Esselen People - Population

Population

Further information: Population of Native California

The Esselen were and are one of the least numerous indigenous people in California. The Spanish mission system led to severe decimation of the Esselen population. Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California vary substantially. Alfred L. Kroeber suggests a 1770 population for the Esselen of 500. Sherburne F. Cook raised this estimate to 750. Breschini calculated based on baptism records and population density that they numbered 1,185-1,285.

The Esselen are too often regarded as the first California Native American tribe to become culturally extinct, much to the frustration of current generations of Esselen people. By about 1822, much of the regional California Indian population had been forced into the Spanish mission system, at a time when most of their interior villages within the current Los Padres National Forest were largely uninhabited. Due to their proximity to three of the Spanish missions, Mission San Carlos in Carmel, Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad in Soledad, and Mission San Antonio de Padua in Jolon, the tribe was heavily impacted by their presence. The native population was decimated by disease, including measles, smallpox, and syphilis, which wiped out 90 percent of the native population, and by demoralization, poor food, and forced labor.

The first (factor) was the food supply... The second factor was disease. ... A third factor, which strongly intensified the effect of the other two, was the social and physical disruption visited upon the Indian. He was driven from his home by the thousands, starved, beaten, raped, and murdered with impunity. He was not only given no assistance in the struggle against foreign diseases, but was prevented from adopting even the most elementary measures to secure his food, clothing, and shelter. The utter devastation caused by the white man was literally incredible, and not until the population figures are examined does the extent of the havoc become evident.

Some anthropologists and linguists assumed that the tribe's culture had been virtually extinguished by as early as the 1840s. However, existing tribe members cite evidence that some Esselen escaped the missions system entirely by retreating to the rugged interior of the Santa Lucia Mountains until the 1840s when those remaining migrated to the ranchos and outskirts of the growing towns. Archeologists located the grave of girl estimated to be about six years old buried in Isabella Meadows Cave in the Church Creek area. They calculated the date of her burial to be about 1825. Two experts received reports of Indians living in the area through the 1850s. Today, contemporary generations of Esselen trace their ancestry to Esselen who were counted in early U.S. census efforts.