One of the most important and contentious issues of American anthropology is the impact of the European encounter on Native American populations. In this important study of the Indians of the Yosemite Valley of California, Kathleen Hull makes a very important contribution. Drawing on the archaeological data, as well as Native oral traditions and historical accounts, she is able to reconstruct the impacts of European diseases and other factors on the Native population.
In this case, as with many others in the Americas, epidemic diseases preceded face-to-face contact, and these diseases did in fact have a catastrophic impact on the Native population. Yet, the evidence suggests that the depopulation that resulted from these diseases was not sufficient to destroy the cultures of the Native groups. Hull finds that had there been only a single wave of fatal disease, many Native people would have recovered and maintained their traditional long-term stability.
It was the second wave of assaults by disease and exploitation of Native labor and resources that were even more destructive and that brought about irreversible culture change. Gold Rush miners followed the Spanish, resulting in a fatal depopulation and destruction of indigenous life ways.
The second part of Pestilence and Persistence is a comparison of the Yosemite Indians with Native groups in 10 other regions of North America, including the Iroquois of upstate New York, the complex chiefdoms of the Southeast, and the Pueblo people of the Southwest. While Hull finds many similar experiences, she also finds a great many differences. This book is much more than a case study of a small California tribe. It is a major contribution to our understanding of European contact with Native America and all its consequences.
