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| birth_date = Before 1811 | birth_place = San Nicolas Island, California | death_date = October 19, 1853 | death_place = Garey, California | ethnicity = Island Tongva | other_names = | known_for = Inspiring ''Island of the Blue Dolphins'' | occupation = }} Juana Maria (died October 19, 1853), better known to history as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island (her Native American name is unknown), was a Native American woman who was the last surviving member of her tribe, the Nicoleño. She lived alone on San Nicolas Island off the coast of California from 1835 until her discovery in 1853. Scott O'Dell's award-winning children's novel ''Island of the Blue Dolphins'' (1960) was inspired by her story. == Biography == === Background === The Channel Islands have long been inhabited by humans, with Native American colonization occurring 10,000 years ago or earlier. At the time of European contact, two distinct ethnic groups occupied the archipelago: the Chumash lived on the Northern Channel Islands and the Tongva on the Southern Islands (Juana Maria's tribe, the Nicoleño, were Tongva). In the early 1540s Portuguese conquistador Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo explored the California coast, claiming it on behalf of Spain. Cabrillo believed that there was little of value in the region, so California was largely uncolonized. For more than two hundred years contact between the Natives and Europeans remained limited. In the 1740s Russians began colonizing the Americas, developing the lucrative maritime fur trade along the northern Pacific Coast. Russian trappers, known as ''promyshlenniki'', hunted Alaskan sea otters and sold their pelts for a great profit in Qing China. Other European nations took notice, and by the 1780s the Russians were in competition with the British Hudson's Bay Company and others. Meanwhile, the Spanish began constructing missions in California, fearing that the neglected territory would fall into British hands. With the first period of significant European contact and exposure to Old World diseases came a precipitous decline in the population of Native California. In Alaska, the ''promyshlenniki'' and their competitors were driving the sea otter to extinction. With their profits declining, the hunters turned their attention to the coast of California, marking the start of the California Fur Rush. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Juana Maria」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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