Tribes

The indigenous peoples of California were the inhabitants who previously lived or currently live within the current boundaries of the Golden State before and after the arrival of Europeans.

The earliest Californians were adventurous Asians who traveled across the Bering Straits to Alaska thousands of years ago when a warmer climate and a now-vanished land bridge made such travel easier. These men and women and their descendants settled in North and South America, spreading out to form the various nations and tribes the first European visitors called “Indians.” The mountain ranges of the Pacific Coast isolated these early settlers from the cultures that developed in neighboring Mexico and the western United States. Thus, the early population of California bore little physical resemblance to the Native Americans of the Great Plains and shared no ties of language or culture with these nations.

California Topography courtesy Wikipedia.

California’s rugged topography, marked by mountain ranges and deserts, made it difficult for her indigenous groups to travel great distances, and the region’s native peoples were even isolated from each other, tending to live in large family groups or clans with little political structure, unlike the larger tribes and nations to the east. As European settlement came late to California, her natives were also denied access to the newcomers’ horses, whose runaways fathered the wild herds that gave Great Plains tribes new mobility as early as the 16 century. Thus divided and isolated, the original Californians were a diverse population, separated by language into as many as 135 distinct dialects. Tribes included the Karok, Maidu, Cahuilleno, Mojave, Yokuts, Pomo, Paiute, and Modoc. On the other hand, the mountains that divided the groups made extensive warfare impractical, and the California tribes and clans enjoyed a comparatively peaceful life.

©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated March 2023.

Also See:

California – The Golden State

Native Americans – The First Owners of America

Native American Photo Galleries

Native American Tribes

Sources:

California Frontier Project
Heizer, Robert F. and Sturtevant, William C.; Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 8: California. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1878.
Library of Congress
Wikipedia