Explaining Inequality in Northwest Coast and Native California Societies: A Critical Assessment

Indigenous societies of the Pacific Coast region of North America developed a range of subsistence ecologies and associated political economies, from plant-focused relatively egalitarian communities in much of California to fish-focused systems composed of hereditary elites, commoners, and slaves on the Northwest Coast. This variation provides an ideal opportunity to explore the causes of variation in the degree of institutionalized inequality in wealth and power in small-scale societies. After summarizing key features of ecology, social organization, and political economy across this region, we provide a critical review of various leading explanations for variation in institutionalized inequality in small-scale societies, qualitatively and quantitatively evaluating their success in explaining the observed patterns in contact-period California and Northwest Coast. We focus on six prominent explanations for this variation: food surplus and storage, population pressure, population size (scalar dynamics), warfare, management of collective action, and differential resource control. Although some explanations exhibit mixed results, only subgroup control of dense, predictable, and clumped resources, with resulting patron-client dynamics, gains robust support. We briefly consider whether other coastal foraging societies scattered around the globe match this explanatory scenario.