It's a little known fact that the San Francisco Bay Area's Marin County is named after a Coast Miwok chief who achieved notoriety for defying Spanish authority over his people. Anthropologist and archaeologist Betty Goerke has pieced together a portrait of the life of this Native American leader, using mission records, ethnographies, explorers' and missionaries' diaries and correspondence, and other material.

Advanced Praise

"As Betty Goerke sketches the life story of Chief Marin, she effectively remaps Marin and southern Sonoma counties, providing Indian and non-Indian alike a rich historical tapestry of the region's native people and their against-all-odds survival, a tapestry that has heretofore been ignored or forgotten."—From the Foreword by Greg Sarris, Tribal Chair, Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria

"With meticulous research and lively prose, Betty Goerke tells the true story of one group of California Natives overwhelmed by a century of change, and of one of their chiefs, Marin, whose intelligence, skills, and independent spirit epitomized his people's yearning to be free."—Beth Ashley, Marin Independent Journal