Juana Maria (unknown-1853), also known as the lost woman of San Nicolas island, lived a solitary and fabled life as one of the last members of the Nicoleño tribe.
Juana Maria (unknown-1853), also known as the lost woman of San Nicolas island, lived a solitary and fabled life as one of the last members of the Nicoleño tribe.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica.
Today, we’re talking about a woman whose story has fascinated people around the world for more than a century. But the details of that story are uncertain. Nearly everything we know about her is from a second hand source-- even her name. Let’s talk about The Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island.
The very origins of this story are muddled by the history of colonization. San Nicolas is a small, windswept island in the Channel Island archipelago off the coast of present-day California. The island had likely been inhabited by the Nicoleño [nee-coal-en-yow] people for close to 10,000 years prior to European contact. The name Nicoleño is a European name-- their native name is unknown. They were likely related to the Tongva people, who still remain in the Southern Channel Islands.
However, much of Nicoleño history remains unknown. Throughout the 1500s and 1600s, Spanish colonizers relocated many indigenous people to mission settlements on the mainland. Oftentimes, the mission system consisted of forcing indigenous people into labor under the guise of converting them. This invasion was furthered in 1811, when Russian fur traders found the island was rich in otters and seals. They massacred the Nicoleños remaining on the island-- by some accounts, less than twenty remained by the 1830s.
In response to the massacre, members of the Santa Barbara Mission sent a schooner called “Peor es Nada,” or “Better than Nothing” out to San Nicolas to collect any survivors. This is where the Lone Woman’s story toes the line between fact and fiction. By some accounts, she didn’t arrive at the beach in time to board the ship. In other stories, she was onboard when she realized her son or younger brother was still on the island, and she jumped overboard to return to him. Either way, she remained on the island as the ship sailed away.
The Lone Woman’s story gained popularity on the mainland. In the late 1840s, a Santa Barbara fur trapper launched a series of expeditions to find her. On his third attempt in 1853, footprints on the beach led him to the Lone Woman. According to the crew’s accounts, she was living in a hut made of whalebones and brush, and wearing a dress made of cormorant feathers. She hunted seals and ducks for food, and had also crafted items for everyday use, like water jugs and baskets. Since the Peor Es Nada had left, she’d been living on the island by herself for eighteen years.
She went with the expedition’s crew on their return to the Santa Barbara Mission. Broadly speaking, nobody at the Mission was able to communicate with her. Accounts vary as to whether there were other Nicoleños still at the Mission when the Lone Woman arrived. If so, they were able to speak with each other, but nobody else at the Mission, including Chumash and Tongva traders.
As such, we know very little about the Lone Woman’s life, or Nicoleño life, except for the accounts of others at the mission. These reports are often colored by their writers’ own biases. Although many reports record the Lone Woman smiling and enjoying her time at the mission, it’s equally as important to note those same reports often attributed her inability to communicate to a “semi-wild” or “feral” nature-- rather than to the fact she was one of the last native speakers of her own language.
Catholic priests baptized the Lone Woman “Juana Maria.” On October 19, 1853, just seven weeks after arriving in Santa Barbara, she died of dysentery.
The Lone Woman’s story became a sensation around the world-- likely part of the reason why so many conflicting versions of events exist. Published references have been found as far as Germany, India, and Australia from the 1840s to the early 20th century. One of the most famous is Scott O’Dell’s 1960 children’s novel, “Island of the Blue Dolphins.” It’s directly inspired by the Lone Woman’s story, though the protagonist is a 12-year-old girl named Karana. It’s so well-known that San Nicolas is often nicknamed the Island of the Blue Dolphins.
Even today, people continue to try to piece together the Lone Woman’s story. In 2009, an archaeologist found boxes of artifacts on San Nicolas Island -- most of them belonging to the Nicoleño people. And over the years, a total of 469 human remains and 436 burial objects have been found on San Nicolas Island. When leaders from the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Mission Indians visited the island, they expressed concern about the way human remains and other objects were being handled in excavations. In 2015, they reached an agreement with the US Navy to stake cultural claim to the Nicoleños, and those remains and objects were repatriated to the Pechanga. The items are still on display in museums in California, though the Pechanga have greater authority over how they are handled.
All month, we’re highlighting Indigenous women from around the globe.
Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator.
Talk to you tomorrow!