Sunrise Across the Sacred Land
by Denise Dube
Title
Sunrise Across the Sacred Land
Artist
Denise Dube
Medium
Photograph - Photography, Fine Art, Mixed Media
Description
This beautiful productive estuary was home to Native Americans as far back as 8,000 years ago. Between 6000 and 3500 B.C. a group of Native Americans lived in the area that are believed to be Hokan speaking and ancestors of the Chumash.
Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo sailed the Southern California coast in 1542 in search of trade opportunities and a route to China. He met and befriended the Tongva living on Santa Catalina Island (Cabrillo had named the island San Salvador). Sixty years after Cabrillo explored the coast, Sebastian Vizcaino explored the California coast and also encountered Tongva. His reports said that the Natives he met were friendly and peaceful. Later accounts of the Native tribes were similar.
It wasnt until the early 1700s that the Spanish showed an interest in colonizing California. Conflicts with Russians and English led the Spanish to begin setting up missions, presidios (frontier fortresses) and pueblos (small towns). Father Junipero Serra arrived in California in 1769 and began the establishment of a chain of missions from San Diego to Sonoma. In 1771 a mission was established at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and was named Mission San Gabriel. All of the Tongva and Acjachamen were sent to these missions where many were killed by foreign diseases and smallpox epidemics. Those that survived lost much of their culture; their way of life was devastated. Subsequently, all native subjugates of the Mission were called Garbieli by the Spanish missionaries further damaging their unique cultural identities.
Promises to preserve this land to the American Indians has been repeatedly broken, contractors and politicians win.. There is only a small part that has been put aside as the sacred land for the American Indians and once again that is in jeopardy of devastation.. You only have to visit this magical place at sunrise to understand why the Indians stayed here and made this their sacred land..
Uploaded
October 19th, 2013
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Viewed 1,485 Times - Last Visitor from Beverly Hills, CA on 03/30/2023 at 10:00 PM
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