Through my Native Americans and the Environment course (ANTH 276) in Fall 2018, I had the opportunity to perform a research project on Toypurina and the San Gabriel Mission Revolt. I did the research, created a PowerPoint presentation, and then created a poster that I presented at a course cluster presentation at the end of the semester.
Background Information on Toypurina
All of this may seem great, but who is Toypurina you may ask? Toypurina was a Native American woman who lived with her tribe, the Tongva Gabriellinos (named by Spaniards for their close proximity to the San Gabriel Mission) in what is now Orange County California. She lived in her rancheria Japchivit as a medicine women
leading to her traveling to many rancherias connecting with all distant members of her tribe and learning all of the different languages/dialects of her people. This helped lead to her success in persuasive communication. After too much time facing the maltreatment of the missionaries at San Gabriel Mission, Toypurina brought her tribe together and revolted. Although the revolt was unsuccessful, Toypurina was a precedent and great example for Native American women to continue challenging colonial domination and missionaries; she was able to use her status and power in a time when women across all ethnic groups typically had neither, yet history books don’t bother mentioning her.
Through this project and the entirety of ANTH 276 as a class, my eyes were opened to the lack of representation indigenous people have in today’s society but also in today’s education; both Native American past and present are hardly touched on in our history classes, our policy class discussions, the news, or society. But Native Americans are still here. Getting to study Toypurina also started a desire to research all under-acknowledged women in history and bring more of an equal representation in my history studies to the table; in both race and gender.
Attached below is my final/poster for ANTH 276 on Toypurina and the San Gabriel Mission Revolt.