The Esselen are a Native American people belonging to a linguistic group in the hypothetical Hokan language family, who are Indigenous to the Santa Lucia Mountains of a region south of the Big Sur River in California. Prior to Spanish imperialization, they lived seasonally on the coast and inland, surviving off the plentiful seafood during the summer and acorns and wildlife during the rest of the year.

During the mission period of California history, Esselen children were forcibly baptized by the Spanish Christian priests when they left their villages and relocated as family units to live in the missions where they learned reading, writing, and various trades. The Esselen were required to labor at the three nearby missions, Mission San Carlos, Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, and Mission San Antonio de Padua. Like many Native American populations, their members were decimated at the hands of the Spanish invaders by starvation, forced labor, over work, torture, and diseases that they had no natural resistance to.

Historically, they were one of the smallest Native American populations in California. Various experts estimate there were from 500 to 1,285 individuals living in the steep, rocky region at the time of the invasion of the Spanish. Due to their proximity to three Spanish missions, they were likely one of the first whose culture was virtually eliminated as a result of European invasion and incursion. The people were believed to have been exterminated but some tribal members avoided the invaders, preserving their culture, and emerged from the forest to work in nearby ranches in the early and late 1800s. Descendants of the Esselen are currently scattered, but many still live in the Monterey Peninsula area and nearby regions.

thumb|Map of Esselen tribelets

Origins

thumb|Distribution map of the Esselen language in California prior to contact with European cultures

Archaeological and linguistic evidence indicates that the original people's territory once extended much farther north, into the San Francisco Bay Area, until they were displaced by the entrance of Ohlone people. Based on linguistic evidence, Richard Levy places the displacement at around AD 500. Breschini and Haversat place the entry of Ohlone speakers into the Monterey area prior to 200 B.C. based on multiple lines of evidence. Carbon dating of excavated sites places the Esselen in the Big Sur since circa 2630 BCE. Recently, however, researchers have obtained a radiocarbon date from coastal Esselen territory in the Big Sur River drainage dated prior to 6,500 years ago (archeological site CA-MNT-88). "The Rock" may refer to the tall promontory, visible for miles both up and down the coast, on which the Point Sur Lighthouse is situated.

The Spanish extended the term to mean the entire linguistic group. Variant spellings exist in old records, including Aschatliens, Ecclemach, Eslen, Eslenes, Excelen, and Escelen. "Aschatliens" may refer to a group around Mission San Carlos, in and around the village of Achasta.

Achasta was a Rumsen Ohlone village, and totally unrelated to the Esselen. Achasta was possibly founded only after the establishment of Mission San Carlos. It was the closest village to Mission San Carlos, and was 10+ miles from Esselen territory. "Eslenes" was nowhere near Mission San Carlos. On January 3, 1603, explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno found a deserted Indian village about a mile from what later became the site of the Carmel Mission.

Language

The Esselen language is a language isolate. It is hypothetically part of the Hokan family. The language was spoken in the northern Santa Lucia Range. Prior to contact with European culture, there were between 500 and 1000 speakers. French explorer Jean La Pérouse, who visited Monterey in 1786, recorded 22 words in 1786. He wrote in his journal during the expedition:

In 1792, Spanish ship captain Dionisio Alcalá Galiano recorded 107 words and phrases. In 1832, Father Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta recorded another 58 words and 14 phrases at Mission Soledad. The speakers were from the Arroyo Seco area to the east. The neighboring Rumsen people were fluent in Esselen and they provided de la Cuesta with some language. A total of about 300 words along with some short phrases have been identified. Examples include mamamanej (fire); koxlkoxl (fish); and ni-tsch-ekė (my husband). Isabel Meadows, who also spoke Rumsen, was the last fluent Esselen speaker. She died in 1939.

Geography

The Central California coast in this region is marked by high, steep cliffs and rocky shores, interrupted by small coastal creeks with occasional, small beaches. The mountains are very rugged with narrow canyons. The terrain makes the area relatively inaccessible, long-term habitation a challenge, and limited the size of the native population.

Locations

It is believed there were three Esselen geo-political districts: Imunahan, comprising the central Arroyo Seco watershed; Excelen, including the upper Carmel River; and Ekheahan, including the upper watersheds of the Arroyo Seco and Big Sur Rivers along with a section of the Big Sur coast between Posts and Big Creek further south.

Within each district the people occupied several villages depending on the season and availability of food, water, and shelter. Carbon dating tests of artifacts found near Slates Hot Springs, presently owned by the Esalen Institute, indicate human presence as early as 3500 BC. With easy access to the ocean, fresh water and hot springs, the Esselen people used the site regularly, and certain areas were reserved as burial grounds.

Food sources

Due to the relative abundance of food resources, the Esselen people never developed agriculture and remained hunter-gatherers. They followed local food sources seasonally, living near the coast in winter, where they harvested rich stocks of mussels, limpets, abalone and other sea life.

Evidence of baskets have been found and were probably the principal item used to furnish households. Basket design included large conical baskets for carrying burdens, hemispherical-shaped cooking bowls, flat trays, and small boat-shaped baskets which may have been seed-beaters. They traded acorns, fish, salt, baskets, hides and pelts, shells and beads with other tribes.

Dwellings

There are virtually no contemporary records of the Esselen people's lives. Researchers believe that they lived in a manner very much like the Ohlone people to the north and the Costonoan people near present-day Monterey. Miguel Constanso, who traveled with Portola's expeditions 175 years later, wrote about the homes of the Indians who lived on the Santa Barbara Channel. He described how they lived in dome-shaped dwellings covered with bundled mats of tules. The homes were up to across and three or four families lived in a single dwelling. They built a fire pit in the middle and left a vent or chimney in the center of the roof.

Spiritual beliefs

The Esselen left hand prints on rock faces in a few locations. About 250 have been found in a single rock shelter located a few miles from Tassajara (designated by archeologists as CA-MNT-44). Smaller numbers of handprints have been found in a few caves or rock shelters in the same area and in the next valley to the west.

Climate

Rainfall varies from throughout the range, with the most falling on the higher mountains in the north; almost all precipitation falls in the winter. During the summer, fog and low clouds are frequent along the coast up to an elevation of several thousand feet. Surface runoff from rainfall events is rapid, and many streams dry up entirely in the summer, except for some perennial streams in the wetter areas in the north.

European contact

Viscaino, likely the first European to land on the Central Coast of California, wrote about his visit to Monterey Bay from December 16, 1602, to January 3, 1603.

thumb|300px|left|A drawing of [[Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo prepared by Captain George Vancouver depicts the grounds as they appeared in November 1792. Round, native huts of thatched branches are shown in the background. From A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World.]]

Father Junipero Serra first established the original mission in Monterey on June 3, 1770, near the native village of Tamo. It was also adjacent to the Presidio and headquarters of Pedro Fages, who served as military governor of Alta California between 1770 and 1774.

Fages worked his men very harshly and complaints mounted until Serra intervened. He told Fages that, as a Christian, he had to observe the sabbath and let his men rest on Sundays. But the soldiers raped the Indian woman and took them as concubines. At Serra's urging, Fages punished some of the more excessive incidents of sexual abuse, but it did not stop. Fages regarded the Spanish installations in California as military institutions first and religious outposts second. Fages and Serra were engaged in a heated power struggle and Serra decided to move the mission.

Spanish missions

In May 1771, the viceroy approved Serra's petition to relocate the mission to its current location near the Carmel River and present-day town of Carmel-by-the-Sea and named it Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo. Serra's goal in part was to put some distance between the mission's neophytes and from Fages and his troops.

Under Spanish law, the Esselen were technically free individuals, but they could be compelled by force to labor without pay. With the help of the soldiers who guarded the mission, the Esselen and Ohlone Indians who lived near the mission were forcibly relocated, conscripted, and trained as plowmen, shepherds, cattle herders, blacksmiths, and carpenters on the mission. Disease, starvation, over work, and torture decimated the tribe.

The Esselen had ongoing conflicts with the neighboring Rumsen tribe over crops and hunting grounds. The Rumsen initially assisted the Franciscans and when they fell on hard times, taught the missionaries what they could harvest from the wild for food.

The priests baptized a number of Esselen during 1776, most of them children, and a few more in the following years. The priests allowed the children after baptism to continue to live with their parents in their village until they reached the "age of reason," which was about nine years old. In 1783, the soldiers fought the Excelen and killed a few of them. The battle may have resulted from the soldiers' attempts to collect the children and force them to live at the mission. Baptisms picked up again after this date, perhaps because the Excelen saw they could not defeat the soldiers and decided they wanted to be with their children. Upon baptism the Esselen were considered to be part of a monastic order and subject to the rules of that order. This placed them, by Spanish law, under the direct authority of the padres. The girls were separated from their families at age 8 and required to sleep in a segregated, locked dormitory called the monjero (nunnery). Once they rose, they worked inside until they finished their chores around lunch time, they were allowed some time to visit their family's homes in the mission village. Married women whose husbands were absent and widows were also required to sleep there. The boys and unmarried men also had their own dormitory, though it was less confining.

French explorer Jean La Pérouse visited Monterey with two ships on September 14, 1786. Two days after he arrived, he visited Mission San Carlos Borromeo. In honor of his reception, the Indian neophytes were given an extra ration of food and lined up to see him. La Pérouse's described the natives as lifeless, robbed of spirit, traumatized, and depressed. Among other things, he described severe punishments inflicted on the Indians by the friars. He thought they considered the Indians "too much a child, too much a slave, too little a man." Until western contact, the native people lived in small villages of between 30 and 100 people.

From 1783 to 1785, about 40% of the Excelen were baptized. Another three Esselen were baptized at the Mission Soledad in the early 1790s, but by 1798 the majority of the Indians had been baptized. A new priest, Father Amoró, arrived in September 1804 and injected fresh energy into baptism efforts. From 1804 to 1808, 25 individuals from Excelen were baptized during these final four years. They comprised nearly 10% of the total Excelen population who were baptized. They had held out for 33 years after proselytizing began in their area. The last five baptized were all older, from 45 to 80 years. The total number of Esselen baptized is estimated to range from 790 to 856.

It may be that the older Esselen were baptized last because they were left alone and unable to support themselves after their children and grandchildren had already been coerced into living at the mission. There is some evidence that a few Esselen hid in the rugged, higher reaches of the mountains where the Spanish soldiers could not find them. Sherburne F. Cook raised this estimate to 750. and by conscript labor, poor food, and forced assimilation. Most of the Esselen people's villages within the current Los Padres National Forest were left largely uninhabited.

Some anthropologists and linguists assumed that the Esselen people's culture had been virtually extinguished by as early as the 1840s. However, existing tribe members cite evidence that some Esselen were able to move beyond the reach of the Spanish soldiers, who rode on horseback, by hiding in the rugged interior of the Santa Lucia Mountains. In the 1840s, some Esselen are believed to have migrated to the ranchos and rural areas outside the growing towns. Archaeologists located the grave of a girl estimated to be about six years old buried in Isabel Meadows Cave in the Church Creek area. They calculated the date of her burial to be about 1825. Two experts received reports of Indians living in the area through the 1850s.

Federal recognition

About 460 individuals have identified themselves as descendants of the original Esselen people and banded together to form a tribe. The Department of the Interior has set aside of Fort Ord that the tribe can use to build a cultural center and museum. But they must first obtain federal recognition. They have been assisted by Alan Leventhal, a lecturer and volunteer at San Jose State University, and Dr. Les Field of the University of New Mexico, who have helped establish the tribe's cultural identity.

Many anthropologists believed that the Costanoan-speaking people encompassed a geographical area from north of San Francisco to Monterey. The name Costanoan is derived from a generic name Costaños ('coast-men) applied by the Spanish to all native people on the coast. It was later corrupted as Costanoan in the English language. As a result of the 1928 California Indian Jurisdictional Act enrollment, almost every Bureau of Indian Affairs "enrollee" of Esselen descent was categorized as Costanoan by the agency.

In 2010 the Esselen Nation petitioned the federal government for recognition as a tribe. The Bureau of Indian Affairs says the tribe does not meet the formal criteria used to recognize a tribe.

Tribal land

In the 20th century, Axel Adler built a cabin on the former Bixby Ranch and gradually acquired more land. In 2013, descendants of the Adler family who lived in Sweden put of the Adler Ranch on the market for $15 million. It is located at the end and south of Palo Colorado Road. The ranch is located along the Little Sur River at the northwestern edge of the Ventana Wilderness adjacent to the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District's Mill Creek Redwood Preserve and the Los Padres National Forest, and includes the peak of Bixby Mountain and the upper portions of Mescal Ridge. The El Sur Ranch and Pico Blanco Mountain are to the south. The tract contains old-growth redwoods, grasslands, oak woodlands, chaparral, and madrone forest. The ranch is an important habitat for California spotted owls, California condors, California red-legged frogs, marbled murrelets, and bald and golden eagles. The property is especially valuable because it includes nine legal parcels, five of which could be developed. The Big Sur Land Trust stated it was not interested in acquiring the property.

On October 2, 2019, the California Natural Resources Agency announced it was seeking funding through Proposition 68, a bond measure approved by voters in 2018, to obtain the land for the tribe. The Adler family agreed to sell of the Adler Ranch. The land was purchased through a $4.52 million grant from the California Natural Resources Agency. In late July 2020 the purchase of the Adler Ranch successfully closed and the property was transferred to the Esselen tribe. The land acquisition could help facilitate federal recognition of the tribe.

"It is beyond words for us, the highest honor," said Tom Little Bear Nason, chairman of the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County. "The land is the most important thing to us. It is our homeland, the creation story of our lives. We are so elated and grateful." The Esselen tribe has 214 members and intends to share it with other Central Coast tribes such as the Ohlone, the , and the Rumsen people who also were decimated during the Mission Era

The Esalen Institute in Big Sur is named after this tribe as was the former Boy Scouts of America Monterey Bay Area Council Order of the Arrow Esselen Lodge #531.

See also

  • Kuksu (religion)

Notes

References

  • Bean, Lowell John, editor. 1994. The Ohlone: Past and Present Native Americans of the San Francisco Bay Region. Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication. . Includes Leventhal et al. Ohlone Back from Extinction.
  • Breschini, Gary S. and Trudy Haversat 2004. The Esselen Indians of the Big Sur Country: The Land and the People. Salinas, CA: Coyote Press.
  • Breschini, Gary S. and Trudy Haversat 2005. A Brief Overview of the Esselen Indians of Monterey County. File retrieved Sep 7, 2007.
  • Levy, Richard. 1978. Costanoan, in Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 8 (California). William C. Sturtevant, and Robert F. Heizer, eds. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. / 0160045754
  • Cook, Sherburne F. 1976. The Conflict between the California Indian and White Civilization. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
  • Kroeber, Alfred L. 1925. Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C.
  • Hester, Thomas R. 1978. Esselen, in Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 8 (California). William C. Sturtevant, and Robert F. Heizer, eds. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978, pages 496–499. / 0160045754
  • Esselen Tribal website
  • Ohlone Costanoan Tribal website
  • An Overview of the Esselen Indians of Monterey County - Big Sur Chamber of Commerce