Introduction:
This piece began as a reply to a high school student in Lafayette who reached out with questions about Native history in the Bay Area. They asked about Mount Diablo, about colonization and displacement, and about what comes after land acknowledgments. Their questions are not unique. They reflect the concerns of a generation that wants clarity and truth, not half-answers or empty gestures.
I decided to share my response here because the history of this land, and the responsibility of carrying it forward, belongs to all of us. What follows is both history and perspective, part academic and part personal, written as a letter to one student and now as a message to many.
The Letter
Dear […],
Thanks for reaching out.
Sorry about the delay in getting back. I was out of town taking part in the Pine Nut Dance with my Tribe in Bishop, Ca.
Here are the answers to your questions. I tried to keep it as short as possible. I know it’s a lot. So I added the Key Take-Aways for you at the top of the Local History section.
Also, I go between an academic voice and saying things like “we” or “us” because I’m speaking personally as a California Indigenous Person.
—
The name for Mt. Diablo is Tuyshtak in Chochenyo (an Ohlone dialect spoken in the East Bay), meaning “at the dawn of time”. I found this link, it’s pretty legit–from Museum of San Ramon Valley: https://museumsrv.org/mount-diablo-a-sacred-mountain/
Local History:
Key Take-Aways:
- Indigenous people have lived in the Bay Area for over 10,000 years. The Bay itself was once a valley with a river before it filled with water.
- Spanish colonization brought missions, soldiers, and livestock that destroyed Native food systems. Resistance was met with massacres and forced captivity.
- The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe trace their ancestry to people taken into Mission Dolores, Santa Clara, and San Jose. They were forced to abandon language and traditions, though some received Mexican land grants after secularization.
- Under U.S. rule, violence escalated into open genocide. California’s first governor even called for extermination of Native people.
- California tribes signed 18 treaties in 1851–52, including Ohlone/Costanoan people, but Congress never ratified them. That allowed land theft without honoring promises.
- The Verona Band of Alameda County (Muwekma’s ancestors) was federally recognized in 1906 but stripped of recognition in 1927 by bureaucratic action.
- Despite all this, Ohlone people never left. Today they are organized as the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area and continue to fight for federal recognition, language revitalization, and protection of their sacred sites.
Before Spain
Starts many years ago, like 10,000+ years. The San Francisco Bay wasn’t always a full body of water. By most Indigenous Accounts, it was a trickle, like a river, in the middle of a large valley that later filled in and became the San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, and Suisun Bay. [https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/museum/events/shortcourse2002/doris.htm ; see slide “Valley of San Francisco Bay during the last Ice Age”] Before the Portola Expedition in 1769, more than 10,000 Indigenous people lived along the coast from Big Sur to San Francisco.
Spanish Period
Once Spanish military and religious fanatics arrived, that quickly changed. Presidios and Missions were two separate systems. This is repetitive, but Presidios were Military and Missions were religious — and there were actual villages that the presidio protected as well.
Many people point to death by disease as one of the most impactful negative events which happened to Indigenous People in the Bay Area. However, it was not the only, and the displacement and large-scale eradication of Indigenous People can be seen today in the hills that surround us. Invasive grasses were brought here by those Spaniards in the guts of the livestock they used to graze the areas around the Missions. This is my opinion, but Livestock was (and still is) the most visible form of colonization, and it represents hundreds of years of displacement and violence against Indigenous People.
Specifically, we (California Indigenous People — I’m a recognized descendant of the Benton Paiute Tribe, a Federally Recognized Tribe in Benton, California) were the targets of Spanish War Campaigns because we objected to these Cows, Sheep, and other Livestock eating our food. For Centuries, we used wild grasses, roots of plants, leaves, flowers, stalks, and all parts of the native flora and fauna of California for our food, medicine, and shelter. We used all of these things. So when these outsiders brought their animals here, and let them eat the things we had carefully tended to, gathered, stored, and depended on for our livelihood…. Of course we had a problem.
When we killed a cow for fouling the places we depended on, Spanish soldiers were sent to kill entire villages. There was never any attempt to share space or to negotiate.
Meanwhile, we were also being abducted and forced into captivity on the Missions. Missions founded in: 1776 – Mission Dolores; 1777 – Mission Santa Clara; 1797 – Mission San Jose. [Mind you, the United States of America was founded in 1776 on the East Coast of this continent at the same time Mission Dolores was being founded.]
At some point, this area had been so heavily invaded by Missionaries, Soldiers, and Spanish People (in general) that the Indigenous People of the Bay Area were pushed out of their homes, their food was destroyed, or being taken by force. Indigenous People had little choice but to run, or join the Mission System in the hope that they would not starve to death, or be killed as an enemy of these people.
Muwekma Ohlone Roots
The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area traces their lineage back to the Missions listed above. Using the baptismal records of the Missions, they have noted that one of the first baptisms of their ancestors occurred in 1801, Liberato Culpecse. Indigenous People were forced to abandon their language, traditions, religious practices, and embrace the Spanish lifestyle and belief systems–or face punishment including death.
Spain “controlled” California until 1821, when Mexico secured its independence, and then began to secularize (basically “close”) the missions from 1833-1836. This began was was widely referred to as the Rancho Period, where Mexican citizens were given land through “Land Grants” and were allowed to grow food and tend to livestock. In the 1840’s, Mexican land grants were given to several “Careños”–Mission Santa Clara “Indians”. [Indigenous people who were in the missions are still referred to as “Mission Indians” for some strange reason.]
Please note that this is 50 years after the founding of the missions, which is roughly 2 generations–and that the Indigenous People who left to join or were taken into the mission system were all younger children or women, because men and teens were seen as enemies and potential combatants and killed. This is all to explain how easily Indigenous People “blended in” and fell into ranching and receiving land grants. Many times people will say “they did such a great job at blending in” but there was no one left who remembered the old ways. And this is important to explain how, in current times, it is so important that the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area is speaking and teaching their language (Chochenyo is one dialect) and practicing their traditions.
When the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848, that officially ended the Mexican-American War and transferred California into the control the US. Two years later (1850) California was admitted to the Union as the 31st state.
American Genocide
Unlike the Spanish, who would rather convert Indigenous people into their subjects who provided free labor; and the Mexican government, which had granted us forms of citizenship, and even land…. Americans hated “Indians”, and made it their business to kill us all. Literally. There is no sugar coating this section of American history and it’s honestly really upsetting to describe the amount of “Punitive Expeditions” and incredible violence perpetrated against women and children. As I get older, it actually hurts more because I can better understand the profound loss and horror that we endured. This was the time of our Great Grandparents. So these aren’t just stories in textbooks for us. They’re the actual stories of what happened to our own family. So maybe I won’t go deeper into this except to say that the first Governor of California called for a War of Extermination against Native Americans. [https://www.aclunc.org/sites/goldchains/explore/peter-burnett.html]
Treaties of 1851 and 1852
Between 1851 and 1852, California tribes were forced to sign 18 Treaties, ceding their ancestral homelands in exchange for reservation land and promises by the US Government. Costanoans, the first name for Ohlone people, signed one of these treaties. However, these treaties were never ratified, and therefore the government was able to take our land and never have to deliver on their promises.
*Between 1855 and 1940 Native Americans were kept track of, and recorded in the Indian Census Rolls [https://www.archives.gov/research/census/native-americans/1885-1940.html] The descendants of those “Mission Indians” from Mission San Jose (primarily) continued to live in and around Fremont, Sunol, Niles, Pleasanton [“Lisjan” in Nisenan language], and were known as the Verona Band of Alameda County.
1906-1927 Federal Recognition
In 1906 these treaties were “re-discovered”, the Verona Band of Alameda County was confirmed as a Costanoan signatory to the treaties. And money was appropriated to purchase land for their use. However it was not enough money. When the matter came up again in 1927, the “Indian commissioner” for the Sacramento Indian Agency was told to make a list of tribes that still needed land. However, the commissioner instead dropped 134 tribes from the California Indian Rolls, instead of reporting that these tribes still needed land. Because the names of those tribes were not included in that list, it had the effect of stripping them of Federal Recognition. This is how Ohlone people in the bay area (now, the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area) became a “landless tribe”.
Ohlone People Never Left
Despite all of this, Ohlone people never left this area. They never ceased being related by blood, familial ties, or their culture. Today, the Ohlone tribe is known as the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area. Even though the federal government still refuses to acknowledge them, they are the descendants of the people enslaved in the Missions San Jose de Guadalupe, Santa Clara de Thamien, and San Francisco de Asis. They have an elected Chairwoman, Charlene Nijmeh; Vice Chairwoman Monica Arellano. The Ohlone Community College was named by Felipe “Phil” Galvan, a recent Muwekma Ancestor. [https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2013/04/05/mr-ohlone-who-helped-name-fremont-college-dies/] His son, Andrew Galvan formed the Ohlone Tribe, Inc. to accept the Ohlone Cemetery from the Catholic Church, at Mission San Jose. [Mentioned in the article.] Chairwoman Nijmeh’s mother, former chairwoman Rosemary Cambra was a vocal and active advocate for her tribe’s lands, and ancestors–she saved the Ohlone Cemetery from destruction by the 680 freeway and even went to jail for defending her ancestors from being destroyed by the construction of a hotel in downtown San Jose. [https://www.sfweekly.com/archives/the-little-tribe-that-could/article_c2a92470-2ed3-5182-8c69-5145d73fe558.html]
Beyond Land Acknowledgments
- Ask questions. Curiosity is the beginning of truth.
- Do your own research. When you use real, verifiable sources, you can stand tall in what you know.
- Do not let older people shut you down just because they are older. Respect is earned through honesty, not age.
- Stand strong in the truth you find. It is the ground you will walk forward on.
- You are our future leaders, and your voice matters right now. The confidence and truth you carry will shape the world we all live in.
The history of this place is painful, but it is also living. Land acknowledgments are only the start of honoring that truth. What matters now is how you and your generation carry it forward. Ask the questions others are afraid to ask. Learn from real, verifiable sources and trust yourself when you find the truth. Do not let anyone dismiss you because of your age. Your voice matters today, and when you move with confidence in what you know, you are not only honoring those who came before, you are creating the future that all of us will walk into.
Your generation is not waiting for the future. You are already shaping it, and when you carry the truth with confidence you open the path for everyone who comes after you.
All the best,
Gabriel Duncan