Race, Racialization and the Colonial Conquest of the Santa Barbara Channel Region: Colonial and National Racial Ideological System

In my dissertation I seek to understand the various ways in which the Chumashan speaking peoples of the Santa Barbara Channel region have been racialized by various waves of conquerors. To that end I trace the development of four discreet waves of racialization across three different national colonial regimes and discuss the impact of these ideological shifts on California Native Peoples.;Using historical primary and secondary sources, the work of scholars in anthropology, archeology, ethnic studies, history, mission studies, as well as my own qualitative interviews, I argue that the peoples of the Santa Barbara Channel region have had to contend with four separate ideological trends in racialization from European and American power structures: Exploration for Conquest, Conquest and Occupation, Settler Colonialism, and the Anthropologicization of Race and Culture. Each of these modes serves to undergird some aspect of the national policy towards these Indigenous People, impacting their lifeways, cultural, and physical survival.;With the ongoing attempts in the twenty first century to further cultural preservation, language reclamation, and obtain Federal legal status the legacy of these colonial structures must be understood and reckoned with to answer those who still take these coercive racial ideologies as "truth" and thereby facilitate local attempts by these Native Peoples to achieve self-determination with regards to their own group membership and social organization.