![]() Narcisa Higuera, photographed in 1905, was one of the last fluent Tongva speakers. An informant for ethnographer C. Hart Merriam, she was cited as the source of the widely used endonym Tongva.[1] | |
Total population | |
---|---|
3,900+ self-identified descendants | |
Regions with significant populations | |
![]() ![]() | |
Languages | |
English, Spanish, formerly Tongva | |
Religion | |
Indigenous religion, Christianity | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Serrano, Kitanemuk, Tataviam, Vanyume |
The Tongva (/ˈtɒŋvə/ TONG-və) are an indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately 4,000 square miles (10,000 km2).[1][2] In the precolonial era, the people lived in as many as 100 villages and primarily identified by their village rather than by a pan-tribal name.[3] During colonization, the Spanish referred to these people as Gabrieleño and Fernandeño,[a] names derived from the Spanish missions built on their land: Mission San Gabriel Arcángel and Mission San Fernando Rey de España.[b] Tongva is the most widely circulated endonym among the people, used by Narcisa Higuera in 1905 to refer to inhabitants in the vicinity of Mission San Gabriel.[4] Some people who identify as direct lineal descendants[5] of the people advocate the use of their ancestral name Kizh as an endonym.[6]
Along with the neighboring Chumash, the Tongva were the most influential people at the time of European encounter. They had developed an extensive trade network through te'aats (plank-built boats). Their food and material culture was based on an indigenous worldview that positioned humans as one strand in a web of life (as expressed in their creation stories).[7][1][2][8] Over time, different communities came to speak distinct dialects of the Tongva language, part of the Takic subgroup of the Uto-Aztecan language family. There may have been five or more such languages (three on the southernmost Channel Islands and at least two on the mainland).[1]
European contact was first made in 1542 by Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who was greeted at Santa Catalina by people in a canoe. The following day, Cabrillo and his men entered a large bay on the mainland, which they named Baya de los Fumos ("Bay of Smokes") because of the many smoke fires they saw there. The indigenous people smoked their fish for preservation. This is commonly believed to be San Pedro Bay, near present-day San Pedro.[9]
The Gaspar de Portolá land expedition in 1769 resulted in the founding of Mission San Gabriel by Catholic missionary Junipero Serra in 1771. Under the mission system, the Spanish initiated an era of forced relocation and virtual enslavement of the peoples to secure their labor. In addition, the Native Americans were exposed to the Old World diseases endemic among the colonists.[10] As they lacked any acquired immunity, the Native Americans suffered epidemics with high mortality, leading to the rapid collapse of Tongva society and lifeways.[11]
They retaliated by way of resistance and rebellions, including an unsuccessful rebellion in 1785 by Nicolás José and female chief Toypurina.[1][3] In 1821, Mexico gained its independence from Spain and secularized the missions. They sold the mission lands, known as ranchos, to elite ranchers and forced the Tongva to assimilate.[12] Most became landless refugees during this time.[12]
In 1848, California was ceded to the United States following the Mexican-American War. The US government signed 18 treaties between 1851 and 1852 promising 8.5 million acres (3,400,000 ha) of land for reservations. However, these treaties were never ratified by the Senate.[13] The US had negotiated with people who did not represent the Tongva and had no authority to cede their land.[14] During the following occupation by Americans, many of the Tongva and other indigenous peoples were targeted with arrest. Unable to pay fines, they were used as convict laborers in a system of legalized slavery to expand the city of Los Angeles for Anglo-American settlers, who became the new majority in the area by 1880.[12]
In the early 20th century, an extinction myth was purported about the Gabrieleño, who largely identified publicly as Mexican-American by this time.[neutrality is disputed] However, a close-knit community of the people remained in contact with one another between Tejon Pass and San Gabriel township into the 20th century.[10][15] Since 2006, four organizations have claimed to represent the people:
Two of the groups, the hyphen and the slash group, were founded after a hostile split over the question of building an Indian casino.[20] In 1994, the state of California recognized the Gabrielino "as the aboriginal tribe of the Los Angeles Basin."[21] No organized group representing the Tongva has attained recognition as a tribe by the federal government.[13] The lack of federal recognition has prevented self-identified Tongva descendants from having control over Tongva ancestral remains, artifacts, and has left them without a land base in the Tongva traditional homeland.[22][23]
In 2008, more than 1,700 people identified as Tongva or claimed partial ancestry.[13] In 2013, it was reported that the four Tongva groups that have applied for federal recognition had more than 3,900 members in total.[24]
The Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy was established to campaign for the rematriation of Tongva homelands.[25] In 2022, a 1-acre site was returned to the conservancy in Altadena, which marked the first time the Tongva had land in Los Angeles County in 200 years.[25]
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