California Through Native Eyes: Reclaiming History

Indigenous Confluences

By: William J. Bauer Jr.

Narrated by: Ted Brooks

Most California histories begin with the arrival of the Spanish missionaries in the late 18th century and conveniently skip to the Gold Rush of 1849. Noticeably absent from these stories are the perspectives and experiences of the people who lived on the land long before European settlers arrived.

Historian William Bauer seeks to correct that oversight through an innovative approach that tells California history strictly through Native perspectives. Using oral histories of Concow, Pomo, and Paiute workers, taken as part of a New Deal federal works project, Bauer reveals how Native peoples have experienced and interpreted the history of the land we now call California.

Combining these oral histories with creation myths and other oral traditions, he demonstrates the importance of sacred landscapes, animals, and other nonhuman actors to the formation of place and identity. He also examines tribal stories of ancestors who prophesied the coming of white settlers and uses their recollections of the California Indian Wars to push back against popular narratives that seek to downplay Native resistance.

The result both challenges the "California story" and enriches it with new voices and important points of view, serving as a model for understanding Native historical perspectives in other regions.

"Destined to become a classic model of writing not only Indigenous histories, but the history of U.S. colonialism." - Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

"An excellent example of a historian applying the theories of Native studies with the methods of history." - Cathleen D. Cahill, author of Federal Fathers and Mothers: A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869-1933

©2016 University of Washington Press (P)2018 Redwood Audiobooks

A Helpful Eye Opener for CA Settler Descendants

Information about native peoples in California often falls into one of three broad categories for non-native readers: (1) The gut-wrenching tale of horror that leaves one ashamed to have had European or other settler progenitors; (2) The gut wrenching tale of horror that casts the indigenous peoples as evil, murderous savages; and (3) the more common tale that casts native peoples in the California territories as backwards, dim-witted heathens, rescued by kindly settlers and priests.

None of these is true -- a point this book makes clearly, gently, and repeatedly. This narrative, in the voices and stories of California native peoples, gives a thoughtful overview of 18th-early 20th century California.

Although perhaps not the purpose of the book, it also provides the non-native reader with a much better understanding of native ties to the land, as well as native ways of knowing, and telling, history. And this may be the most helpful element of the work -- to give non-native Californians the awareness and perhaps empathy required for understanding, to move past the aforementioned misleading histories. Very much worth a read, or a listen on Audible.

Read the book

Or listen to this excellent audiobook. As a white, recovering settler colonist I really appreciate the education about Los Angeles water, the Owens River valley and the Paiute people's struggle for land and water rights. I live in Tongva land. Los Angeles, CA.

Great content. Poor organization. Worse narration

An amazing story about an amazing people under unimaginable circumstances. Consequently, the story deserves better organization, fewer opinions, and above all else, a narrator who understands and conveys the significance of the story being told.