The Movement For Indigenous Sovereignty And Land Restoration

In recent years, the Land Back movement has been gaining momentum in California and beyond, rooted in the long struggle for indigenous sovereignty, the return of ancestral lands, and the recognition of the inherent right of indigenous peoples to self-determination.

Before European contact, California was home to more than 100 different indigenous nations, each with their own languages, cultures and ways of life. However, the arrival of European settlers in the 18th and 19th centuries brought a wave of violence and displacement, as indigenous peoples were forcibly removed from their lands and subjected to assimilationist policies.

I recently spoke with Jonathan Cordero, founder and executive director of The Association of Ramaytush Ohlone (ARO), a nonprofit organization for the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples, a historically displaced tribe. The ARO includes the Ramaytush Ohlone Land Trust which works to acquire, gain access to or co-manage lands within the group’s ancestral homeland.

In the following interview, Jonathan told me about the work and goals of the ARO, some of the obstacles to the Land Back movement, and also how this work intersects with discussions about our ecological responsibilities.

Christopher Marquis: Can you please share a little about your role as Executive Director of the Ramaytush Ohlone Association and highlight some current projects?

Jonathan Cordero: The Ramaytush Ohlone Association (ARO) is a non-profit organization

organization for the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples (www.ramaytush.org). As a result of colonization, we are a historically displaced tribe. We are not currently eligible for federal recognition and therefore rely on the support of the philanthropic community. The ARO was formed in 2022 and includes the Ramaytush Ohlone Land Trust. Our primary purposes, in addition to acquiring land and revitalizing our culture and community, are to fulfill or responsibilities as Native Peoples: 1) to care for our Mother Earth in the same way that she has cared for us for millennia and 2) take care of ourselves. for people residing in our ancestral homeland, especially members of disadvantaged communities.

I am the founder and executive director of the ARO and Gregg Castro is our director of culture. We are in the process of hiring more staff in this second full year. As anyone who has founded a nonprofit can probably tell you, the first year was at times trying but rewarding. With our various partners, we successfully applied for several large grants for ecological restoration. One of the projects is the Sunset Natural Resilience Project which will create and restore a green corridor between Golden Gate Park and Lake Merced along Sunset Boulevard and the Great Highway. Other projects include increasing stream flow and fish passage in San Pedro and Pilarcitos creeks. Additionally, we are working with Friendship House and The Cultural Conservancy to acquire land from the City of San Francisco to create an Indigenous-led urban farm.

Marquis: For those who are not familiar with it, can you explain the land return movement: what is a path to return native lands to indigenous peoples?

Lamb: Of course, the land return movement is not new, but the idea of ​​returning land to native peoples has received increasing attention in recent years due, in large part, to the impact of the more racial justice movement. wide. For example, taking down Confederate statues in the East translated into taking down colonist statues in California. There has been greater awareness and attention to the tragic consequences of colonization in California, especially the genocidal consequences of Spanish and Mexican colonization, and the more formal state-sponsored genocide of the California Indians in the mid-19th century.

Spanish/Mexican/American colonization was based on the removal of native peoples from their lands and their enslavement in the California missions, their forced relocation to reservations, and/or their literal elimination as a people. For many, the obvious solution to removal and its tragic consequences is the restoration of native peoples to their ancestral lands or legal ownership of land elsewhere. Colonization, however, was not defined only by the removal of native peoples from their land: colonization was accompanied by a whole set of colonial institutions, such as economics and law. Furthermore, colonialism and capitalism changed the natural world forever, and so returning the land, while beneficial, does not restore what was also lost: our wholeness as Native peoples. Indigenous peoples are largely defined by their intimate relationship with all of nature, of which we are a part. The act of simply re-acquiring the land, now owned as property, does not actually restore the state of our original relationship with our Mother Earth. In other words, land loss means much more than simply the loss of property for native peoples.

Also, I should say something about the idea of ​​the return of the land, especially as it features in some of the rhetoric of decolonization. Those who adhere to the ideals of decolonization sometimes position themselves as advocates of land return and make the mistake of speaking for us. Some even make specific requests for land to position themselves as saviors of the native peoples. Determining what is in the best interest of native peoples without our prior consultation and approval, especially when done with an accompanying air of superiority, positions (non-native) settlers as the saviors of native peoples. We are perfectly capable of making our own decisions about what interests us. We must determine when to ask what and to whom.

Marquis: Can you talk about some of the obstacles to reclaiming the land?

Lamb: For us, and probably for many other unrecognized tribes, lack of capacity is the main obstacle to reclaiming the land. If someone had offered us 1,000 acres in the middle of 2022, I would have said “no thanks”. At that time, we did not have the necessary financial, legal and human resources to manage, care for and/or develop the land. Acceptance of land at that time would have been burdensome, not beneficial. Many unrecognized tribes in California lack capacity to receive benefits and/or participate in restoration projects precisely because they lack capacity, so grants and programs designed to support our interests should be accompanied by funding for capacity building.

On the other hand, entities that want to donate land or farms usually put contingencies in this donation. In many cases, the policies and procedures of the land trusts themselves inevitably impede their ability to return our own land to us. Also, imagine what it must be like to claim your land and then have to meet a set of capitalist and colonial requirements to do so? In the San Francisco Bay Area, land trusts and their staff have collectively made millions upon millions of dollars managing our stolen land for decades, and we certainly appreciate their efforts to prevent McMansions dot the Pacific coast. That said, you might think that a return of five hundred acres of land might seem reasonable and possible in light of the profits generated over decades from the buying and selling of our land.; however, legal hurdles and internal policies of land trusts prevent the simple transfer of land without a conservation easement. As sovereign peoples on our own land, we refuse to have our land returned to us with contingencies in place other than those already in place by the city, county, state and federal governments.

The obstacles, however, are not insurmountable, even though we have often been told that it is “impossible” for organizations to get back on the ground any other way. Rather than a conservation easement, a cultural easement based on shared values ​​and principles might be more palatable to native peoples. The city of Oakland, for example, has overcome numerous legal and political hurdles and returned land to native peoples in the East Bay (visit https://sogoreate-landtrust.org/ for more information).

Marquis: What types of partnerships does the Ramaytush Ohlone Association participate in to develop and advance local stewardship programs?

Lamb: Because ARO is a small, non-profit organization made up of only a few members of our tribe, our ability to handle large grants or projects is very limited. For this reason, the assistance of our partners is absolutely necessary. We are fortunate to live in an area with a number of excellent organizations and resources for ecological restoration, including the San Mateo Resource Conservation District, the San Francisco Estuary Institute, the San Francisco Estuary Association, California State Coastal Conservancy, Cultural Conservation. , and many others. We work very hard to establish and maintain relationships of integrity with all of our partners.

Marquis: Tell me about your work to establish an urban farm in San Francisco and how it could be replicated elsewhere to help restore green space?

Lamb: The formation of our land trust and our legal team have made it much more possible to acquire land in our ancestral homeland. Currently, we have several opportunities to acquire land. Unfortunately, most will require legal ownership, hence the need for legal assistance. I think the single project that best exemplifies our dual responsibility—to care for our Mother Earth and the people who reside on our ancestral lands—is the creation of an urban farm in San Francisco. In collaboration with Peter Bratt and the Friendship House, Sara Moncada and The Cultural Conservancy, we hope to acquire land in San Francisco and create an urban farm for American Indians. The farm will be a center for Indigenous youth programming, support services for Indigenous people in recovery and workforce development. The project is fully indigenous-led and will include an urban farm and ceremonial gathering space, all consistent with native ecological practices. We hope that the farm will be a model for others. To date, we have received support from the federal government, including the EPA, President Biden, and Vice President Harris. Most importantly for the ARO, the urban farm serves as the fulfillment of our responsibilities.

Marquis: Anything else you’d like to add?

I think it’s incredibly important for the public to understand what Indigenous sovereignty means. We are sovereign in our own lands, whether we are federally recognized or not. Indigenous sovereignty, sometimes called original sovereignty, pre-exists and does not depend on federal recognition (ie, tribal sovereignty). In fact, tribal sovereignty first depends on the recognition of First Peoples’ sovereignty. The preservation of indigenous sovereignty, which continues to be threatened both externally and internally, is critical to our future as native peoples. Of course, there is much more to say about this, and we will save that for another time.