CV Library to Host Ohlone Land Ownership Discussion
A mural along the Guadalupe River Walk in San Jose honoring the Muwekma Ohlone tribe was dedicated on Aug. 21, 2010.
Alan Leventhal
The Muwekma Ohlone people lived all over today’s East Bay for thousands of years, but today are landless and much fewer in number. The Castro Valley Library is hosting an online talk next Tuesday, September 27 on how that happened and what the tribe is doing about it now.
The talk is expected to feature Alan Leventhal, a retired San Jose State University professor and anthropology lab director. He has been the tribe’s principal archeologist for the past 40 years and has been active in their efforts to regain their federal recognition and to get some land back to rebuild their culture.
That recognition, whose lack resulted in leaving the tribe landless, was lost because of an apparent clerical error in 1927 that has never been corrected. A state employee, charged by the federal government with buying land for displaced tribes, simply left the Muwekma Ohlone’s predecessors off a list of tribes in the area. He had been under investigation for dereliction of duties at the time.
The tribe, then known as the Verona Band of Alameda County (after a community near Pleasanton, now the Castlewood Country Club), had been legally recognized up to that point. Under federal law, only Congress can remove recognition from a Native tribe.
“My job as an anthropologist is to lend voice –but my real education came from talking to families,” said Leventhal. "I’ll be trying to weave the tapestry of their stories."
He noted that the Muwekma Ohlone were declared officially extinct despite having sent their children to Indian boarding schools mandated by the federal government, individuals having been listed in special Indian censuses, members having served in the military, and people alive today having known grandparents and other family members buried in the Ohlone Indian Cemetery in Fremont.
Tribal member Hank Alvarez, who passed away recently at age 100, asked government officials how he could have been born into a recognized tribe, served in the military as a member of that tribe, and now in old age was no longer a member of a recognized tribe, Leventhal said.
The Muwekma Ohlone claim some 8.5 million acres of land that they never ceded to the state, the federal government, or anybody else. Similar claims are made by other tribes throughout California, dating back to when treaties with tribes were negotiated at the time of California statehood, but were never ratified or even discussed by the U.S. Senate.
Long before Europeans believed they discovered North America, millions of Native peoples had farmed, fished, hunted, worshipped, and lived their lives here. The Muwekma Ohlone populated much of the East Bay from 2,500 years, ago, according to DNA analysis of ancient remains recently found near today’s Sunol Water Temple.
Possibly older remains have been found near Mineta Airport in San Jose, perhaps from 10,000 years ago, Leventhal said. Testing is still underway to verify their age, he said.
An estimated 30,000 Muwekma Ohlone were thought to be living in the Eden area and nearby at the time of the conquest by Spain after 1492. Only a few hundred are left, but they are intent on reclaiming their language, their culture, and at least some of their land.
Chris Selig, the Adult Services Librarian at the Castro Valley Library, said local governments are beginning to move toward recognizing Native claims to land in the area. Oakland recently set aside five acres at Sequoia Point in Joaquin Miller Park for Native use, she said.
This is the first time since colonization that a local government in California has turned over land to a Native tribe, Selig said.
That land will be entrusted to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, an Indigenous and female-led nonprofit, which already controls several other small pieces of land nearby and plans to build a cultural center to rebuild the Ohlone culture.
The Muwekma Ohlone event will be held online on Tuesday, Sept. 27 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Registration is required by choosing "Events" on the Alameda County Library website, www.aclibrary.org. Registrants will receive a Zoom link 24 hours before the event.