Spanish colonizers called the Acjachemen Juaneños, following their conversion to Christianity at Mission San Juan Capistrano in the late 18th century. Today, many contemporary … See more

Gerónimo Boscana, a Franciscan scholar who was stationed at San Juan Capistrano for more than a decade beginning in 1812, compiled the first, comprehensive study of Acjachemen religious practices. Religious knowledge was secret, and the prevalent religion, called See more

Several organizations today identify as representing Acjachemen descendants. None of them are federally recognized, and California has no process for creating state-recognized tribes.
In the 1990s, the Acjachemen Nation divided into three … See more

• Population of Native California
• Classification of Indigenous peoples of the Americas#California
• Mission Indians
• Indigenous peoples of California See more

Pre-colonization
Acjachemen creation and origins stories represent their history in Southern California as beginning in the beginning of time. Archaeologists … See more

The Acjachemen language is related to the Luiseño language spoken by the nearby Luiseño tribe located to the interior. Considered to speak a dialect of Luiseño, the Juaneño were part of the Cupan subgroup of the Uto-Aztecan languages. Northern Uto … See more

• José de Grácia Cruz, Father of Paul Arbiso, bell ringer, and artisan.
• Bobbie Banda, elder who established Native American … See more