We Are Not Animals

Indigenous Politics of Survival, Rebellion, and Reconstitution in Nineteenth-Century California

Martin Rizzo-Martinez

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781496230324
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Native American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Winner of the 2023 John C. Ewers Award from the Western History Association
2023 Choice Outstanding Academic Title By examining historical records and drawing on oral histories and the work of anthropologists, archaeologists, ecologists, and psychologists, We Are Not Animals sets out to answer questions regarding who the Indigenous people in the Santa Cruz region were and how they survived through the nineteenth century. Between 1770 and 1900 the linguistically and culturally diverse Ohlone and Yokuts tribes adapted to and expressed themselves politically and culturally through three distinct colonial encounters with Spain, Mexico, and the United States. In We Are Not Animals Martin Rizzo-Martinez traces tribal, familial, and kinship networks through the missions' chancery registry records to reveal stories of individuals and families and shows how ethnic and tribal differences and politics shaped strategies of survival within the diverse population that came to live at Mission Santa Cruz. We Are Not Animals illuminates the stories of Indigenous individuals and families to reveal how Indigenous politics informed each of their choices within a context of immense loss and violent disruption.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. First Were Taken the Children, and Then the Parents Followed
• 2. The Diverse Nations within the Mission
• 3. The Mission of Padre Killers
• 4. Chief Malimin (Coleto) and the Rise of the Yokuts
• 5. Not Finding Anything Else to Appropriate
• 6. Genocide and American Fantasies of Ancient Indians
• 7. They Won’t Try to Kill You If They Think You’re Already Dead
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About Martin Rizzo-Martinez
• Illustrations
• Tables