This project will use the experiences of the Viejas and Barona bands of the Kumeyaay people as cases studies to describe the poor economic conditions experienced by Indigenous people in San Diego County during the twentieth century. San Diego’s accumulation of water rights forced Indigenous people from their traditional homes and territory and into inhospitable land that presented little economic prosperity for either the Barona or Viejas bands. It was not until the legalization of gaming on reservation land that either of those bands were able to make economic progress.

Tracing the movement of the Viejas and Barona bands from the Capitan Grande reservation to their current locations will show how their proximity to arable land and running water was removed by the city of San Diego with assistance from the federal government. The forced relocation of both bands has been visualized in a series of maps and timelines which document the removal of the Capitan Grande reservation from Indigenous possession. To create the visualizations the project has used QGIS. QGIS allows for the layering of data visualizations to create an interactive map that can be progressed from the early 1900s through the 1930s.

Although census data is limited for Indigenous people until the 1940s, there are snapshots of the population density for Kumeyaay living on reservation land from 1880 until 1930. The census data collected from the U.S. decennial census reports shows a sharp decline in Kumeyaay living on reservations after the El Capitan Act in 1919. The census classifies Kumeyaay people by their mission affiliation, and as such are called “Diegueno” throughout the census reports. The data from the censuses was collected through the U.S. Census Bureau archives. The reason for such limited census data is most likely due to Native Americans living on reservations not gaining American citizenship until 1924. Even with the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, Indigenous people were not regularly counted in the decennial census reports until 1940. The project uses census data from the 1880 special census report which recognized and counted the “Diegueno” population. A fire in the Department of Commerce in 1921 destroyed most of the 1890 census records. The next usable census reports for the project occurred in 1910 and 1930. The drop in “Diegueno” population recorded in 1930 point to a migration away from the newly established reservation areas across San Diego County including Barona and Viejas.

The limited data on the population of Indigenous people in California prior to 1940 was a problem when it came to creating meaningful interpretation of the datasets to support the argument. However, the data that was found can be compared to the rates of non-white population growth in San Diego over the same period. Once the two datasets were placed side by side, it became clear that the population of San Diego was growing while the Kumeyaay population on reservation land had shrunk by almost 50%.