Making Community in the Colonial Hinterland of Coastal Marin County, California

Summary

From the first baptism in 1783 to the last recorded baptism in 1832, at least 2,800 Coast Miwoks from the Marin Peninsula entered Spanish missions in the San Francisco Bay area. Understandably, and like most accounts of Indian entanglements with Spanish missions, the story of Coast Miwok missionization and assumed cultural loss is told through the documents and trowel work at Spanish missions. Comparably less is known of the world beyond the mission walls and in the hinterlands that took shape during the mission-era and afterward. After discussing the hinterland landscapes of Spanish missions in the San Francisco Bay—including the places where Coast Miwok fled to escape missions and other places where some kept to themselves—I borrow the concept of a "littoral borderland" to showcase community-making at shoreline zones away from the eyes of missionaries. In doing so, I present archaeological and historical research underway examining Coast Miwok communities of the Tomales Bay region forged in the wake of consecutive waves of colonization.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The Forging of Communities in Colonial Alta California, 1769-1834

Keywords

Spatial Coverage