Esselen
The Esselen are a Native American people belonging to a linguistic group in the hypothetical Hokan language family, who are indigenous to the Santa Lucia Mountains of a region south of the Big Sur River in California. Prior to Spanish colonization, they lived seasonally on the coast and inland, surviving off the plentiful seafood during the summer and acorns and wildlife during the rest of the year.
For the language, see Esselen language.
During the mission period of California history, Esselen children were baptized by the priests when they left their villages and relocated as family units to live in the missions where they learned reading writing and various trades. The Esselen were required to labor at the three nearby missions, Mission San Carlos, Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, and Mission San Antonio de Padua. Like many Native American populations, their members were decimated by starvation, forced labor, over work, torture, and diseases that they had no natural resistance to.
Historically, they were one of the smallest Native American populations in California. Various experts estimate there were from 500 to 1,285 individuals living in the steep, rocky region at the time of the arrival of the Spanish. Due to their proximity to three Spanish missions, they were likely one of the first whose culture was virtually eliminated as a result of European contact and domination.[1] The people were believed to have been exterminated but some tribal members avoided the mission life and emerged from the forest to work in nearby ranches in the early and late 1800s. Descendants of the Esselen are currently scattered, but many still live in the Monterey Peninsula area and nearby regions.
Etymology[edit]
The name Esselen is uncertain. One theory is that it refers to the name of a major native village, possibly Exse'ein, or the place called Eslenes (said to be near the current site of the Mission San Carlos). The village name may be derived from a tribal location known as Ex'selen, "the rock," which is in turn derived from the phrase Xue elo xonia eune, "I come from the rock."[6] "The Rock" may refer to the 361 feet (110 m) tall promontory, visible for miles both up and down the coast, on which the Point Sur Lighthouse is situated.
The Spanish extended the term to mean the entire linguistic group. Variant spellings exist in old records, including Aschatliens, Ecclemach, Eslen, Eslenes, Excelen, and Escelen.[7] "Aschatliens" may refer to a group around Mission San Carlos, in and around the village of Achasta.
Achasta was a Rumsen Ohlone village, and totally unrelated to the Esselen. Achasta was possibly founded only after the establishment of Mission San Carlos. It was the closest village to Mission San Carlos, and was 10+ miles from Esselen territory. "Eslenes" was nowhere near Mission San Carlos. On January 3, 1603, explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno found a deserted Indian village about a mile from what later became the site of the Carmel Mission.[8]
Tribal land[edit]
In the 20th century, Axel Adler built a cabin on the former Bixby Ranch and gradually acquired more land. In 2013, descendants of the Adler family who lived in Sweden put 1,312 acres (531 ha) of the Adler Ranch on the market for $15 million. It is located at the end and south of Palo Colorado Road. The ranch is located along the Little Sur River at the northwestern edge of the Ventana Wilderness adjacent to the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District's Mill Creek Redwood Preserve and the Los Padres National Forest, and includes the peak of Bixby Mountain and the upper portions of Mescal Ridge. The El Sur Ranch and Pico Blanco Mountain are to the south. The tract contains old-growth redwoods, grasslands, oak woodlands, chaparral, and madrone forest. The ranch is an important habitat for California spotted owls, California condors, California red-legged frogs, marbled murrelets, and bald and golden eagles. The property is especially valuable because it includes nine legal parcels, five of which could be developed. The Big Sur Land Trust stated it was not interested in acquiring the property.[49][50][51]
The nonprofit Western Rivers Conservancy, which buys land with the goal to protect habitat and provide public access, secured a purchase agreement. It was initially interested in selling the land to the US Forest Service, which would make it possible for hikers to travel from Bottchers Gap to the sea. But some local residents were opposed to the forest service acquiring the land. They are concerned about a lack of federal funding to maintain a critical fire break on the land.[49][50]
On October 2, 2019, the California Natural Resources Agency announced it was seeking funding through Proposition 68, a bond measure approved by voters in 2018, to obtain the land for the tribe. The Adler family agreed to sell 1,199 acres (485 ha) of the Adler Ranch.[51] The land was purchased through a $4.52 million grant from the California Natural Resources Agency. In late July 2020 the purchase of the Adler Ranch successfully closed and the property was transferred to the Esselen tribe.[52][53] The land acquisition could help facilitate federal recognition of the tribe.[51][52]
"It is beyond words for us, the highest honor," said Tom Little Bear Nason, chairman of the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County. "The land is the most important thing to us. It is our homeland, the creation story of our lives. We are so elated and grateful." The Esselen tribe has 214 members and intends to share it with other Central Coast tribes such as the Ohlone, the Amah Mutsun, and the Rumsen people who also were decimated during the Mission Era[54]
In popular culture[edit]
The Esalen Institute in Big Sur is named after this tribe as was the former Boy Scouts of America Monterey Bay Area Council Order of the Arrow Esselen Lodge #531.[55]