Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Race and immigration have been inexorably linked in the history of California, especially during its tumultuous nineteenth century. As jurisdiction over California shifted from Spain, to Mexico, and ultimately, to the United States, racial classifications became simpler but more rigid, while immigration policies grew more exclusionary. This trend was partially fueled by California's racial and ethnic diversity, which increased in the nineteenth century due to large-scale immigration. Before the first immigrants arrived in the late eighteenth century, the region had already been one of the world's most linguistically diverse and home to over one hundred distinct indigenous communities. The eighteenth-century colonists entered California not as an immigrant underclass, but as conquerors. Instead of adapting to the established society that they were entering, these immigrants radically altered the indigenous communities in the process of creating a new society.Spanish colonists used force to impose their ideological and cultural beliefs on California's Indians. Indigenous nations suffered not only a loss of their land, but were also subject to the ravages of Spanish-introduced diseases and the imposition of a government, religious, and labor structure by Spanish missionaries, civilians, and the military. The Spanish viewed Indians as “savages” who lacked “civilization” and would have ... log in or subscribe to read full text