Acjachemen

 ( Mission Indians ) 

In the era preceding colonization by Spain, the Acjachemen resided in permanent, well-defined villages and seasonal camps. Village populations ranged from between 35 and 300 residents, consisting of a single lineage in the smaller villages, and of a dominant clan joined with other families in the larger settlements. Each clan had its own resource territory and was politically independent; ties to other villages were maintained through economic, religious, and social networks in the immediate region. The elite class (composed chiefly of families, lineage heads, and other ceremonial specialists), a middle class (established and successful families), and people of disconnected or wandering families and captives of war comprised the three hierarchical social classes.

Native leadership consisted of the Nota, or clan chief, who conducted community rites and regulated ceremonial life in conjunction with the council of elders (puuplem), which was made up of lineage heads and ceremonial specialists in their own right. This body decided upon matters of the community, which were then carried out by the Nota and his underlings. While the placement of residential huts in a village was not regulated, the ceremonial enclosure (vanquesh) and the chief's home were most often centrally located.

The Acjachemen relied upon harvesting and processing acorns, grasses, seeds, and bay shellfish. They had a dietary preference for birds and small mammals like rabbits. They crafted animal bones into weapons, tools, and jewelry.

In 1776, as Junípero Serra approached Acjachemen territory with a Spanish soldier and one "neophyte," a recently baptized Native and Spanish translator, a "crowd of painted and well-armed Acjachemen Indians, some of whom put arrows to their bowstrings as though they intended to kill the Spanish intruders" surrounded Serra's group. The "neophyte" informed the Acjachemen that attacking would only result in further violence from the Spanish military. As a result, the Acjachemen "desisted, aware of the serious threat that military retaliation represented."Lisbeth Haas, Conquests and Historical Identities in California, 20.

While, before 1783, those who had been converted, known as "Juaneños, both children and adults, represented a relatively small percentage of the Acjachemen population, all that changed between 1790 and 1812, when the vast majority of remaining non-converts were baptized." Spanish colonists referred to the Acjachemen as Juaneño. The Acjachemen were designated as Juaneños by Spanish priests through the baptismal process performed at Mission San Juan Capistrano, named after St. Juan Capistrano in Spain. Many other local tribes were named similarly (Kizh (pronounced keech) – Gabrieleño; named after Mission San Gabriel).

During the late 18th century, the mission economy extended over the entire territory of the Acjachemen. Acjachemen villages still had "access to specific hunting, collecting, and fishing areas" and "within these collectively owned areas villagers also possessed private property." However, the Indigenous land tenure system was first paralleled and then undermined by the mission system and colonization. The Spanish transformed the countryside into grazing lands for livestock and horticulture. Between 1790 and 1804, "mission herds increased in size from 8,034 head to 26,814 head."

As European disease also began to decimate the rural population, the dominion and power of the Spanish missions over the Acjachemen further increased." By 1812, the mission was at the peak of its growth: "3,340 persons had been baptized at the mission, and 1,361 Acjachemen resided in the mission compound." After 1812, the rate of Acjachemen who died surpassed the amount of those who were baptized. By 1834, the Acjachemen population had declined to about 800.

The Acjachemen resisted assimilation by practicing their cultural and religious ceremonies, performing sacred dances and healing rituals both in villages and within the mission compound. Missionaries attempted to prevent "Indigenous forms of knowledge, authority, and power" from passing on to younger generations by placing recently baptized Indian children in monjerios "away from their parents from the age of seven or so until their marriage." Native children and adults were punished for disobeying Spanish priests through confinement and lashings. The logic behind these harsh practices was "integral to Catholic Church belief and practice." Gerónimo Boscana, a missionary at San Juan between 1812 and 1822, admitted that, despite harsh treatment, attempts to convert Native people to Christian beliefs and traditions were largely unsuccessful: "All the missionaries in California, declares Boscana, would agree that the true believer was the rare exception."

Terrestrial and marine fauna refuse, food storage vessels, specialized craft goods, ritual artifacts culturally associated with elite clan lineages, and interregional trade connections were found at the Puhú village site.

However, while Acjachemen "claimed and were granted villages," there was "rarely" any legal title issued, meaning that the land was "never formally ceded" to them following emancipation, which they protested as others encroached upon their traditional territory. While rancho grants issued by the Mexican government on the lands of the San Juan mission "were made in the early 1840s, Indians' rights to their village lands went unrecognized." Although the Acjachemen were now "free," they were "increasingly vulnerable to being forced to work on public projects" if it was determined that they had "'reverted' to a state of dependence on wild fruits or neglected planting crops and herding" or otherwise failed to continue practicing Spanish-imposed methods of animal husbandry and horticulture. Because of a lack of formal recognition, "most of the former Acagchemem territory was incorporated into Californio ranchos by 1841, when San Juan Mission was formed into a pueblo."

The formation of the San Juan pueblo was a direct result of the actions of San Diego settlers, who petitioned the government to gain access to the lands of the mission territory. Before the formation of the pueblo, the "one-hundred or so Acjachemen living there" were asked if they favored or opposed this change: seventy voted in favor, while thirty, mostly older, Acjachemen opposed, "possibly because they did not want to live among the Californios." The formation of the San Juan pueblo granted Californios and Acjachemen families solars, or lots for houses, and suertes, or plots of land in which to plant crops.

By 1860, Acjachemen were recorded in the census "with Spanish first names and no surnames; the occupations of 38 percent of their household heads went unrecorded; and they owned only 1 percent of the land and 0.6 percent of the assets (including cattle, household items, and silver or gold)." It was recorded that 30 percent of all households were headed by women "who still lived in San Juan on the plots of land that had been distributed in 1841" under Mexican rule. It was reported that "shortly after the census was taken, the entire population began to leave the area for villages to the southeast of San Juan." A smallpox epidemic in 1862 took the lives of 129 Acjachemen people in one month alone of a population now "of only some 227 Indians." The remaining Acjachemen established themselves among the Luiseño, who they "shared linguistic and cultural similarities, family ties, and colonial histories." Even after their relocation to various Luiseño villages, "San Juan remained an important town for Acjachemen and other Indians connected to it" so that by the "latter part of the nineteenth century individuals and families often moved back and forth between these villages and San Juan for work, residence, family events, and festivals."

American occupation resulted in increasing power and wealth for European immigrants and Anglo-Americans to own land and property by the 1860s, "in sharp contrast to the pattern among Californios, Mexicans, and Indians." In the Santa Ana and San Juan Capistrano townships, most Californios lost their ranchos in the 1860s. By 1870, European immigrants and Anglo-Americans now owned 87 percent of the land value and 86 percent of the assets. Native people went from owning 1 percent of the land value and assets, as recorded in the 1860 census, to 0 percent in 1870. Anglo-Americans became the majority of the population by the mid-1870s, and the towns in which they resided "were characterized by a marked lack of ethnic diversity." In the 1890s, a permanent elementary school was constructed in San Juan. However, until 1920, for education beyond sixth grade, "students had to relocate to Santa Ana – an impossibility for the vast majority of Californio and Acjachemen families."

The last fluent speakers of Acjachemen died by the early 20th century. Descendants of Juanita Rios Foy, Matriarch of San Juan Capistrano still speak this language and the Acjachemen continue working to revive it, and several members are learning it and can speak and sing in the language. Their studies are partly based on the research and records of Anastacia Majel and John P. Harrington, who recorded the language in 1933. (The tape recordings resurfaced around 1995.)

In the 1990s, the Acjachemen Nation divided into three different governments, all claiming their identity as the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation.

These unrecognized organizations include:

1. Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation, San Juan Capistrano, CA (Petitioner 84A, originally known as the Belardes group and now referred to as 84A)
2. Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation, Santa Ana, CA (Petitioner 84B)
3. Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation (Romero), Santa Ana, CA

The Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation (84A), based in San Juan Capistrano elects a tribal council, assisted by tribal elders. They have about 1,800 members.

In 1993, an Assembly Joint Resolution No. 48 was filed in the state of California, which "memorialized the President and Congress of the United States to declare the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemem Nation, to be the aboriginal tribe of Orange County."

in 1999, The Juaneno Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation (84A) petitioned for federal recognition. On November 26, 2007, the Bureau of Indian Affairs declined the petition due to not meeting the four of the seven mandatory criteria.

In 2002, Acjachemen representatives expressed interest in regaining some of the territory of the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro.

In 2008, the Acjachemen community successfully prevented the construction of a toll road highway that would have desecrated and irreparably harmed Panhe, a sacred ancestral town site.