UC Riverside

As American Indian tribes across North America have continued to pursue the strengthening of tribal sovereignty, non-Indians increasingly engage in the activities and negotiations entailed in tribal revitalization. This dissertation examines the diachronic and synchronic aspects of the dynamic relations between revitalizing native nations and their neighboring non-Indian communities in Inland Southern California, home to the densest concentration of American Indian Reservations in the United States. First, this dissertation examines the historical relations between these native nations and settlers in order to demonstrate how tribal strategies for survival and self-determination underpinned both the economic development of Southern California as well as contemporary tribal revitalization across North America. I draw on ethnohistoric, archaeological and linguistic evidence to illustrate how Serrano and Cahuilla nations provided labor, knowledge and other resources vital for the agricultural and mining industries that fueled the growth of Southern California. I find that the labor that the Serrano and Cahuilla supplied to settlers also provided these native nations with the economic resources necessary to launch successful campaigns to revitalize their sovereignty, including their foundational roles in the emergence of the Indian casino movement. Then I employ ethnographic, documentary and consensus analyses to examine the advent and impacts of Indian casinos, through which these tribes began to play increasing roles in their neighboring communities, leading to their increased political and economic prominence and visibility. With this increasing prominence and visibility new interpretations of tribal communities emerged, including those disseminated by tribes, their supporters, and their political and economic challengers. Some of these, such as the framing of tribes as corporations, are novel interpretations of tribal identity; however, they increasingly inform political and legal decisions. By documenting the co-variation of tribal political and economic roles and with emerging cultural models of tribes, I demonstrate how tribal actions and revitalization have continuously changed the way settlers think about tribes, and transformed the disposition of tribes in local and national culture and politics.