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Yokuts Trade Networks and Native Culture Change (23 pages)
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Page: of 23
626 Brooke S. Arkush
tive area for Spanish Catholicism (Wallace 1978a: 459). Beginning in 1806,
several expeditions were sent into the interior to locate favorable sites for
mission settlements (Gayton 1936; Cook 1960), but none were ever found
owing to the lack of permanent water sources and building stone.
The Franciscan missions of coastal Alta California had a greater
impact upon the Northern Valley Yokuts than they did upon the southern valley peoples. Intensive recruitment among northern Yokuts groups
began around 1805 and continued into the 1820s (Wallace 1978b: 468).
The majority of them were taken to the San José, Santa Clara, Soledad,
San Juan Bautista, and San Antonio missions (Merriam 1955: 188-225,
1968: 48-77) (Fig. 1). Smaller portions of the southern lake tribes were
settled mostly at the Soledad, San Luis Obispo, San Antonio, and San Juan
Bautista missions (Wallace 1978a: 460) (Fig. 1).
During the late-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the native
mission populations steadily diminished owing to declining birth rates,
disease, and defections (Phillips 1974: 297; Hoover 1989). As a result, military detachments ventured into the interior to capture runaway neophytes
(Heizer and Elsasser 1980: 228) and to seek out new recruits (Wallace
1978b: 468; Hurtado 1988: 25-26, 34; Castillo 1989: 302). Mission retrieval and recruitment expeditions varied in size, but usually consisted of
a number of soldiers, one or more officers, a priest, and various Indian neophytes who served as military auxiliaries, guides, and interpreters. Each
group was outfitted with the appropriate amounts of arms, ammunition,
rations, horses, and mules as was necessary for the length of their particular trip. Neophyte allies usually were armed with bows and arrows and
fought on foot (Hoover 1989: 402).
The main objectives of Spanish military expeditions to the interior
were to recover deserters, to retrieve stolen property (mostly horses), and
to punish unconverted Indians who harbored runaways (Heizer 1941: 103;
Castillo 1989). At first, the Yokuts generally greeted the soldiers and padres
warmly, but as these campaigns increased in frequency and violence, the
Yokuts reacted with hostility and began to offer armed resistance to the
church/military expeditions (Cook 1960: 259; Castillo 1989: 383). The following accounts are taken from the report of Father Fray José Viader of
Mission San José concerning two trips to the interior during August and
October of 1810.
22nd day [of August]. The Indians who had said they would come
did not come and we went on in the same south-southeasterly direction. After we had gone about two leagues about thirty armed
heathen appeared on the opposite bank of the river. Asked by our