Please join us for the General Meeting on Thursday, May 21 at 7:30 pm in the Sesnon House. Gustavo Flores will be giving a talk titled “Native American Response and Resistance to Spanish Conquest in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1769–1846.”

Chief Estanislao

Many people are unaware that local San Francisco Bay Area Native Americans were agents that helped shape California history. Flores’ research attempts to portray a Native perspective to history, focusing on the time when California was occupied by New Spain and later Mexico, a period of 77 years, from 1769 to 1846. The project draws upon late 18th and early 19th century primary Spanish documents and previous works to learn indigenous people’s adaptive and responsive behaviors to colonialism. Flores used archival databases and translated primary Spanish documents to position three Native American leaders (Pomponio, Estanislao, and Yozcolo) into a historical context, taking into account colonial pressures that were likely agents for their reactions. This allowed for formulating an alternative perspective to their response and resistance towards the colonial institution.

Gustavo Flores is a San Francisco Bay Area archaeologist who recently completed his master’s degree in applied anthropology from San Jose State University. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has done archaeological work in various places, ranging from Northern California to Belize, Central America. He is currently working as an adjunct professor of anthropology at Evergreen Valley College in San Jose. He is particularly interested in indigenous archaeology. Gustavo lives in San Jose with his wife and two children.