Jennifer A Lucido | California State University, Monterey Bay (original) (raw)
Papers by Jennifer A Lucido
Up Close and From Afar: New World Anthropology from Russian and American Perspectives (Proceedings from the 1st and 2nd Russian- American Research Nexus Forums), 2022
With this paper, I use a microhistorical approach to examine the lives of African-descended siste... more With this paper, I use a microhistorical approach to examine the lives of African-descended sisters María Tomasa and María Eustaquia Gutiérrez, daughters of María Feliciana Arballo de Gutiérrez, who is the common ancestor of many well-known Spanish and Mexican colonial families of Alta California. The Gutiérrez women were born into a caste system that consisted of Spanish or español, Indian or indio, and African or negro and produced a host of other combinations of ethnicities and castes. This paper seeks to highlight the Gutiérrez sisters as historically marginalized women in minority groups (African descent and racial identity), and their representation within the fields of history and archaeology in an effort to reclaim the suppressed and minimized histories of African-descended peoples of California. In order to situate Gutiérrez sisters and their African-derived casta within the broader Spanish-Mexican colonial historical narrative, I first review the origins of the African diaspora and slavery in the Americas, and New Spain (Mexico) in particular. This is further discussed within the context of African-derived identity labels in scholarship and the different theoretical perspectives related to Afro-Hispanic ethnogenesis. Through the archival research of primary sources, census and mission records, and other supporting documents, I then trace the Gutiérrez sisters' lives from Mexico to California. While the extent to which the Gutiérrez sisters were aware of their African-derived identity has not yet been determined, it is nonetheless important to document and provide more visibility of the Afro-Hispanic descended settlers in the mainstream historical narrative of California.
Feast, Famine or Fighting?
![Research paper thumbnail of Professor David Hornbeck, PhD: The Life and Legacy of an Extraordinary California Historical Geographer [1940-2020]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/65230843/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Boletín: The Journal of the California Missions Foundation. Volume 36, Number 1, pp. 139-159., 2020
On Wednesday, 22 April of 2020, Dr. David Hornbeck, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Geogr... more On Wednesday, 22 April of 2020, Dr. David Hornbeck, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Geography of the California State University, Northridge, succumbed to Covid-19. Given David’s longstanding devotion to historical geography, land use, and sustainability, perhaps it is no wonder that his life’s journey would end on Earth Day. We here review Dr. Hornbeck’s contributions through the filter of our efforts to preserve his personal papers and extensive research and documentary collections through the development of the CSU Monterey Bay Digital Commons “Hornbeck Collection - Historical Land Use in California” website (see https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/hornbeck/).
BOLETIN: CALIFORNIA MISSIONS FOUNDATION, 2019
Boletín: Journal of the California Missions Foundation, 2018
Borderlands and frontiers impact identity, culture, and social organization. As such, most studie... more Borderlands and frontiers impact identity, culture, and social organization. As such, most studies of 18th and 19th century California emphasize the role of the Franciscan missionaries, soldiers,
and other settlers in their colonization of the Spanish frontier and the subsequent transformative impacts to Native Californians. By contrast, mainstream scholarship that thoroughly examines gender and sexual politics of Alta California is still adequately underrepresented.
Spanish-Mexican women, like their male counterparts, were critical participants in the colonization process and contributed to the development of Alta California’s colonial landscape. A microscale analysis of successive generations of women from one Spanish California’s earliest settler families, the Arballo lineage, provides a nuanced examination of colonial women on the frontier. The women central to this paper include: Feliciana Arballo, María Ignacia Lόpez, and
sisters Josefa and Ramona Carrillo. Specifically, this paper interrogates how these women acted both as partners and individual agents within the colonization process.
A synopsis and review of the Compendio Metodico y Claro del Cómputo Eclesiastico published by Don... more A synopsis and review of the Compendio Metodico y Claro del Cómputo Eclesiastico published by Don Pedro del Rio in 1790 to serve as an overview of the history of science specific to the calibration of the liturgical calendar via the Luna-Solar calendar. Replete with extensive tables for the calibration of the calendar by way of lunation cycles. This copy was used at Mission Santa Barbara for just such purposes, and served as the classic compendium for study and training specific to the calibrations so noted.
A synopsis and review of the 1830 early California medical treatise of Spanish missions friar Fra... more A synopsis and review of the 1830 early California medical treatise of Spanish missions friar Fray Vicente Francisco de Sarría (1767-1835) regarding the methods for conducting a cesarean section. Handwritten and copied to other early California missions friars in 1830, the treatise was intended to address life-saving procedures for the rescue of California Indian infants whose mothers died in childbirth.
A synopsis and review of the 1784 publication of Dr. Francisco Gil regarding his Physical-Medical... more A synopsis and review of the 1784 publication of Dr. Francisco Gil regarding his Physical-Medical Dissertation regarding the prescribed method for the inoculation of peoples against smallpox...and distributed within the Spanish missions of the Americas. Of the 20 copies distributed in early California, all were used to launch the large-scale inoculation of the California Indians against smallpox, which was all but eradicated during the Mission era.
A synopsis of the historical underpinnings specific to the Edward Deakin (1838-1923) painting of ... more A synopsis of the historical underpinnings specific to the Edward Deakin (1838-1923) painting of Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Río Carmelo of circa 1890s. Contribution to the Treasures commemorative volume of the Santa Barbara Mission Archives-Library on their 50th anniversary.
Boletín: Journal of the California Missions Foundation, 2017
![Research paper thumbnail of Chapter 13: TOLLAN TEOTIHUACAN: Multiethnic Mosaics, Corporate Interaction, and Social Complexity in Mesoamerica [2017]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/57502656/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Feast, Famine or Fighting? Multiple Pathways to Social Complexity. Pp. 337-392. Edited by Richard J. Chacon and Ruben G. Mendoza., Feb 18, 2017
Despite its longstanding preeminence as one of the earliest, largest, and most complex urban cent... more Despite its longstanding preeminence as one of the earliest, largest, and most complex urban centers of highland Mexico, Teotihuacan’s pan-regional impact on Mesoamerica remains the subject of intense debate and conflicting models centering on the rise of social complexity in the American hemisphere. Therefore, this study seeks to address the interplay and operationalization of resource concentration, multiethnic mosaics, and corporate interaction and inter-elite conflict within and beyond the context of the preindustrial metropolis of Teotihuacan. Findings from this review predictably indicate that the ancient highland polity was borne of but one of a host of Late Formative compound chiefdoms situated in the Basin of Mexico, albeit on a semiarid plain that necessitated the formation of an incipient managerial elite devoted to the management of the region’s hydraulic resources. While water management per se may be construed an initial stimulus to the formation of sociopolitical complexity in the highlands, the authors contend that this fact alone did not distinguish Teotihuacan, or for that matter, render it a competitive advantage over other early polities of the region. Its uniqueness, they argue, was borne of (a) its strategic location proximate to both major obsidian deposits and a highland transport network to the Gulf lowlands, (b) a pattern of recurrent demographic restructuring occasioned by the cataclysmic eruptions of Popocatépetl, Malinche, and Xitle, (c) the formation of multiethnic mosaics and foreign enclaves both within and beyond the metropolis as a result of the two foregoing conditions, and by extension, (d) the emergence of multiethnic corporate groups dedicated to commerce and industry centered on Teotihuacan. In an effort to fully interrogate the extant evidence for the evolution of social complexity in the Basin of Mexico, the authors extend the analysis to those findings bearing on the troubled times of the Late Middle Classic/Epiclassic decline, collapse, and destruction of the ancient metropolis and its far flung outposts. In the final analysis, a review of that evidence bearing on the question of what ultimately became of Teotihuacan in the wake of its disintegration reveals a pattern of escalating internal conflict, militarization, and a balkanization and recapitulation of the constituent multiethnic mosaics that defined the cosmopolitan and multicultural origins of the metropolis from the outset.
Monterey was the first European capital of Alta California, and the Spanish Royal Presidio of Mon... more Monterey was the first European capital of Alta California, and the Spanish Royal Presidio of Monterey (aka El Real Presidio de San Carlos de Monte Rey), is one of the most historic sites in California. Despite its significance, the history and archaeology of the Presidio of Monterey has largely been forgotten and overshadowed by other 18th and 19th century California Spanish colonial mission and presidio sites. Analysis of the archaeological and historical records of the Presidio indicate an “underdevelopment” of the main quadrangle and defensive walls during the Spanish, Mexican, and early American periods. In contrast to this architectural underdevelopment of the site, analysis of census and mission records demonstrate the development of new cultural and ethnic identities. The soldiers and settlers of the Presidio experienced changes to their ascribed identities under the sistema de castas through processes of ethnogenesis, and transitioned to gente de razón, a more unified identity. Both archaeological and historical data present telling indicators for the changing nature of the Presidio’s physical and cultural landscapes during the colonial periods.
![Research paper thumbnail of Of Earth, Fire, and Faith: Architectural Practice in the Fernandino Missions of Alta California, 1769-1821 [2014]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/38284750/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](The Fernandino missions of Alta California provide decidedly new revelations regarding the inform... more The Fernandino missions of Alta California provide decidedly new revelations regarding the informal economy of design prevalent on the frontier. A key consideration in this regard concerns the extent to which informal or implicit, and thereby agile design principles, predominated over those explicit and fixed architectural practices decreed by the Colegio de Propaganda fide de San Fernando in Mexico City.
Boletín Volume 30, Number 1, 2014, Nov 2014
New Spain’s northwestern province of Alta California constituted a frontier for the waning years ... more New Spain’s northwestern province of Alta California constituted a frontier for the waning years of the Spanish empire’s imperial interests of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. For the founding colonists, however, California was a frontier for new beginnings. Through the examination of diverse primary sources, including census records and mission registers, the Interrogatorio de 1812, and an 1814 respuesta to the Interrogatorio by Fray Amorós, this paper examines colonial identity formation and its recontextualization on the frontier. It is this latter document by Father Amorós that in part serves to demonstrate that the utilization of the six casta
identifications ceased to be applicable to those colonial populations of the frontier. As such, this paper explores how it was that Alta California provided an opportunity for soldiers and settlers to reject the sistema de castas (caste system) practiced in New Spain in order to establish a
distinctive and more unified identity as gente de razón. In addition, this paper examines other incentives or pull-factors that motivated prospective soldiers and settlers to relocate to Alta California. The Spanish military settlement of El Real Presidio de San Carlos de Monterey, better known as the Royal Presidio of Monterey, herein serves as a case study. Ultimately, this study intends to contribute to the current scholarship on the history and presidial ethnogenesis of Monterey within the broader context of the Spanish colonial experience of the Provincias Internas, and Alta California in particular.
Boletín Volume 30, Number 1, 2014, Nov 2014
BOLETIN CALIFORNIA MISSION STUDIES ASSOCIATION, Nov 2013
Up Close and From Afar: New World Anthropology from Russian and American Perspectives (Proceedings from the 1st and 2nd Russian- American Research Nexus Forums), 2022
With this paper, I use a microhistorical approach to examine the lives of African-descended siste... more With this paper, I use a microhistorical approach to examine the lives of African-descended sisters María Tomasa and María Eustaquia Gutiérrez, daughters of María Feliciana Arballo de Gutiérrez, who is the common ancestor of many well-known Spanish and Mexican colonial families of Alta California. The Gutiérrez women were born into a caste system that consisted of Spanish or español, Indian or indio, and African or negro and produced a host of other combinations of ethnicities and castes. This paper seeks to highlight the Gutiérrez sisters as historically marginalized women in minority groups (African descent and racial identity), and their representation within the fields of history and archaeology in an effort to reclaim the suppressed and minimized histories of African-descended peoples of California. In order to situate Gutiérrez sisters and their African-derived casta within the broader Spanish-Mexican colonial historical narrative, I first review the origins of the African diaspora and slavery in the Americas, and New Spain (Mexico) in particular. This is further discussed within the context of African-derived identity labels in scholarship and the different theoretical perspectives related to Afro-Hispanic ethnogenesis. Through the archival research of primary sources, census and mission records, and other supporting documents, I then trace the Gutiérrez sisters' lives from Mexico to California. While the extent to which the Gutiérrez sisters were aware of their African-derived identity has not yet been determined, it is nonetheless important to document and provide more visibility of the Afro-Hispanic descended settlers in the mainstream historical narrative of California.
Feast, Famine or Fighting?
Boletín: The Journal of the California Missions Foundation. Volume 36, Number 1, pp. 139-159., 2020
On Wednesday, 22 April of 2020, Dr. David Hornbeck, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Geogr... more On Wednesday, 22 April of 2020, Dr. David Hornbeck, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Geography of the California State University, Northridge, succumbed to Covid-19. Given David’s longstanding devotion to historical geography, land use, and sustainability, perhaps it is no wonder that his life’s journey would end on Earth Day. We here review Dr. Hornbeck’s contributions through the filter of our efforts to preserve his personal papers and extensive research and documentary collections through the development of the CSU Monterey Bay Digital Commons “Hornbeck Collection - Historical Land Use in California” website (see https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/hornbeck/).
BOLETIN: CALIFORNIA MISSIONS FOUNDATION, 2019
Boletín: Journal of the California Missions Foundation, 2018
Borderlands and frontiers impact identity, culture, and social organization. As such, most studie... more Borderlands and frontiers impact identity, culture, and social organization. As such, most studies of 18th and 19th century California emphasize the role of the Franciscan missionaries, soldiers,
and other settlers in their colonization of the Spanish frontier and the subsequent transformative impacts to Native Californians. By contrast, mainstream scholarship that thoroughly examines gender and sexual politics of Alta California is still adequately underrepresented.
Spanish-Mexican women, like their male counterparts, were critical participants in the colonization process and contributed to the development of Alta California’s colonial landscape. A microscale analysis of successive generations of women from one Spanish California’s earliest settler families, the Arballo lineage, provides a nuanced examination of colonial women on the frontier. The women central to this paper include: Feliciana Arballo, María Ignacia Lόpez, and
sisters Josefa and Ramona Carrillo. Specifically, this paper interrogates how these women acted both as partners and individual agents within the colonization process.
A synopsis and review of the Compendio Metodico y Claro del Cómputo Eclesiastico published by Don... more A synopsis and review of the Compendio Metodico y Claro del Cómputo Eclesiastico published by Don Pedro del Rio in 1790 to serve as an overview of the history of science specific to the calibration of the liturgical calendar via the Luna-Solar calendar. Replete with extensive tables for the calibration of the calendar by way of lunation cycles. This copy was used at Mission Santa Barbara for just such purposes, and served as the classic compendium for study and training specific to the calibrations so noted.
A synopsis and review of the 1830 early California medical treatise of Spanish missions friar Fra... more A synopsis and review of the 1830 early California medical treatise of Spanish missions friar Fray Vicente Francisco de Sarría (1767-1835) regarding the methods for conducting a cesarean section. Handwritten and copied to other early California missions friars in 1830, the treatise was intended to address life-saving procedures for the rescue of California Indian infants whose mothers died in childbirth.
A synopsis and review of the 1784 publication of Dr. Francisco Gil regarding his Physical-Medical... more A synopsis and review of the 1784 publication of Dr. Francisco Gil regarding his Physical-Medical Dissertation regarding the prescribed method for the inoculation of peoples against smallpox...and distributed within the Spanish missions of the Americas. Of the 20 copies distributed in early California, all were used to launch the large-scale inoculation of the California Indians against smallpox, which was all but eradicated during the Mission era.
A synopsis of the historical underpinnings specific to the Edward Deakin (1838-1923) painting of ... more A synopsis of the historical underpinnings specific to the Edward Deakin (1838-1923) painting of Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Río Carmelo of circa 1890s. Contribution to the Treasures commemorative volume of the Santa Barbara Mission Archives-Library on their 50th anniversary.
Boletín: Journal of the California Missions Foundation, 2017
Feast, Famine or Fighting? Multiple Pathways to Social Complexity. Pp. 337-392. Edited by Richard J. Chacon and Ruben G. Mendoza., Feb 18, 2017
Despite its longstanding preeminence as one of the earliest, largest, and most complex urban cent... more Despite its longstanding preeminence as one of the earliest, largest, and most complex urban centers of highland Mexico, Teotihuacan’s pan-regional impact on Mesoamerica remains the subject of intense debate and conflicting models centering on the rise of social complexity in the American hemisphere. Therefore, this study seeks to address the interplay and operationalization of resource concentration, multiethnic mosaics, and corporate interaction and inter-elite conflict within and beyond the context of the preindustrial metropolis of Teotihuacan. Findings from this review predictably indicate that the ancient highland polity was borne of but one of a host of Late Formative compound chiefdoms situated in the Basin of Mexico, albeit on a semiarid plain that necessitated the formation of an incipient managerial elite devoted to the management of the region’s hydraulic resources. While water management per se may be construed an initial stimulus to the formation of sociopolitical complexity in the highlands, the authors contend that this fact alone did not distinguish Teotihuacan, or for that matter, render it a competitive advantage over other early polities of the region. Its uniqueness, they argue, was borne of (a) its strategic location proximate to both major obsidian deposits and a highland transport network to the Gulf lowlands, (b) a pattern of recurrent demographic restructuring occasioned by the cataclysmic eruptions of Popocatépetl, Malinche, and Xitle, (c) the formation of multiethnic mosaics and foreign enclaves both within and beyond the metropolis as a result of the two foregoing conditions, and by extension, (d) the emergence of multiethnic corporate groups dedicated to commerce and industry centered on Teotihuacan. In an effort to fully interrogate the extant evidence for the evolution of social complexity in the Basin of Mexico, the authors extend the analysis to those findings bearing on the troubled times of the Late Middle Classic/Epiclassic decline, collapse, and destruction of the ancient metropolis and its far flung outposts. In the final analysis, a review of that evidence bearing on the question of what ultimately became of Teotihuacan in the wake of its disintegration reveals a pattern of escalating internal conflict, militarization, and a balkanization and recapitulation of the constituent multiethnic mosaics that defined the cosmopolitan and multicultural origins of the metropolis from the outset.
Monterey was the first European capital of Alta California, and the Spanish Royal Presidio of Mon... more Monterey was the first European capital of Alta California, and the Spanish Royal Presidio of Monterey (aka El Real Presidio de San Carlos de Monte Rey), is one of the most historic sites in California. Despite its significance, the history and archaeology of the Presidio of Monterey has largely been forgotten and overshadowed by other 18th and 19th century California Spanish colonial mission and presidio sites. Analysis of the archaeological and historical records of the Presidio indicate an “underdevelopment” of the main quadrangle and defensive walls during the Spanish, Mexican, and early American periods. In contrast to this architectural underdevelopment of the site, analysis of census and mission records demonstrate the development of new cultural and ethnic identities. The soldiers and settlers of the Presidio experienced changes to their ascribed identities under the sistema de castas through processes of ethnogenesis, and transitioned to gente de razón, a more unified identity. Both archaeological and historical data present telling indicators for the changing nature of the Presidio’s physical and cultural landscapes during the colonial periods.
The Fernandino missions of Alta California provide decidedly new revelations regarding the inform... more The Fernandino missions of Alta California provide decidedly new revelations regarding the informal economy of design prevalent on the frontier. A key consideration in this regard concerns the extent to which informal or implicit, and thereby agile design principles, predominated over those explicit and fixed architectural practices decreed by the Colegio de Propaganda fide de San Fernando in Mexico City.
Boletín Volume 30, Number 1, 2014, Nov 2014
New Spain’s northwestern province of Alta California constituted a frontier for the waning years ... more New Spain’s northwestern province of Alta California constituted a frontier for the waning years of the Spanish empire’s imperial interests of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. For the founding colonists, however, California was a frontier for new beginnings. Through the examination of diverse primary sources, including census records and mission registers, the Interrogatorio de 1812, and an 1814 respuesta to the Interrogatorio by Fray Amorós, this paper examines colonial identity formation and its recontextualization on the frontier. It is this latter document by Father Amorós that in part serves to demonstrate that the utilization of the six casta
identifications ceased to be applicable to those colonial populations of the frontier. As such, this paper explores how it was that Alta California provided an opportunity for soldiers and settlers to reject the sistema de castas (caste system) practiced in New Spain in order to establish a
distinctive and more unified identity as gente de razón. In addition, this paper examines other incentives or pull-factors that motivated prospective soldiers and settlers to relocate to Alta California. The Spanish military settlement of El Real Presidio de San Carlos de Monterey, better known as the Royal Presidio of Monterey, herein serves as a case study. Ultimately, this study intends to contribute to the current scholarship on the history and presidial ethnogenesis of Monterey within the broader context of the Spanish colonial experience of the Provincias Internas, and Alta California in particular.
Boletín Volume 30, Number 1, 2014, Nov 2014
BOLETIN CALIFORNIA MISSION STUDIES ASSOCIATION, Nov 2013
In an effort to address the growing water crisis in California and the US Southwest, this environ... more In an effort to address the growing water crisis in California and the US Southwest, this environmental history and historical geography project effort deploys a digital humanities and
ethnohistory approach to sustainability. Historic maps, documents, and other resources of the Spanish, Mexican, and early American periods provide critical environmental data, and thereby, environmental histories of resource abundance and scarcity for the affected regions upon which millions of Americans depend. The vast archives of primary sources and Mexican land grant maps or diseños generated through the pioneering historical geography and geospatial studies of
Dr. David Hornbeck, Professor Emeritus at CSU Northridge, constitute the centerpiece of this project. This project initiative has engaged a team of geospatial specialists, technicians,
anthropologists, social historians, historical geographers, and environmental scientists for the expressed purpose of formulating a digital humanities approach to addressing California’s current environmental crisis and the broader question of sustainability. This effort has leveraged the intrinsic value of historic maps, Spanish mission records, and other primary source documents for the development of a robust online database and search engine that draws on Geographic Information System (GIS) and Google Earth technologies in its forthcoming deployment. We ultimately seek to make the primary source data in question available to scholars, public administrators, legislators, city planners, and the general public. The online portal presently in development will host a significant regional collection of historic maps and primary source documents available by way of search queries, GIS visualizations, and a Google Earth-based public access dissemination of all available content generated to date.
The colonial landscape of the Royal Presidio of Monterey was formed through a diverse array of pr... more The colonial landscape of the Royal Presidio of Monterey was formed through a diverse array of processes. This presentation focuses on the formation of the presidial landscape as a result of physical development and modification to the environment. Thus, I examine how different military regulations and individuals influenced the evolution of the Presidio’s general layout and construction of the built environment.
Monterey was the first European capital of Alta California, and the Spanish Royal Presidio of Mon... more Monterey was the first European capital of Alta California, and the Spanish Royal Presidio of Monterey (a.k.a. El Real Presidio de San Carlos de Monte Rey), is one of the most historic sites in California. Despite its significance, the history and archaeology of the Presidio of Monterey has largely been forgotten and overshadowed by other 18th and 19th century California Spanish colonial mission and presidio sites. Analysis of the archaeological and historical records of the Presidio indicate an “underdevelopment” of the main quadrangle and defensive walls during the Spanish, Mexican, and early American periods. In contrast to this architectural underdevelopment of the site, analysis of census and mission records demonstrate the development of new cultural and ethnic identities. The soldiers and settlers of the Presidio experienced changes to their ascribed identities under the sistema de castas through processes of ethnogenesis, and transitioned to gente de razón, a more unified identity. Both archaeological and historical data present telling indicators for the changing nature of the Presidio’s physical and cultural landscapes during the colonial periods.
New Spain’s northwestern province of Alta California constituted a frontier for the waning years ... more New Spain’s northwestern province of Alta California constituted a frontier for the waning years of the Spanish empire’s imperial interests of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. For the founding colonists, however, California was a frontier of new beginnings. Through the examination of diverse primary sources, including census records and mission registers, the Interrogatorio de 1812, and an 1814 respuesta or response to the Interrogatorio by Fray Amorós, this paper examines colonial identity formation and its recontextualization on the frontier. It is this latter document by Father Amorós that in part serves to demonstrate that the utilization of the six casta identifications ceased to be applicable to those colonial and presidial populations of the frontier. As such, this paper explores how it was that Alta California provided an opportunity for soldiers and settlers to reject the sistema de castas (caste system) practiced in New Spain in order to establish a distinctive and more unified identity as gente de razón (people of reason). In addition, this paper examines other incentives or pull-factors that motivated prospective soldiers and settlers to relocate and thereby contribute to the colonization of Alta California. The Spanish military settlement of El Real Presidio de San Carlos de Monterey, better known as the Royal Presidio of Monterey, herein serves as a case study. Ultimately, this study intends to contribute to the current scholarship on the history and presidial ethnogenesis of Monterey within the broader context of the Spanish colonial experience of the Provincias Internas, and Alta California in particular.
This research design proposes to examine the evolving Spanish colonial institution of the presidi... more This research design proposes to examine the evolving Spanish colonial institution of the presidio (military post or garrison) within northwestern North America, spanning the late 18th to mid-19th centuries. The study will compare and analyze presidios from different geographic and cultural regions. The research objectives are to determine distinctive and analogous qualities in presidial sociocultural and ethnic identities, ecological and economic conditions, and overall long-term culture change of presidial Amerindians. Case studies include the Royal Presidio of Monterey, Alta California (California), and the Royal Presidio of San Agustin del Tucson, Pimería Alta, a region within the province of Sonora-Sinaloa (Arizona).
The Royal Presidio of Monterey served as the focal institution of military power and government ... more The Royal Presidio of Monterey served as the focal institution of military power and government of Alta California from ca. 1770 to 1840 during the Spanish colonial missionization of the indigenous populations. Like the Franciscan missions, the Royal Presidio of Monterey was a multicultural settlement, home to Spanish soldiers, mestizo settlers, and Native Californians. During archaeological monitoring of the Royal Presidio of Monterrey, spanning from 2006 through 2008 which was conducted by Dr. Ruben Mendoza and his field crew of California State University, Monterey Bay students, significant Mission era architectural features were discovered and identified, in addition to the recovery of rich material culture and great quantities of faunal assemblages. Through the investigation of those recovered faunal remains, this capstone project examines the cultural modifications or cutmark patterns produced during butchery practices and consumption patterns and the relationship of such to socio-cultural identities within the Presidio demographic. In addition, butchery patterns can aid in the identification of certain types of cutmarks and tool technologies that created them of which may represent a cultural group, such as distinctions between Native Californians and Spanish colonists. Furthermore, an experimental archaeology component is highlighted in this capstone project which attempted to replicate those modifications on the faunal remains with the intentions of identifying the cutting implements and any socio-cultural indicators that produced said cutmarks. Ultimately, this capstone offers preliminary hypotheses of which further research is necessitated in order to draw more conclusive evidence of socio-cultural markers in the faunal assemblages of the Royal Presidio of Monterey.
Purpose of the Study: The Royal Presidio of Monterey functioned as the center of cultural, politi... more Purpose of the Study: The Royal Presidio of Monterey functioned as the center of cultural, political, and economic activities in California during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. There has been very little published about the Presidio of Monterey in comparison to the other three Presidios and the 21 California missions despite this significance. The purpose of this study is to produce a Historic Resource Study of the
Presidio centered on the period from 1770 to 1840. The study provides a detailed historical and archaeological overview of the Presidio in order to inform future legal compliance and preservation efforts. This thesis also contributes to scholarship on the Presidio's formation as a frontier settlement, examining both the built environment and sociocultural landscape.
Procedure: Archival data was collected using historical research methods and then cross-compared with archaeological investigations in order to describe and reconstruct the evolution of the Presidio quadrangle through time. In addition, census and mission
records and other primary sources were examined in order to identify and interpret processes of ethnogenesis among the soldiers and settlers at the Presidio of Monterey.
Findings: Two primary processes contributed to the formation of the Presidio. First, the Presidio quadrangle underwent physical processes, including five major phases of construction and modification due to inconsistent maintenance, fire and weather damage,
foreign attack, and changing leadership. Second, the soldiers and settlers of the Presidio experienced changes to their ascribed identities under the sistema de castas through processes of ethnogenesis and transitioned to gente de razon, a more unified identity.
Conclusions: The review of documentary and archaeological records demonstrates that the colonial landscape of the Presidio was formed through a diverse array of physical and cultural processes during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. These processes included
various physical developments and modifications to the environment as well as significant changes in colonial social and ethnic structures. By examining how space is created and reconfigured with that of sociocultural processes, archaeologists can better understand the ways in which colonial subjects perceived and shaped their experiences
within the landscape.
Western Historical Quarterly, 2017
This volume gathers papers from Russian and American anthropologists and historians dealing with ... more This volume gathers papers from Russian and American anthropologists
and historians dealing with ancient and modern cultures and societies
of the New World. Their scope extends from Early Colonial American
and European imaginary to the survival and revival of ethnic minorities’
traditional culture in our times. The works collected here were first
presented at the 1st and 2nd Russian-American Research Nexus (RARN)
Forums that took place in 2020 and 2021, respectively.