularity ofUncle Tom's Cabinwas phenomenal, but inRamonaHarriet Beecher Stowe's novel had a worthy rival. Clearly a powerful explanatory myth for generations of American readers,Ramonadeserves serious attention from literary and cultural scholars alike.

Searching for Structure: Reconstructing Crow Family Life during the Reservation Era

N NORTH AMERICA, THE SOCIAL HISTORY of native communities follows a common, four-part outline. First, there was a period when groups existed without European contact. Second, there was a period of non-coercive interaction with Europeans during which natives and nonnatives exchanged microbes, information, trade goods and political allegiances. Third, there was a coercive period during which Europeans established military, economic and cultural control over the Indians. In the wake of this domination there was a fourth period, at least for those who survived. For those who were not destroyed, the fourth period was marked by survival and cultural persistence. In the United States, these four stages were commonly experienced but of uneven lengths. The precontact period stretched over thousands of years. The stage of non-coercive interaction lasted for a century or more. The period of domination was shorter. Aside from the coastal tribes of the Atlantic seaboard, the California Mission Indians and the Pueblos of the Spanish Southwest, Indian people now living within the borders of the United States were not subjected to direct conquest by Euroamericans until the nineteenth century. The relative swiftness of the domination process is probably one of the reasons why so many tribal cultures have survived into the twentieth century. Like the citizens of Hiroshima or Nagasaki in August, 1945, nineteenth-century Native Americans witnessed levels of destruction and dislocation that were unprecedented and therefore unforeseen. Communities saw their subsistence base, their religious systems, and their political leadership assaulted and crushed before their eyes, and yet many survived to rebuild their communities and their traditions in the postwar world. The reconstruction process had many dimensions-political, economic, social-but it involved a common effort to weigh old patterns and ideas against new limits. On the Northern Plains, even groups who responded peacefully to the American onslaught were swept into the maelstrom. In the last half of the nineteenth century they lost their freedom, their military

Federal control of Indian Lands v. State control of Gaming ? Cabazon Bingo and the Indian Gaming regulatory act

In September, 1988, the 100th Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, concluding five years of debate over the Indian Gaming issue - brought to a head by a Supreme Court decision in February, 1987, that barred states from regulating Indian Gaming. That case (State of California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians) forced the legislature to take a serious look at issues of gaming on Indian lands. The result was the creation of a three-tiered system whereby tribes will control ceremonial games, the federal government will control bingo, and the states and tribes will negotiate agreements to cover casino games, parimutuel racing, and jai alai, if such games are legal in that particular state. In light of the case of the Cabazon Indians and the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, this paper will address the following competing issues: tribal sovereignty, state interests, federal interests, and states like Nevada, which have a regulated gaming industry.

Mission Indians and Indians of California Land Claims

SEVERAL ARTICLES AND MONOGRAPHS (Heizer and Kroeber 1976, Heizer 1978, Stewart 1978, Sutton 1985) have described aspects of Indian Claims Cases, primarily discussing Dockets 31 and 37, the of California Case. Although some described the Pitt River Case (Docket 347), none discussed the Mission Indians Claims Case, Docket 80. All Claims Cases had complex histories leading to the joint offer for an out of court settlement from the United States government. Complexities were due to the diverse nature and history of various regions of and to influences exerted by non-Indian advisors and attorneys. In fact, non-Indians determined the nature and wording of claims filed. The out-of-court settlement was accepted after meetings held separately by members of each case, the Mission Indian Case, Indians of Case, and Pitt River Case. The Pitt River vote was unsuccessfully contested. After settlement, non-Indians were among those prominent in expressing dismay at the 47 cents per acre, apparently without reading the Indian Claims Commission Act (H.R. 4497) of August 13, 1946 (60 Stat 1049:25 U.S.C. Sec. 70ff.) and without data on 1851 land values. This paper' presents a background sketch of the major claims, the nature of influences determining the wording of petitions and difficulties resulting therefrom, particularly, the Mission Indian Claims Case, Docket 80. In this case difficulties arose because anthropologists and non-anthropologists misconstrued contact period socio-politicalterritorial organizations due to post 1850 historical change. The 47 cents per acre settlement value is discussed. The first claim, Docket 31 before the Indian Claims Commission, was filed July 19, 1948 by representatives, and on behalf of the Indians of California. Several band members and representatives of intertribal organizations joined to obtain an attorney to file this case. Many bands and intertribal groups believed that the fictitious of California had become an identifiable group based upon a previous act of Congress (May 18, 1928: 45 Stat. 602) which defined it as all Indians who were residing in the State of on June 1, 1852, and their descendants now living in said state. This act allowed the Indians of to bring suit (known as K-344) against the United States for taking land without just compensation, specifically the

Evaluating the Loss of Kinship Structures: A Case Study of North American Indians

This study is the result of an effort to determine the economic value of the kinship transformations suffered by the Soboba Band of Mission Indians. The kinship structures (or clans) disintegrated after water supplies dried out on the reservation in the 1930s. The paper attempts to show how elements borrowed from the technique of cost-benefit analysis, SIAM (Social Impact Assessment Methodology), and lessons from the experience of Third World economic development can be applied to produce intuitively reasonable valuations of a cultural intangible.

American Indians, American Dreams, and the Meaning of Success

On February 25, 1987, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case of California, et al. v. the Cabeuln Band of Mission Indians, et al. The decision involved the attempt by the state of California and the country of Riverside to regulate or shut down bingo games set up by the Cabezon and Morongo bands of Indians. Bingo has become a major source of income on a number of Indian reservations. This income comes not from winnings, but from the profits that tribes make as operators of high-stakes bingo operations. These operations have been challenged by the states, which have jurisdiction over gaming within their borders. California gaming laws, for example, place a cap of $250 per pot on all bingo games, require that bingo profits be used for charitable purposes only, and stipulate that those who run the games receive no pay for their work. Indian bingo, in contrast, is typically a high-stakes game (pots may reach $lOO,ooO or more), profits go to the operators, and employees are paid. The vast majority of players in these games are non-Indians. Indian bingo games in Oklahoma, for example, draw high-rollers from Tulsa, Oklahoma

Horatio N. Rust and the Agent-As-Collector Dilemma

Horatio Nelson Rust was a Civil War ambulance driver, noted archaeologist, founder of an important nursery in California, friend of the John Brown family, agent to the Mission Indians, owner of Chicago's largest warehouse, Southern California Commissioner of Immigration, a founder of the Pasadena Public Library, associate of Jessie Benton Fremont and Alfred E. Kroeber, and was involved in many other activities that would fill several normal lives.1

Helen Hunt Jackson: Official Agent to the California Mission Indians

Helen Hunt Jackson, prominent New England writer, began her love affair with California during a visit in the 1870s.1 She returned twice more to write sketches of its missions and Indian inhabitants, and to serve as Indian agent for the government. And finally she wrote the historical novel Ramona; her vivid descriptions of the cruelties suffered by the California Mission Indians still impress readers. Helen had turned to writing poetry in the early 1870s to assuage the grief resulting from the deaths of her husband and children. In the summer of 1872 she embarked on a two-month trip West with Sarah Woolsey (Susan Coolidge). They explored California, and Helen, who was chronically ill, was impressed with the healing effect of the climate. In January 1873, when suffering from diptheria, she remembered California's climate in a letter to a friend:

The "Trade Do's Not Flourish as Formerly": The Ecological Origins of the Yamassee War of 1715

Oni Good Friday, 1715, the Yamassees and Lower Creeks ignited an Indian war which almost engulfed South Carolina. While the Yamassee War's significance in southern colonial history has long been recognized, its origins have yet to be explained fully. The most widely accepted thesis holds that the Yamassees and their neighbors rebelled because English traders, who for years had extended credit to Indians, began to enslave Indians after 1710 for failure to pay their debts. To avoid slavery, the Yamassees chose war. Yet this interpretation fails to explain why, after almost twenty-five years of trade, the Yamassees and Lower Creeks were suddenly incapable of paying their debts. The Yamassee War erupted because of complex shifts in South Carolina's environment. Between 1700 and 1710 the overhunting of coastal deer herds, the expansion of cattle and pig raising, the rapid development of rice cultivation, and the elimination of the Spanish mission Indians in northwestern Florida combined to exhaust the Yamassees' trade resources in deerskins and Indian slaves. This depletion forced the Yamassees deeper into debt and eventually into war.

The Function of the Market in Changing Economic Structures in the Mission Communities of Pimería Alta, 1768-1821

The initial thrust of Spanish conquest and colonization in Northwest Mexico, as throughout the great Chichimec frontier, was centered in the mission. Under the terms of thepatronato real, the mission served as an instrument of Spanish imperial policy, aimed to accomplish the pacification and acculturation to Christian and Hispanic norms of society, of the semi-nomadic peoples who occupied the vast regions of mountain barrancas, mesas and valleys, coastal plains and desert lands to the north of the Mesoamerican civilizations.The mission communities were designed to place the Indians in fixed settlements, thereby preparing the way for civil colonization and further exploitation of the potential riches of these remote dominions of the Kingdom of Castile. The Indians gathered into the missions represented to the Crown a force for productivity as field and mine laborers. Although mission Indians were exempt from tribute, in the Northwest, the surplus produce from mission lands contributed to the economy of the region; and, as early as the seventeenth century, mission Indians appeared in the mines of Sonora and Chihuahua.