Manuel Hatam His Roman Catholic baptismal name is, Jose Manuel Pol-ton. He is born in 1805 (apx). at Santa Catarina. He resided with his daughter at the Florida Canyon, City Park/Balboa Park Kumeyaay village location until his death in 1875. He served as Capitan for over fifteen years.

We might ask ourselves, where are they today? The answer is, Right Here! That is correct! There are hundreds of tribal people still living near to their original locations. Many more have been scattered by events: historical, political or military. Too often sickness and the pressures of modern life have taken the greater toll on the local Kumeyaay populations.

The Kumeyaay were seasonal hunters and gatherers whose individual bands ranged along waterways from the San Diego coastal region, east through the Cuyamaca and Laguna Mountains to beyond the Salton Sea in the east, and south beyond current-day Ensenada in Mexico. Bands spoke individual dialects and lived a loosely connected lifestyle intermarrying among them. They fished in the bay, gathered grunion and mollusks on the beach, hunted small game like rabbits, picked wild fruits, berries and their staple acorns. They also engaged in primitive horticultural activities away from coastal regions. Each territorial band -- with a population of between 200 and 1,000 persons -- controlled approximately 20 miles of river drainage (depending upon the width and richness of the valley) from their winter home. These bands are classified together as Kumeyaay because they are all of the Yuman language family, Hokan stock.

The Kumeyaay are sub-divided into the Ipai (the northern dialectical form) and the Tipai (the southern dialectical form) and the Kamia (the eastern dialectical form mentioned above). The Ipai lived in territory extending from the San Diego River (approximately Interstate 8) north to Agua Hedionda Lagoon (approximately State Highway 78) and then eastward through Escondido to Lake Henshaw. The Tipai lived south of the San Diego River into Baja south of Ensanada, and eastward to the Laguna Mountains and beyond Mount Tecate.

In spite of the efforts of Spanish missionaries to convert the San Diego-area Kumeyaay to Christianity and the use of presidio soldiers to subdue them, many bands resented the European intrusion and the Kumeyaay remained the most resistant of all California Indians to subjugation, revolting on several occasions. In fact, during the night and early morning of November 4 and 5, 1775, a force of Kumeyaay surrounded Mission San Diego de Alcalá, set fire to its wooden structures and attacked a small contingent of Spaniards. The padre and another Spaniard were killed (the only missionary killed by Indians in California) which prompted expeditions by Presidio soldiers into the mountains and deserts to the east, in search of the Indian leaders and new neophytes for the mission. This tenuous relationship between the Kumeyaay and the Spanish continued until Mexican independence in 1821. Nonetheless, by the time of mission secularization, the Kumeyaay population had dwindled to about 3,000 due to disease, loss of ancestral lands and various other causes. Freed of mission control, most Kumeyaay fled to the mountains where they could not be forced to work for the Mexican settlers or the army, and the population started to rebuild.

When the U.S. wrested control of California from Mexico with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, most of the mountain Kumeyaay, especially those along the emigrant trails, were seriously affected by the entrance of American settlers. By the time gold was discovered in Julian in 1869, shortly after the Civil War, the Spanish, Mexican and American governments and settlers had changed the Kumeyaay's way of life forever. In 1875, the inland Kumeyaay were expelled from their ancestral homes and their land was expropriated. Their plight was ignored until publicity generated by the Indian Rights Association and the Sequoia League forced the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) to set aside lands of the Cuyamaca, La Posta, Manzanita and Laguna Mountains earlier in this century. The Kumeyaay population finally began to revive after 1910. Currently there are about 20,000 Kumeyaay descendants in San Deigo County, about 10% of whom live on its 18 reservations, more than in any other county in the United States.

In the last decade, the Sycuan, Barona and Viejas reservations have developed successful bingo and gaming operations. The Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians is the owner and operator of a popular and lucrative casino along Interstate 8 in rural San Diego County. The band has built a $30 million factory outlet mall, owns a bank, and supports an employee workforce of 1,600 people. It also engages in revenue sharing with 7 non-gaming tribes in San Diego County and promotes environmental protection programs.