lasted understanding religious convincing history destruction

BEFORE COLUMBUS
bounty nature had given them. Although many of them were, in a technical
sense, hunter-gatherer societies, so rich in foodstuffs were the areas in
which they settled that they had to move about very little in order to live
well. Writing of the Ohlone peoples-a general name for forty or so independent
tribes and many thousands of people who inhabited the coastal
area between present-day San Francisco and Monterey-Malcolm Margolin
has put it well:
With such a wealth of resources, the Ohlones did not depend upon a single
staple. If the salmon failed to run, the people moved into the marshes to
hunt ducks and geese. If the waterfowl population was diminished by a
drought, the people could head for the coast where a beached whale or a
run of smelts might help them through their troubles. And if all else failed,
there were always shellfish: mussels, clams, and oysters, high in nutrients
and theirs for the collecting. . . . All around the Ohlones were virtually
inexhaustible resources; and for century after century the people went about
their daily life secure in the knowledge that they lived in a generous land, a
land that would always support them. 12
"In short," as Margolin writes, "the Ohlones did not practice agriculture
or develop a rich material culture, not because they failed, but because
they succeeded so we~l in the most ancient of all ways of life." 13
Other California PtVPles did practice agriculture, however, and the very
earliest European explorers found it and the numbers of people living in
the region awe-inspiring. Describing his voyage along the southern California
coast in 1542 and 1543, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo repeatedly noted
in his journal comments on the large houses he observed; the "very fine
valleys [with] much maize and abundant food"; the "many savannahs and
groves" and "magnificent valleys" that were "densely populated"-as was,
he added, "the whole coastline." Again and again, wherever he went, he
marveled at the "many pueblos," the "dense population," and the "thickly
settled" coasts and plains. Even the small and subsequently uninhabited
Santa Barbara islands, lying 25 to 70 miles off the coast-San Miguel,
Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Santa Catalina, San Clemente, Santa Barbara, San
Nicholas-were populated by "a great number of Indians" who greeted
the Spanish ships in friendship and traded with them in ceremonies of
peace. In all, from the islands to the coasts to the valleys and the plains
that he observed, Cabrillo wrote, this "densely populated ... country
appears to be very fine." 14
Just what the population of California was at this time is unknown.
The most commonly cited estimate is something in excess of 300,000-
while other calculations have put it at 700,000 and more. 15 Although the
larger figure is regarded by many scholars as excessive, both it and the
lower number represent estimates for California's Indian population only
in 1769, the time of the founding of the Franciscan mission-that is, more