One recent afternoon, I was talking to a local man about the
Ohlone Indians who once lived in Santa Clara Valley.
One recent afternoon, I was talking to a local man about the Ohlone Indians who once lived in Santa Clara Valley. I mentioned how I envied the simplicity of their lives before the Spanish came and how I respected their harmony of living with nature — something modern people would be wise to emulate.
He looked at me with angry eyes and almost shouted how the Ohlone were “blood-thirsty, naked savages” and the “best thing that ever happened to them was the Spanish who civilized them.” The conversation started taking an ugly turn as he raged about how primitive and ignorant the original Indians were. I quickly left, deciding the man I spoke with himself had primitive and ignorant beliefs about the Ohlone.
I had thought about suggesting to him to visit a small 4-acre county park along Watsonville Road between Morgan Hill and Gilroy’s Hecker Pass. Called Chitactac-Adams Heritage County Park, it is a tranquil stop along the Uvas Creek to learn about the unique culture of the local Indian tribes before white people arrived.
Some archeologists estimate humans first set foot in the valley as far back as 12,000 years ago, during the end of the last great ice age. Those original settlers found a fertile plain region of creeks and bay wetlands on the east. Oak trees blanketed much of the valley, and the mild climate and abundance of food made it a perfect home.
Over centuries, the natives came to call themselves the Ohlone (the People). They developed a relatively peaceful society of small villages numbering 50 to 250 people situated near meandering creeks in the valley. The villages contained half-sphere huts made of willow stalks driven into the ground and latticed with branches, redwood bark, and dirt.
During the warm months, men and children went naked while women wore skirts of deerskin and grasses. In the winter, the Ohlone wore robes and cloaks made from soft seal and otter fur. They took their food from the land, hunting for fish, deer, rabbit and waterfowl. And, like today’s residents, they traveled across the western mountains to enjoy seafood including mussels and abalone caught in Monterey Bay. Acorns from the abundant oaks made up their staple food. In the fall, women gathered the acorns, ground them in stone mortars with pestles and soaked the resulting meal in water to leach out the toxic tannic acid.
The Ohlone worshiped various nature gods with religious dances and seasonal festivals. These deities included the sun, the eagle and the hummingbird, as well as the coyote, which they believed had created the world. They developed a sophisticated trading system between villages, using shells from the saxidomus nuttali clams as currency.
Life for the Ohlone changed on Nov. 6, 1769, when Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola and his men became the first Europeans to visit the valley. This set in motion the Spanish settlement of the area. On Jan. 12, 1777, the Franciscan padres conducted the first mass at the Mission Santa Clara de Asis, named after Sainte Claire of Assisi. The valley eventually took its name from this mission.
The Spanish government planned to protect its territory by converting Alta California’s inhabitants into gente de razon (people of reason). It intended to civilize the Ohlone and turn them into Spanish citizens by setting up missions and instructing them in the ways of the Christian religion.
Unfortunately, the mission way of life was not a happy one for the vast majority of California natives. Travelers to California before the mission period described the Indians as having being strong, active and happy. They had extensive trade networks and each tribe lived relatively peaceful with each other. After the Franciscans began their missions, travelers reported a dramatic change in the Indians. They became lethargic, saddled with apathy and suffered a psychological depression.
The Christian life the Indians entered was not the idyllic one the romantic myth of the missions would want us to believe. They were strictly controlled in order to change their religious beliefs and practices to those required by the Spanish empire for its citizens. The priests policed the Indians with a strict policy of “enforced residence” for those neophytes who joined the mission.
Once an Indian came to live in the mission, there was no possibility of turning back to the old way of life. They were hunted down and often killed if they escaped. Floggings, humiliation and being locked in stocks were common forms of punishment to keep the Ohlone in line because priests thought they would be accountable to God for backsliders. Early travelers described the Indians as living in a type of slavery in the missions.
The result to the California Indians was devastation. Along the coastal strip between San Diego to San Francisco, it is estimated that the original population was 70,000 Indians before the Spanish came. Roughly 60 years later, that population was down to 18,000. Much of this population loss was due to sicknesses brought by the Spanish. Also, there were low birth rates as Indians aborted their babies instead of having their children live in the often hostile conditions of the missions.
