1799 - An Indigenous Peoples' Perspective

AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ PERSPECTIVE

 

Indigenous Americans

 

Handsome Lake, half brother to the renowned Seneca war chief Cornplanter, had a vision that began the Longhouse religion. Handsome Lake was a Seneca (of New York) and a clan leader whose villages had been destroyed during Sullivan’s raids through Iroquois country.

 

Relocated to lands on the Allegheny River on the New York-Pennsylvania border, Handsome Lake had taken refuge in alcohol and retreated from the cultural and political deterioration of his once great Seneca nation.  In his sixties, when he was sick and dying, family and friends gathered to pay their last respects.  Later he told them that in his illness his spirit had left his body and he had a vision of what had to be done to help the Seneca find their way in the new world.  Instead of a funeral, his family and friends heard his first sermon, a description of his vision and the lessons the Creator had revealed to him.  He had been transformed and his teachings, Gaiwiio, also called the “Good Word,” became the basis of the Longhouse religion and led to a cultural revival of the Iroquois.  Among his teachings, which are still today as part of the Handsome Lake Church, was the idea that natives should live in peae with the United States, but they should spiritually and culturally remain Iroquois.  He stressed peace within family and among peoples and based many of his tenets on the Great Law of the Peacemaker of the Haudenosaunee, the old Iroquois confederacy.  The religion gathered many followers, ensured the survival of traditional beliefs and ceremonies, and in the twenty-first century of the Christian calendar, still has many adherents.  Just before he died he told his followers:

 

“I will soon go to my new home … whoever follows my teachings will follow in my footsteps and I will look back upon him with outstretched arms inviting him into the new world of our Creator.  Alas, I fear a pall of smoke will obscure the eyes of many from the truth of Gaiwiio but I pray that when I am gone that all may do what I have taught.”

 

Tlingit in the region now known as Sitka, Alaska, engaged in limited contact with trappers of the Russian Fur Company, which had been granted a charter by Czar Paul I.

 

Toypurina (1760-1799), a Tongva/Gabrielino (Indigenous American) medicine woman who led a revolt in California, died (May 22).

 

Toypurina was a Tongva/Gabrielino medicine woman who opposed the rule of the Spanish missionaries in California, and led an unsuccessful rebellion against them.

Born in 1760, Toypurina was 9-years-old when the Spanish settlers first invaded what is now the Los Angeles Basin of Las California. She was 11 when Mission San Gabriel Arcangel was begun. She was 21 when Governor Felipe de Neve founded the Pueblo of Los Angeles in 1781 Alta California. Over time, Toypurina rose to be a powerful spiritual leader, respected for her bravery and wisdom. She was considered a great communicator, speaking with and trading with the dozens of villages in the many Tongvan dialects and other indigenous languages used from Santa Catalina Island through the eastern foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains to the northwestern San Fernando Valley.

Like other Indigenous American leaders, Toypurina regarded the Spanish missionaries as a threat to her traditional status and authority. Using the Japchivit rancheria as her base of operations, she persuaded six other villages to join a rebellion against Mission San Gabriel Arcangel on October 25, 1785, with the intent of killing all of the Spanish residents. She, along with three other men including Nicolas José (who was angry that the friars forbade the mission Indigenous Americans to hold their native dances) spearheaded the attack, but were unable to complete it. A soldier who understood their language heard people talking about the revolt and alerted the missionaries. On the night of the attack, the POTSN came to the mission armed with bows and arrows. Toypurina came to the mission unarmed but with the intent of encouraging the men to have the will to fight.  Toypurina and the other three men leading the attack were captured, tried, and punished.

When questioned about the revolt, Toypurina told the Spanish military judges that she had instructed Chief Tomasajaquichi of Juvit village to tell the mission Indigenous Americans not to believe the padres. "I commanded him to do so, for I am angry with the padres, and all of those of the mission, for living here on my native soil, for trespassing upon the land of my forefathers and despoiling our tribal domains." Her role in the revolt was undoubtedly for the well known historical reasons as to why Indians revolted against their missions: brutality (towards women as well), the destruction of food sources due to the introduction of cattle, and most importantly, her resentment toward the missionaries who were trespassing and living on “her land”.

Governor Don Pedro Fages found Nicolas José and Toypurina guilty of being the principal leaders of the attack.

During her trial, Toypurina stated that she wanted to become a Christian. It was decided that through the event of her baptism in 1787, Padre Miguel Sanchez be allowed to exile her forever to the Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (present day Carmel, California), the mission most distant then from San Gabriel Arcangel Mission, where she might live in peace, become married, end her days, and be free from the very active danger that threatened her from all sides amidst the Tongva/Gabrieliños.

Toypurina took a Christian name, given to her by Padre Miguel Sanchez, of Regina (meaning "Queen") Josepha. Two years after her baptism, she married a Spaniard and soldier named Mañuel Montero, who had been serving at El Pueblo de Los Angeles, and received a tract of land from the governor. They lived in Monterey and had 3 children together (Cesario, Juana de Dios, and Maria Clementina).

On May 22, 1799, Toypurina died at Mission San Juan Bautista in northern Alta California at age 39.

On January 13, 2007, the 'Studio for Southern California History' included Toypurina as one of the many women who made significant contributions to California history.

 

Hawaiians

Benjamin Namakeha (c.1799-1860), a Hawaiian high chief, is believed to have been born in this year.

Bennett, Beneli, Beniki, or Benjamin Nāmākēhā-o-kalani (c. 1799 – December 27, 1860, Honolulu) was a Hawaiian high Chief, the uncle of Queen Emma of Hawaii, and the first husband of Queen Kapiolani.

Namakeha and his brother George Naea were sons of High Chief Kamaunu and High Chiefess Kukaeleiki, the daughter of Kalauawa from the royal line of Kauaian chiefs. Kukaeleiki was also cousin of Queen Keopuolani. Nāmākēhā was also said to have been descended from Kalanawaʻa of Oahu and High Chiefess Kuaenaokalani of Maui who held the exalted kapu rank of Kekapupoʻohoʻolewaikalā (a head so sacred that it could not be exposed to the sun except at dawn). Some sources say his father was High Chief Keli’imaikai, son of High Chief Keoua by his second wife the High Chiefess Keku’iapoiwa II, and his mother was Kalikoʻokalani. His name was the same as the high chief who rebelled against Kamehameha during the end of his military career in 1796. His brother Naea was the father of Queen Emma. 

 

Namakeha was a member of the House of Nobles from about 1848 through 1855. By 1851 the House of Nobles consisted only of petty chiefs called Kaukaualiʻi. Nāmākēhā was inferior to the aliʻi nui (High Chiefs). The Kaukaualiʻi were only descended from famous fathers while aliʻi nui claimed parentage of mother of the highest rank.

 

On March 8, 1852, Namakeha married the chiefess Esther Kapi’olani, daughter of Kuhio Kalaniana’ole of Hilo and Chiefess Kekaulike of Kauaʻi. His second wife was 35 years his junior. Through that marriage she became Queen Emma's aunt. He and Kapiʻolani had no children. However, Namakeha did have one son, Hinau, by his first wife, Halauwai.

For his health reasons, the couple voyaged for months on The Morning Star, a missionary vessel, among the Gilbert Islands, but in vain, for Nāmākēhā died on December 27, 1860, at Honolulu. He was buried at the Wylie Tomb in the Royal Mausoleum of Hawaii at Mauna ʻAla. His wife later married David Kalakaua and became the Queen consort of Hawaii. Namakeha’s line died out with his granddaugher Stella Keomailani (1866–1927), who was married to James Dawson Cockett.