Place of the live oak

THE BREAKDOWN:Spanish Colonial Period (1769-1821)

The Spanish divided California into Baja California and Alta California Missions are built in California, Portolá expedition starts in 1769 to start settling in Alta California

Mexican Period: (1821-1848) California was called “Alta California”: • Mission system declined, as well as the Mission Indian population• Growing population of non-Indians forced the Mexican government to

redistribute lands to Spanish California residents and their families• They argued that this would bring greater liberties to the Indians,

but really, it took away properties from Indians that were held in trust under the old system

• Secularization of Missions: • The Indian neophytes were not entirely freed during the

secularization of the Missions• Few Indians were freed: they became formally emancipated

(released) when the Governor approved their petition for freedom

• Once emancipated, the freed Indians could apply for land grants if they met Mexican qualifications for citizenship. They would still be forced to provide labor and have political loyalty to the Spanish King

• Tiburcio Cayo began negotiating with the padres as San Fernando Mission for title to the land and emancipation under the secularization laws in 1840

• July 17, 1843: 1 square league at El Encino entitled to Tiburcio Cayo from Governor Micheltorena

• July 25, 1845: Entitlement of El Encino to Román, Roque, and Francisco Papabubaba from Governor Pio Pico, after the death of Tiburcio in 1844

• Alta California paid little or no net tax revenue to the Mexican State

California/American period • Disease, drought, and taxes pressed the rancherías • Tataviam progenitors lost El Encino to taxes owed• Governor Pio Pico sold half of Ex-Mission San Fernando to raise funds to

organize opposition to the US army. The land sold included land promised to Rogerio Rocha

• In the late 1850s, Vicente de la Osa purchased 1/3 of El Encino (Roque’s share), as well as paid taxes on Maria Rita Alipas’ share. He became a joint owner and business partner to Rita Alipas.

Loss of Land:• El Encino was lost to Don Vincente de la Osa due to unpaid taxes and failure

to file the ranchería with land claims by captain Maria Rita Alipas in the California State/American period

• Trusting the Mexicans, the land grantees, and their families, lost their lands and ways of life to the crafty drafters of the law in 19th century Los Angeles. Today, Don Vicente de la Osa’s 1849 adobe still stands on the Los Encinos State Historic Park property.

Photo of Los Encinos State Historic Park 100 years after the entitlement of one acre to Tiburcio Cayo’s descendants

LANGUAGE:Ranchería names in the Takic language appear with a locative suffix (-nga) or of a person of that place (-vit, -bit, or –bet). The ranchería name for El Encino was usually written in the mission registers as either “Siutcanga” (place) or “Siutcabit” (person of the lineage there).

The informant for J.P. Harrington, a notable linguist in the early 1900’s, named Setimo Lopez, stated that “sjútkanga” meant El Encino, while “sjútka” meant encino (the Spanish word for live oak tree).

RELATIONSHIP WITH ENCINO (LINEAGE)The lineage of Siutcabit that existed El Encino had ancestral connections to surrounding villages through lineal, godparenting, or marital ties. Tiburcio Cayo was a captain and alcalde at El Encino. He was born at Tapuu, a mixed Chumash and Tataviam village in present day Simi Valley. Tiburcio was married to Teresa, who was baptized at the Tataviam village Cahuenga. Teresa’s mother Juana Josefa, however, belonged to Suitcabit, the lineage at Encino. Tiburcio Cayo’s son Joseph’s baptism godfather was Francisco del Espiritu Santo, the grandfather of Leandra Culeta, who is the progenitor of the Garcia family.

In 1827, Tiburcio and Teresa’s daughter Paul Cayo, who belonged to her mother’s lineage Cabuebit at Cahuenga, married Francisco Papabubaba, whose ancestry traces back to the Tataviam village at Chaguayanga, in Santa Clarita, California. Together, they had Maria Rita Alipas, the well-known progenitor of the Ortega family and leader at El Encino. Tiburcio and Paula’s other daughter, Agueda, married Roque, who was of Chumash descent. Both Roman and Francisco, along with Roman, would later be the petitioners for the El Encino land grant petition of 1843.

By 1840, Tiburcio Cayo was raising forty to fifty cattle at Rancho Encino and began negotiating with the padres as San Fernando Mission for title to the land and emancipation under the secularization laws. He negotiated with Mission San Fernando until he was allowed to live and maintain Rancho Encino with his family and relations, and received verification of his claim for Governor Micheltorena. In 1845, after the death of Tiburcio Cayo and change of the Mexican governor for the California Department, Francisco Papabubaba, Roman, and Roque petitioned to Governor Pio Pico for the title of one square league at Rancho Encino that once belonged to Tiburcio. All three Indians had been living at El Encino since 1840 under the leadership and mentorship of Tiburcio Cayo, especially since Francisco and Roque were tied to the Cayos through marriage.

Rogerio Rocha, both the son of captain German and Tataviam captain himself, originally had joint ownership of one square league with the 40 petitioners of 1843 (Fig 1). This ownership was illegally suspended when Governor Pio Pico sold half of Ex-Mission San Fernando in 1846. Some elderly San Fernando Mission Indians were allowed to retire at the Mission, but many of the forty petitioners left the Mission, believing they could not hold onto land.

LAND GRANT SUMMARY:The Mexican Secularization Act of 1834 recognized Indian rights to retain land, self-government, and citizenship under trust from the Mexican government. These relations were to be preserved in the American period, according to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. Spanish and Mexican land trust was then transferred to the United States without any direct treaty negotiation with the Mission Indians. The square league at El Encino, which was originally granted to Tiburcio Cayo in 1843, was re-granted to Roman, Francisco, and Roque, after Tiburcio’s death (1844), on July 18, 1845. Maria Rita Alipas, daughter of alcalde Francisco Papabubaba, maintained the ranchería at El Encino and became captain there after her father’s death in 1847.

In 1849, unable to pay taxes during the American period, Rita Alipas and the other women at El Encino start negotiating to keep their land. Rita Alipas sold 1/3 of the share of El Encino to Don Vicente de la Osa, who became her business partner. Since he also paid the taxes on Rita Alipas’ share, he became a joint owner of the ranchería. Rita Alipas and her relatives did not file El Encino with land claims in the 1850s, it became available for purchase by Don Vicente. Rita Alipas and her family lingered at El Encino until the late 1850s, until she moved back to San Fernando.

JUAN CRESPÍ’S DIARY ENTRIES:Crespí was a Franciscan missionary and explorer of Las Californias.August 5, 1769: the Portolá Expedition rested at Encino. Crespí observed two large villages of around two hundred people. While at Encino, Crespí reported that a scouting party had encountered:

... about three leagues to eastward, a swamp in a hollow belonging to this valley, where a village was seen.

January 15, 1770, Crespí wrote:

...we came to the good-sized pool of hot water on the south side of this valley, where we had stopped on the way coming and where at that time there was a large village, but now there was not a single heathen.

April 27, 1770

Crespí reported camping at Encino and said the Indians brought them bowls of gruel. The Portolá expedition observed a village at Encino that had multiple chiefs, regularly arraigned grass- roofed dwellings, underground dance houses, beads and beautifully carved wooden flutes.

CULTURAL SITE:

LAn-43: Cultural Site of Siutcanga, in the vicinity of the intersection of Ventura Boulevard and Balboa Boulevard. The extent of the site has not been determined, but a large area of the site has been destroyed by recent redevelopment work. Part of the site is located at Los Encinos State Historic Park, since the pool observed by Crespi is in the park.

LAn-111: Cultural site located 0.7 miles north of the Los Encinos spring. It’s situated at the base of a north trending ravine in the foothills of Santa Monica Mountains.

Although thousands of items were removed from the ground, the project catalogued 4,140 cultural deposits from Siutcanga, including 18 beads, 11 tools, and 147 flakes. Two large burials were also disturbed during excavation. It was noted that an ancient streambed that traversed the property might have previously impacted the burials. A meandering stream may have connected the two burial areas.

While most of the artifacts can be dated to 50 BCE, one specific cultural deposit was dated to 2000 BCE. The presence of a dog burial with shell beads at Siutcanga may illustrate the presence of ceremonial activity for, and with, animals. The Chatsworth Village, located 10 miles northeast of Siutcanga, is recorded as a mirror image of the site located at El Encino.

Antonio Maria Ortega Tataviam Captain and son of Captain Maria Rita Alipas

Rogerio Rocha Tataviam Captain and son of Captain Jerman

Figure 1: Rogerio’s name written under his father Jerman’s, on the list of petitioners