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Timeline PDF Print E-mail

Follow the Timeline from creation to present day, seeing how the Kumeyaay have survived and overcome the challenges of the ages to thrive today. Kumeyaay.com gives special thanks to Mike Connolly of the Campo Tribe, and Nancy Carol Carter of the University of San Diego for their invaluable input in this section.

Pre-Contact Period

????     Creation
12000 BC - 5000 BC     Paleo-Indian (San Dieguito)
5000 BC - 1000 AD     Milling Stone (La Jollan)
1000 - 1769     Pottery (Yuman)
1492     Columbus landed in Caribbean
1542     The Portuguese land at present-day Point Loma in San Diego and claim the territory
1602     1602 Sebastian Vizcaino, a wealthy merchant - sailing from Acapulco to San Diego lands to explore. He bestows the name "San Diego"
1754 - 1763     French/Indian War fought against British colonists
1769     Father Junipero Serra arrives - The Indians, he observes in a letter, treat the new arrivals with "good will"
1775     Continental Congress formed
1776     U.S. Declaration of Independence
1769 - 1821     Mission Period

Spanish Incursion

1770     Father Serra contemplates abandoning the mission after one year of futile effort--not one Indian in San Diego has been converted to the faith
1775     Kumeyaay attack Mission one month after completion
1776     The American colonies declare independence from Great Britain
1777     The San Diego mission is re-established to be completed 1784
1798     First U.S. citizens reach San Diego by walking from Baja California (where they had been put off a ship - presumably for some unacceptable behavior)
1804     Lewis & Clark explore pacific northwest
1810     Mexicans begin their war for independence against Spain
1812     Mexican government makes grants of unoccupied lands in California
1820     Spanish Revolution

Mexican

1821     Treaty of Cordoba marks the beginning of Mexican Independence - Large land grants in the San Diego given to Mexican supporters
1824     Mexican Constitution of 1824 -- equality of all citizens, including Indians
1825     British & Russians settle boundaries in North America (Alaska)
1826     Skirmish between Indians and Mexican troops in San Diego kills 28 Kumeyaay
1827     Smallpox epidemic sweeps through California Indian population, followed by a Malaria epidemic in 1832
1831     Nat Turner slave rebellion
1832     Black Hawk War
1833     Slavery abolished in British empire
1835     The Mexican military abandons the Presidio at San Diego
1837     Indian raid kills members of the Ybarra family of San Ysidro rancho
1838     Cherokee relocated to Oklahoma - Trail of tears
1844     US annexes Texas & acquires Oregon
1846     U.S. - Mexico relations deteriorate into war
1847     U.S. - Mexico hostilities end with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; United States pledges in the treaty to respect Indian land rights

American


1848     Mexico defeated by USA - Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty
1850     California becomes a state
1851     Indian revolt against Warner Ranch - Defeated, after burning the ranch house and stage station; Indians resist efforts of sheriff to collect taxes
1852     "Garra Revolt" ends with the arrest of its Antonio Garra - executed after being found guilty of treason, murder, and theft in the aftermath of organizing Warner's Ranch area Indians
1859     Indian property awarded to settlers in Rancho Land Grants
1860     Lincoln elected president
Common School act excludes Indians from California public schools
1861     Civil War begins
1862     San Diego City Council orders the sheriff to remove "the Indian rancheria" one-half mile from any town residence
1869     The San Francisco Alta newspaper reports that 22,000 California Indians have died in less than 20 years from disease and deprivation
1870     Gold discovered in Julian, Ca. - Reservation in area cancelled
1875     President Grant gives executive order, setting aside Indian land allowing the establishment of reservations for the Santa Ysabel, Pala, Sycuan, La Jolla, Rincon, Viejas, and Capitan Grande bands
1877     Severe San Diego drought results in attacks on Indians holding water resources
1885     California Southern Railroad gives San Diego its first rail connection with the East and population booms to 40,000 within two years
1891     La Jolla and Cuyapaipe Reservations established
1893     Campo Indian Reservation established - Pauma and Yuima Reservation at the foothills of Mount Palomar; Rincon Reservation officially established

Sovereignty

1900     Total Indian population in California drops to about 16,500 (11,800 of this number are considered "landless")
1901-1903     Additional funds set aside to purchase more acreage for reservations
1911     New Mexico and Arizona are admitted as states, the last new states to be admitted to the union until 1959
1912     A small reservation is created for San Diego's Jamul Band of Mission Indians
1914     World War I breaks out in Europe
1920     Prohibition goes into effect; sales of coffee, soft drinks, and ice cream floats skyrocket.
1924     Citizenship Act of 1924 - Indians get citizenship. Women get right to vote (Indian women also) - However, Indians could not vote for local officials
1932     Kumeyaay forced off ancestral land on the San Diego River making way for the El Capitan Dam and its reservoir - The federal government helps to relocate the Barona Band to the present-day Barona Reservation
1934     Reservation established for the Viejas Band from their displacement by the reservoir
1942     President Roosevelt issues Executive Order 9066, calling for the internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans.
1944     Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected to his fourth term as president of the United States.
1945     World War II ends: the Allies celebrate victory over the Nazis on May 8th, and over Japan on August 14.
1952     Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected president. Richard Nixon serves as his vice-president.
1952     Indians get full right to vote. They are now able to vote for local politicians
1953     Public Law 280 authorized states unilaterally to assume jurisdiction over criminal and civil matters on reservations.
1958     Interstate Highway 8 opens in San Diego County, following ancient Indian trails through Mission Valley
1959     In January, Alaska becomes the 49th U.S. state, followed by Hawaii, the 50th, in August.
1962     The U.S. space program is on the rise; Marine Corps pilot John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth.
1963     John F. Kennedy is assassinated on November 22nd in Dallas, Texas, and Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson takes office.
1965     Civil Rights demonstrations increase despite arrests, and Martin Luther King, Jr., leads a march in Selma, Alabama, as well as a march on Chicago's City Hall
1967     Vietnam conflict begins
1968     Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated. Democratic Senator Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated in Los Angeles
1969     The La Jolla Band sues the cities of Escondido and Vista to recover water diverted from Reservation lands in 1895 and 1924
1969     The seizure of Alcatraz Island - Indians took over Alcatraz to bring public attention to Indian issues
1973     Wounded Knee, South Dakota was a militant stand off that served to focus attention of the injustice of Indian life
1974     Richard Nixon becomes the first United States president to resign from office
1975     The last American troops leave Vietnam
1976     The Health Clinic and Community Center is opened on the Sycuan Reservation, in cooperation with six other reservations
1978     American Indian Religious Freedom
1982     Anthony Pico is elected tribal chairman of the San Diego the Viejas Band and subsequently becomes a national voice in Native American affairs, particularly on the matter of Indian gaming
1983     Sycuan Indian Reservation opens a gaming center offering bingo games. In 1989, 1992 and 2000 the facility is expanded and new types of gaming offered
1984     Barona Band builds a bingo hall and initiates gaming on their reservation
1986     The space shuttle Challenger explodes after lift-off, generating national mourning
1988     Congress enacts the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act to bring tribal gaming under a regulatory structure and to give state governments added control over the types of casino-style games allowed on reservations
1990     The act entitled the "Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act" was passed by the 101st Congress
1991     Viejas Reservation starts a gaming operation
1992     Native Cultures Institute begins organizing cross-border travel to reunite members of tribes split by international boundaries, including the Kumeyaay of San Diego and Baja, Mexico
1994     The Native American Environmental Protection Coalition (NAEPC) is founded in Southern California to share common concerns and bring a team effort to the protection, preservation, and restoration of the environment. NAEPC is headquartered in Valley Center (760) 751-8686
1996     A special California State Senate committee report concludes that Indians in California receive less consideration in state policy making than Indians in other states
1997     The Kumeyaay Cultural Repatriation Committee is formed, with representatives from 12 Kumeyaay bands in the San Diego area, to work with museums and universities in the implementation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Committee contact is through the Barona tribal offices at (619) 443-6612
1998     A Kumeyaay Border Task Force works with federal immigration officials to secure the rights of Baja, Mexico, Indians to freely visit and interact with Kumeyaay in the U.S.

Kumeyaay


1999     Viejas tribal chairman Anthony Pico delivers the first "state of the tribe" public address, announcing that "tribes are governments and that (the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians) are not an extinct people or a stagnant culture"
2000     California voters end years of debate and legal battles over casino-style Indian gaming by enacting Proposition 1A, a constitutional amendment removing the legal impediment resulting in the overturn of Proposition 5 (a gaming initative enacted in 1998 but overturned by the California Supreme Court)
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The Sycuan Tribe is named as a contender in the multi-million dollar bidding war for naming rights to the planned San Diego Padre downtown ballpark
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The Barona Tribe opens the first Museum on a San Diego County Indian Reservation
2001     Casinos open for Campo, Pala, Pauma, Rincon and San Pasqual Tribes
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Kumeyaay.com launches Web site

 
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