"We Are Not Savages": Native Americans in Southern California and the Pala Reservation, 1840-1920

By Joel Hyer and Joel R. Hyer

On a cool, autumn day in October 1902, a group of Indians, known as Cupe os, noticed a white man approaching their village of Agua Caliente, located in a beautiful mountain valley in southern California. The unexpected guest was a farmer, a federal employee assigned to teach Native Americans how to raise crops. The stranger apparently came to assist the Cupe os and other local Indians in preparing to leave their homelands and remove to the Pala Reservation, over fifty miles away. On the following day, Cupe os, along with their Luise o and Kumeyaay neighbors, gathered together to discuss the stranger's demands. One person stood up and declared with firm resolve, "We do not need a farmer to help us, we are not savages." Others agreed. The assembly of Indians then invited the white man to depart. In We Are Not Savages, Joel R. Hyer traces the history of the Cupe os, Luise os, and Kumeyaays, recounting how the federal government ultimately forced more than one hundred of their numbers to the Pala Reservation. He also considers the diverse and complex methods the U.S. government used to Americanize these Indians. Yet, this is much more than a study in federal Indian policy. Hyer places local Indians in the center of his work. Basing his research on reservation records, government documents, interviews, and other sources, the author demonstrates the strategies the Cupe os used to respond to the pressures and problems created by outsiders. Hyer's sympathetic account offers new insight into such issues as Indian health and education, acculturation, and cultural persistence. We Are Not Savages is a remarkable tale of survival, resistance, and accommodation.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0870135759
• ISBN13: 9780870135750
• Release Date: December 2001
• Publisher: Michigan State University Press
• Length: 268 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.2"