"Bringing Them under Subjection": California's Tejón Indian Reservation and Beyond, 1852-1864

The final book in a three-volume history of California’s Native peoples, “Bringing Them under Subjection” chronicles the development and demise of the state’s first permanent reservation, the Sebastian Military Reserve, better known as the Tejón Reservation. George Harwood Phillips explains how local Native peoples were instrumental in the initial success of the reservation and how the institution was undermined by squatters and a Native policy emphasizing caution over innovation. Because the scope of the study encompasses most of the San Joaquin Valley in central California, events related to but unfolding beyond the reservation are also given considerable attention, in particular the founding and functioning of quasi reservations called “Indian farms,” the resistance offered by Native peoples in the southern valley, the degradation they underwent in the gold fields, and the survival of their progeny to the present.

Drawing upon Native oral testimony and the accounts of state and federal officials, military officers, newspaper reporters, settlers, miners, and ranchers, Phillips provides a detailed and balanced account of a volatile period in California history.