Situating Rancho Johnson: Landscape transitions in Baja California

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The U.S.-Mexico borderlands have been shaped by cultural exchange, binational power dynamics, and its unique ecosystems. This paper explores the political ecology of landscape transformations in northwestern Baja California in the nineteenth century at the site of Rancho Johnson, located near Punta Colonet and today a working ranch. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, it served as an important stopping point for travelers on a major route in Baja Peninsula. Rancho Johnson was an Anglo-owned ranch and a site where technological improvements from the U.S. and Mexico were introduced. In this paper, we examine features at the site reflecting introduced improvements and their impacts on the surrounding coastal desert landscape. Using surveys, historical photographs, and journals, we reconstruct a timeline of changes and compare them to political and economic initiatives in Baja California. We demonstrate how the construction of a distillery, the introduction of water pumping technologies, and expansion of cattle grazing were tied to larger social changes in the Peninsula. These technological introductions, fueled by political and social shifts in Baja California, provided early support to tourism in the region and had lasting impacts on the coastal desert ecology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33344