San Manuel

About our Tribe

For generations, our Tribe has persevered through great change and extreme hardship. Long before the arrival of European settlers, our ancestors lived in harmony with the land across the highlands, passes, valleys, and mountains in and between the southwestern Mojave Desert and Inland Empire region in what is now Southern California. Known as the Yuhaaviatam clan, or “People of the Pines,” of the Maara’yam (Serrano), our people held sacred everything the land provided, and we thrived as an independent, self-sustaining community.

Our way of life was forever changed beginning in the 1780s, as our people in the Antelope Valley and Mojave Desert regions were decimated by European diseases, forced from their villages, and conscripted into the San Gabriel Mission in order to provide unpaid labor to Spain. Many Maara’yam (Serrano) were involuntarily marched to the Asistencia in Redlands, which served as an outpost of the San Gabriel Mission, to build the Mill Creek Zanja, which later permitted the citrus industry and other agricultural pursuits to flourish in this region of Serrano territory. 

Agricultural pursuits irreversibly changed the natural world the Maara’yam depended on for their sustenance and ceremony, and pushed Serrano people out of the most fertile lands.  Life in the missions was also very destructive to Native families.  Life expectancy was very short and cultural traditions, including the use of indigenous languages, were banned. When practiced, our ancestors were punished and beaten.