The phrase Mission Indians is applied to many different Native peoples in North America converted by Christ-ian missionaries and resettled on missions. Soon after the European discovery of North America, various
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MISSION INDIANS 165
churches sent out missionaries to seek converts among the Native population. At every stage of development thereafter, missionaries carried their work to the edge of the frontier.
Much of what is known about early Indians comes from the writings of missionaries. Some of the most famous North American explorers were churchmen, such as Isaac Jogues, who explored the eastern Great Lakes and New York’s Lake George; Claude-Jean Allouez, who explored the western Great Lakes; and Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, who reached the Mississippi River.
French Jesuit priests, members of the Roman Catholic Society of Jesus, were the most active of all the mission-aries in colonial times, exploring Indian territory from bases in Quebec. Work by them and others like them among the ALGONQUIANS and Iroquoians—the IRO
-QUOIS (HAUDENOSAUNEE) and the HURON (WYAN
-DOT)—during the middle to late 1600s brought about settlements of Mission Indians, such as the MOHAWKat Kahnawake. Other Catholic orders had an impact on Indian history as well, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, mostly based in Mexico.
Some of the Protestant denominations active in mis-sionary work were the Puritans, Society of Friends (the Quakers), Moravians, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Baptists, and Methodists. These missionaries advanced into Indian country mainly from eastern coastal regions.
Some of the better known mission settlements resulting from their efforts were Natick among the MASSACHUSET; Stockbridge among the MAHICAN; Conestoga among the
SUSQUEHANNOCK; Gnadenhutten among the LENNI LENAPE (DELAWARE); and Metlakatla among the
TSIMSHIAN.
Many of these peoples resettled on missions are referred to in history books as Mission Indians. The phrase, however, is most often applied to CALIFORNIA INDIANS, many of whom lost their tribal identities under the influence of Spanish missionaries.
After the Spanish had explored and settled ARAWAK
(TAINO) lands in the West Indies in the Caribbean, they pushed on into Central and South America. The colony of New Spain (now Mexico) was founded in 1521 after the conquest of the AZTEC city of Tenochtitlán. Spain then gradually spread its dominion northward. In 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded St. Augustine in Florida, the first permanent European settlement in North America.
The territory that was to become the American Southwest also was soon developed by the Spanish.
Explorers, the conquistadores, worked their way northward through Mexico. A military man and a priest often traveled together so that both state and church were represented. In 1598, Juan de Oñate founded the settlements of San Juan de Yunque and Santa Fe in New Mexico in 1609 among the PUEBLO INDIANS. In 1718, Martín de Alarcón founded San Antonio in Texas. By the mid-1700s, the Spanish were establishing missions, presidios (forts), and rancherias in Baja California, which is now part of Mexico. The first Spanish settlement in the part of California that is now U.S. territory was San Diego, founded in 1769 by Gaspar de Portolá and the Franciscan priest Junípero Serra.
Serra stayed on in California and along with other Franciscans founded many more missions—21 in the coastal region between San Diego and San Francisco.
The Indians they missionized had been peaceful hunter-gatherers, and soldiers had little trouble rounding them up and forcing them to live at the missions. The friars taught them to speak Spanish and to practice the Catholic religion. They also taught them how to tend fields, vineyards, and livestock, as well as how to make adobe and soap, and forced them to work—to build churches and to produce food. If the Indians refused or if they ran away and were caught, they received whip-pings as punishment.
The Spanish brought Indians of different tribes to each mission, mostly from groups living near the Pacific coast. Intermarriage was encouraged to blur the distinctions among tribes. Before long, the Indians had lost their own language and religion as well as their tribal identity. Most came to be identified histor-ically by the name of the mission. As a result, the tribal names that have been passed down through history sound Spanish: CAHUILLA; CUPEÑO; DIEGUEÑO
(TIPAI-IPAI); Fernandeño; GABRIELEÑO; Juaneño;
LUISEÑO; Nicoleño; Serrano. All these peoples origi-nally spoke a dialect of the Uto-Aztecan language fam-ily before being forced to speak Spanish, except the Diegueño, who spoke a Yuman language. Other tribes of different language families and living farther north—CHUMASH, SALINAS, ESSELEN, and
COSTANOAN—were also brought under the mission system. The Chumash, Salinan, and Esselen spoke Hokan languages; the Costanoan spoke a Penutian one.
The missions robbed the Indians of their culture and broke their spirit. The Mexican government closed the missions in 1834, 13 years after Mexican independence from Spain. Mission Indians who had not already been killed by diseases carried by non-Indians or poor working conditions, had a hard time coping without mission food.
Their numbers continued to decline drastically. The United States took control of California after the Mexican Cession of 1848. The California gold rush starting in 1849 further affected Native peoples, even those who had avoided mission life during the Spanish occupation.
By the time the United States government finally began establishing reservation lands for the Mission Indians in the late 1800s, much of California had been settled by non-Indians. The Indians received numerous small pieces, sometimes called rancherias. Today, there are many different bands of Mission Indians living on these parcels. Some have integrated into mainstream American culture, holding jobs in industry and agricul-ture. Some have rediscovered the traditional ceremonies and crafts of their ancient ancestors.
MISSISSIPPIAN.
SeeMOUND BUILDERS 166 MISSISSIPPIANAccording to tribal legend, the Siouan-speaking Mis-souria, or Missouri, once lived in the Great Lakes region as one people with the IOWAY, OTOE, and WIN
-NEBAGO(HO-CHUNK). Yet at some early point in their history, before non-Indians reached the area, a group separated from the Winnebago in search of larger herds of buffalo to the southwest. On reaching the mouth of the Iowa River, where it enters the Mississippi River, another separation occurred. One group, who became the Ioway, stayed in this region. Another group contin-ued westward to the Missouri River, where the group again divided.
Legend has it that this last division happened because of a quarrel. The son of one chief supposedly seduced the daughter of another. The one chief led his people north up the Missouri River. His people came to be known as the Otoe, or “lechers,” because of his son’s behavior. The group that stayed behind became the Missouria (pro-nounced mih-ZOAR-ee-uh).
A version of their name later was taken as the name of the Missouri River. It probably originally meant “people with the dugout canoes.” But it has come to be translated as “big muddy” after the river, which carries a lot of silt.
The name also was adopted by whites as the name of the state.
When they lived farther to the east, the Missouria were woodland Indians who farmed as well as hunted.
They took their knowledge of woodworking and farm-ing westward with them. They also continued to live in
villages much of the year. Sometimes the Indians who once lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries are discussed as PRAIRIE INDIANS because of the tall prairie grass there. But the Missouria usually are classi-fied as PLAINS INDIANS, since, after having acquired horses, they began to wander over greater distances in search of buffalo and adopted cultural traits similar to those of the western Plains tribes.
In 1673, the French explorer Jacques Marquette vis-ited Missouria villages on the Missouri River where it is joined by a tributary called the Grand River. The tribe lived in this part of what now is the state of Missouri for more than 100 years. In 1798, the SACand MESKWAKI
(FOX) swept down from the northeast to defeat the Mis-souria. Survivors lived among the Otoe, OSAGE, and
KAW for several years, then established some villages south of the Platte River in present-day Nebraska. The Missouria lived there when the Lewis and Clark Expedi-tion encountered them in 1804. Yet the Osage later attacked the Missouria, dispersing them. In 1829, the Missouria joined their ancestral relatives, the Otoe. By 1882, the majority of both tribes had moved to the north-central part of the Indian Territory. They now are united as the Otoe-Missouria Tribe, based in Red Rock, Oklahoma.
In 2004, the Otoe-Missouria Tribe F. Browning Pipestem Wellness Center was dedicated. The purpose of the center is disease prevention and helping Native peo-ple cope with life-altering diseases, such as diabetes.
MISSOURIA
The Miwok, or Mewuk, of central California can be divided into three main groups: Valley Miwok, Coast Miwok, and Lake Miwok. The main group, the Valley, or Eastern, Miwok occupied ancestral territory on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada along the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers and their tributaries. (The Valley Miwok are further divided into the Bay Miwok, Plains Miwok, Northern Miwok, and Southern Sierra Miwok.) The Coast Miwok lived to their west along the Pacific coast north of San Francisco Bay. And the Lake Miwok lived near Clear Lake north of San Francisco Bay. Miwok, pro-nounced MEE-wuk, means “people” in the Penutian lan-guage of the tribe. Their lanlan-guage is related to that of the
COSTANOANliving in coastal regions to the south.
The lifeways of the three Miwok groups varied with the food sources available near their more than 100 vil-lage sites. Like other CALIFORNIA INDIANS, they gath-ered wild plant foods, especially acorns, hunted small game, and fished in rivers, ocean, and lakes. Miwok houses had frameworks of wooden poles covered with swamp plants, brush, grass, or palm fronds. Their coiled baskets had flared-out sides and black designs. The Miwok participated in the Kuksu Culf (see WINTUN).
The Miwok generally maintained peaceful relations with the Spanish, who did not missionize peoples of this region to the degree they did the southern California tribes. The Mexican government pretty much left the Miwok alone after Mexico had gained its independence from Spain in 1821 and had taken control of California.
The presence of Russian fur traders, who maintained Fort Ross on Bodega Bay from 1812 to 1841, had some impact on Miwok groups because of acts of violence and the spread of disease. Yet the majority of Miwok people were spared non-Indian settlement in their midst until
the mid-1800s. In 1848, by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico ceded California to the United States.
At the end of that same year, gold was discovered in the region, starting the California gold rush.
Anglo-American settlers began coming in great num-bers to California over the next years in search of the mother lode, the miners’ name for a big strike of gold.
The Indians suffered greatly. Diseases passed to them by non-Indians killed many of them. The presence of min-ing camps disrupted their huntmin-ing. And some miners shot Indians on sight.
The Valley Miwok and a powerful neighboring tribe, the YOKUTS, fought back. In 1850, the same year that California became the 31st state of the Union, warriors under the Miwok chief Tenaya began attacking prospect-ing parties and tradprospect-ing posts. The owner of the tradprospect-ing posts, James Savage, organized a state militia, called the Mariposa Battalion, which he led into the Sierra Nevada highlands in pursuit of the Indians. The two forces met in a number of indecisive skirmishes. By 1851, however, with continuing militia patrols, the Miwok and Yokuts gave up their campaign of violence.
The Miwok presently hold a number of rancherias (small reservations) in their ancestral homeland. Since many tribal members intermarried over the years with neighboring peoples, such as the POMO, MAIDU, Win-tun, Wailaki, and YUKI, there are Miwok descendants liv-ing among at least 17 other federally recognized tribes or bands as well as on their rancherias. The Miwok preserve their traditional culture in the form of songs, dances, hand games, weaving, and beadwork. The Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians of the Tuolumne Rancheria operates the Black Casino. Revenue from gaming is being used to build new tribal housing.
The Mobile were one of many Muskogean-speaking peoples of the Southeast Culture Area (see SOUTHEAST INDIANS). Their homeland was located on the west side of the Mobile River just south of the junction of the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers in present-day Alabama, and later on Mobile Bay. The name Mobile, pronounced mo-BEEL or MO-beel, like the place-name, or MO-bee-lay, is perhaps derived from the Choctaw word moeli,
meaning “to paddle” in Muskogean. The Tohome on the west bank of the Tombigbee River were closely related and perhaps a linguistic subdivision.