Alameda Native History Project

Month: February 2022

  • Alameda’s Racist History: If You Won’t Share Ours, Give Back Our Artifacts

    “Alameda Museum: / If you won’t share our history, give our artifacts back / Celebrate the First Alamedans just / as much as your Colonizer Heroes. / Alameda’s Racist History” Title art for @AlamedaNativeHistoryProject on Instagram.com.

    Alameda is a model colonial city. Their Victorian houses, and expansive gardens have been written about for hundreds of years. Regular Alameda Garden Tours, and Alameda Legacy Home Tours extoll the virtues of Alameda’s First Colonizers.

    These historical celebrations routinely leave out facts, such as,

    “This garden was fertilized by using human remains found in one of Alameda’s three shellmounds.”

    Or,

    “This sidewalk was constructed using one of the over 350 Native American bodies found in the ‘Sather’s Mound’.”

    The Alameda Museum is exclusively devoted to commemorating and memorializing Alameda’s White History, while simultaneously ignoring and minimizing the existence and contributions of people of color; and the atrocities committed by those who are purported to be such heroic goliaths of Alameda History, today.

    This is all done in the shadows of people like Rasheed Shabazz, someone who had to trace his own Alameda Legacy to bring us Black Alameda History, which was never touched upon, or even considered by an all-white museum staff, and curation team. [

    Sure, the Alameda Museum invites us to search their archives. But the word “search” belies the onerous nature of digging through files and card catalogs which aren’t actually indexed or organized in any useful way.

    People always offer us the chance to do their work for them, like it’s a favor to us.

    But let’s be clear: an archive that isn’t indexed or organized is trash.

    The real issue here, is that the Alameda Museum has existed for so long without ever: (a) indexing their holdings; (b) focusing on anything other than Alameda’s White History; or (c) ever asking for permission to possess the Native American Funerary Objects, and Grave Goods in their possession….

    The issue of Alameda Museum’s possession of Native American Grave Goods and Funerary Objects is especially salient considering their absolute lack of respectful handling of the Historical Events Surrounding the Sather’s Mound, and the Destruction and Morbid Uses for Alameda’s Shellmounds.

    Simply put;

    Alameda Museum, if you’re not going to engage the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, ask for permission to possess their artifacts, and present respectful, and responsible, information regarding the First Alamedans: then you don’t deserve to possess their artifacts.

    Stay tuned for more.

  • You Don’t Know Jack About Native America

    “You Don’t Know Jack About Native America / Stop giving money to organizations and ’causes’ you know nothing about. / Research your Land Acknowledgment before you profess it.” Title art for @AlamedaNativeHistoryProject on Instagram.com.

    Stop giving money to organizations and “causes” you know nothing about.

    Non-profit organizations cannot be tribal governments. (The exercise of Tribal Sovereignty is not a charitable purpose.)

    Organizations, like Sogorea Te “Land Trust” claim to be devoted to returning native land to native hands….

    But which tribes are these organizations actually associated with?

    Real Tribal Governments:
    1. Will be able to break down their history with facts, and evidence;
    2. Are recognized in Treaty–even if the government won’t recognize their own treaties. (And they have a documented reason for why they are not mentioned in Treaties. [e.g. Tribal Warfare, Government Favoritism of One Tribe Over Another, etc.])
    3. Hold elections.

    The last point is super important. You can’t call yourself a Tribal Chairperson if there was never a vote. And, especially, if your Tribal Government is really just a corporation.

    If the “Tribal Government” you’re working with has never petitioned for Federal Recognition from the Department of the Interior; that’s a red flag.

    If the California Tribal Government you’re working with claims to be a California “State-Recognized Tribe“; that’s blatantly false.

    California does not have a Tribal Recognition Process.

    The California Native American Heritage Commission does not have the authority to recognize tribes. Only the Bureau of Indian Affairs can do that. [Absent certification as a Tribe by the BIA, no action to protect tribal lands may be maintained, United States v. 43.47 Acres of Land, 855 F. Supp. 549, 551 (D. Conn. 1994)]

    Research your Land Acknowledgment before you profess it.

  • In Defense of Native America: The People versus David Van Horn

    “In Defense of Native America: The People Versus David Van Horn” cover art for @AlamedaNativeHistoryProject on Instagram.com

    An archaeologist is sued by the California Attorney General, and the Native American Heritage Commission for the return of stolen Native American Artifacts.

    Santa Cruz Sentinel; Nov. 09, 1990

    People v. Van Horn (1990)

    The only “published” case in California where any entity is being sued by “The People”.

    In this case: the State of California is suing David Van Horn, and Archaeological Associates, Ltd. (a company owned by him and his wife, Ruth) for the return of Native American artifacts and remains in his, and his wife’s, possession without Native American consent.

    David Van Horn, an archaeologist hired by a City to examine land The City intended to use as an industrial park, found two burials, and related funerary items and goods. Also present, and a party to this action, is Horn’s assistant, Robert White. Tribes weren’t aware of the discovery until the Oceanside Blade-Tribune reported it, and hinted that Van Horn, and his archaeological consulting company were trying to conceal the existence of the discovery.

    Once tribes found out, they grouped together, engaged Kern County, City governments, and demanded that the remains and everything be returned to the tribes.

    This lead to a meeting, where David Van Horn agreed to return the remains to tribes. But, in a later meeting, he refused to return metates that were buried somehow on top of the remains; arguing that objects placed on top of buried remains were not “funerary objects”, or grave-related goods; he asserts his “expert opinion” that the metates were simply put there to “weigh” the body down.

    Van Horn publicly showed contempt for NAGPRA, and claimed he was being unfairly persecuted for doing legitimate, scientific, work. He even went as far as to throw doubt that the representatives of several Native American tribes demanding return of these objects were even related to the bodies discovered.

    This was the ultimate in sleazy denials. I bet the demurrer was fantabulous. Because, Van Horn threw out everything he could in his defense. Archaeological Associates, Ltd., claimed ignorance, and pointed to David Van Horn as the party ultimately responsible for breaking the law.

    A year into the dispute, the California Attorney General, and Native American Heritage Commission filed suit to compel the return of the objects.

    The statutes were clear that it is against the law to posses Native American Artifacts without Native American consent. Summary judgment was granted against David Van Horn. Van Horn, and Archaeological Associates, Ltd. were ordered to return the Native American artifacts, and repatriate Native American remains, to their Tribal Nation.

    In the end, it didn’t matter how much David Van Horn tried to fight culpability for his actions, and continued possession of Native American artifacts, without Native American Consent. It didn’t matter because he never argued whether or not it was against the law to possess those objects.

    And so…

    the issue of fact becomes one of law and loses its triable character if the undisputed facts leave no room for a reasonable difference of opinion.

    (Reid v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. (1985) 173 Cal.App.3d 557.)
    The California Attorney General published an opinion on this case:
    2007 Cal. AG LEXIS 23, 90 Ops. Cal. Atty. Gen. 89
    Santa Cruz Sentinel; Nov. 23, 1990

    There were also criminal charges filed against David Van Horn, and his assistant, for knowingly desecrating Native American graves. The case was ultimately dismissed.

    However, the criminal case against Van Horn is notably “the first use of a 1988 state law that makes Native American grave robbery a felony.”

    Stay tuned for more.