“California must reckon with our dark history,” said the Governor. In 2019, California Governor, Gavin Newsom issued a formal apology to the state's native people, describing the state's maltreatment toward them as a genocide. The University of California Berkeley and Los Angeles as well as SF State University's Native American Studies departments finally brought about a first public consciousness to conditions on surviving tribal reservations in the late 1960s and early 70s. Most of these land treaties represented territory considered far too valuable to hand over. Most were never ratified and were put under an injunction of secrecy for 20 years. In 1851, land treaties were negotiated between the U.S. Grasslands were decimated, wildlife, forests and natural habitats forever changed. Mercury polluted rivers, streams, watersheds and flood plains. Adding insult to injury, huge environmental issues followed the Gold Rush. After everything of value was swept out of the 20th and 21st California missions by the Mexican government in 1834, any surviving first people were sent to the mines as forced labor. This brutal reality is rarely talked about in the teaching of California history. ![]() If they attempted escape, they were flogged, starved, physically and mentally abused.Īlmost all native children under the age of 10 died during the California Mission era of 1769 to 1833. They lost their teeth and were chronically underfed. It was the beginning of the end for most of the peaceful indigenous people of Northern California, who had an average lifespan in the ensuing mission era of a mere 10 years, due to rabid diseases such as syphilis, smallpox, measles, diphtheria and influenza. The Bay Area was home to the largest native population center north of Mexico prior to the enslavement for the provision of labor and goods for Spanish Presidios that were constructed to protect from a hostile or pirate invasion, neither of which were much of a threat in 1776. It is said that hundreds of haunted spirits float about town - they are the ghosts of the nearly 900 native people, including around 200 children wiped out by brutality and disease and buried under the street by the mission and barracks they helped build.Ī series of three plaques by the outside wall of the chapel and erected by the State Parks Association in 1999 bears testament to this tragedy with an imprint of the Spanish given names of those who died. If you visit the mission and historic barracks in Sonoma, tread reverently as you cross the road on First Street East by its adobe church. This plan was never realized, though the missions were built on the backs of the first people, many of whom were baptized only to tun around the back of its main building and have their Catholic rites reversed by waiting medicine men and women. It was the intention of the Spanish that once all the natives had been converted to Catholicism and taught European farming methods, each of the missions would become independently operated parish churches after 10 years. The exhibit is powerful and profound when we consider the devastating impact of Christianity on the indigenous people.Īs I wrote in my 2016 non-fiction book, Fog Valley Winter, the self-supporting 21st and final mission and its land in Father Buenaventura Fortuny's words, was in possession of some 996 neophytes (unbaptized enslaved native people considered novices in the Catholic faith), 6,000 sheep and goats, 900 horses, 13 mules, 50 pigs, 3,500 head of cattle, 800 Spanish bushels of wheat, 1,025 bushels of barley, plus beans, garbanzos, peas and corn. ![]() This powerful exhibit merges contemporary art with traditional culture, reminding us of the history and heritage of the Natives that are still here and remain connected to this land some 200 years (this July) after the founding of the last of the California Missions, Mission San Francisco de Solano, in Sonoma. We Are Still Here highlights artwork of native Pomo and Miwok artists and reflects the resilience of the region's first people and the strong connections to their land as a place for ceremonies, family events, gatherings and religious observances. ![]() I was initially drawn to visiting to see We Are Still Here - Pomo Artists and Our Cultural Landscape and was doubly delighted to be able to view The New Californians: Photographs by Judy Dater in the same outing. I wanted to see both and a weekday morning visit was ideal as the museum was quiet and I had plenty of time to take in the extraordinary work. Sonoma Valley Museum of Art has two fantastic exhibits on view through April 30th 2023.
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