MAY 22, 1939

ISABEL MEADOWS-LAST RUMSEN OHLONE SPEAKER-DIED

Born on July 7, 1846, in Carmel Valley, California, Isabel claimed Esselen and Rumsen heritage. Due in part to her ancestry and childhood, Meadows was fluent in English and Spanish and is known as the last fluent speaker of the Rumsen Ohlone language which had been commonly spoken along the Central Coast of California prior to the arrival of the Spanish. In her later years, Isabel shared her knowledge of her tribe’s culture and languages in the Monterey, Carmel, and Big Sur regions of California with Smithsonian ethnologist J. P. Harrington. She provided oral history on the Spanish missions, ranchos, and the California Gold Rush. Isabel was “one of the last survivors who could retrace the sweeping and succeeding colonial forms of violence by the Spanish, Mexican and U.S. colonial systems in California.” Meadows died in Washington D.C.

Sources: 

Deborah A. Miranda, “Ancestral Voices from the Archives,” NMAI Magazine, Spring 2023, V. 24. Issue 1.  Retrieved 10/11/2023, Ancestral Voices from the Archives | NMAI Magazine (americanindianmagazine.org)

Wikipedia

Photo:   Author unknown, circa 1890.  Public Domain. Source: Monterey Public Library, Historic Photo File No. 295.Historic Monterey: Photo Gallery - Isabel Meadows (archive.org)