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The Sogorea Te Land Trust

The Sogorea Te Land Trust

An urban Indigenous women-led land trust that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people

  • About
    • Purpose and Vision
    • Our History
    • Staff & Board
    • Partnerships & Alliances
    • Contact Us
  • Lisjan (Ohlone)
    • Lisjan History & Territory
    • Mak Noono Tiirinikma
  • Programs
    • Cultural Revitalization
    • Himmetka: In One Place, Together
    • Mitiini Numma Youth Program
  • Rematriation
    • Land Sites
      • Lisjan, East Oakland
      • ‘Ookwe, Richmond
      • Rammay, West Oakland
      • Rinihmu Pulte’irekne, Oakland Hills
      • ‘Ištune, Oakland
      • Mugworts Cabin
    • Return Land / Land Return
    • Rematriate the Land Fund
  • Media
    • Updates
    • Resources
    • Creative Collaborations
      • Hella Feminist Exhibition
      • On Indigenous Land Field
      • Rematriate Billboard
      • RETURNS
      • Jackie Fawn Poster
      • Tule in the Sky Mural
  • Engage
    • $ Donate!
    • Make a Request
    • Get E-mail Updates
    • Land Acknowledgements
    • Other Ways to Engage
  • Pay Shuumi
    • Shuumi Land Tax
    • Institutional Shuumi Land Tax
    • Shuumi Land Tax FAQs
    • Testimonials

Lisjan (Ohlone) History & Territory

The Lisjan people have lived in the territory of Huchiun since the beginning of time.

The Lisjan people have lived in the East Bay since time immemorial. For thousands of years, hundreds of generations, the Lisjan people have lived on the land that is now known as the East Bay in the San Francisco Bay Area. We did not own the land, we belonged to it. Generation after generation, we cultivated reciprocal relationships with the plants and animals we shared this place with and developed beautiful and powerful cultural practices that kept us in balance.

The Lisjan are made up of the seven nations that were directly enslaved at Mission San Jose in Fremont, CA and Mission Dolores in San Francisco, CA: Chochenyo (Ohlone), Karkin (Ohlone), Bay Miwok, Plains Miwok, Delta Yokut and Napian (Patwin). Our territory includes 5 Bay Area counties; Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, Napa and San Joaquin, and we are directly tied to the “Indian Town” census of the 1920’s and the Verona Band.

The colonization of this land began with the reign of terror inflicted by Spanish soldiers and missionaries who sought to convert all Indigenous people into Catholic subjects of Spain and steal their land. The Missions were plantations, built by slave labor and sustained through brutal physical violence and extractive land practices. The Spanish brought deadly diseases, invasive species and Christian ideology based on human dominion of the natural world with devastating consequences for the Lisjan people and all living beings they shared the land with.

We have survived over two centuries of genocide and colonization during the Spanish, Mexican and American eras. Today, we continue to inhabit our ancestral homeland, fight for our sacred sites and revitalize our cultural practices.

Ann Marie Sayers, Ruth Orta, Corrina Gould and Caleen Sisk at Living On Ohlone Land, Photo by Christopher McLeod

After a brief but harrowing Mexican rancho period, Lisjan survivors faced extermination policies of the United States that aimed to eliminate California Indians entirely. In a climate of malicious racial discrimination and state-sponsored vigilante killings, most Lisjan families survived by isolating themselves and concealing their identities. Cultural and spiritual traditions were forced into dormancy or secrecy, and much knowledge perished with the passing of generations. Mexico won its independence from Spain and gave away huge swaths of land to soldiers in the army and our ancestors became enslaved at ranchos of Peralta, Bernal and others, creating adobe houses for those that were soldiers and their families. while living as slaves on the ranchos. America then won a war against Mexico and created a new kind of terror in our lands. A terror of extermination. The new State of California paid soldiers, ranchers and miners to kill native people, $5 a head and $0.25 an ear. During this time, our ancestors hid out, many of them in a place called Pleasanton today. In a tiny area called “Indian Town” made up of the native people that had left Mission San Jose. They went to work on ranches and newly created townships. We were named the Verona Band, made up of those that had been baptized at Mission San Jose. This Indian Township was near the Phoebe Hearst Family ranch and a train station named Verona which is where the historical name the Verona Band is derived from. The last round house in our area was at this place. Despite these concerted efforts to erase our history and identity, the Lisjan community forms a diverse and vibrant constellation of nations and families. Utilizing a wide array of survival strategies to navigate a profoundly altered 21st century world, we continue to revitalize our cultural practices and uphold our responsibilities to protect and care for our ancestral homeland.

Sacred Shellmounds Around the Bay

Shellmounds are sacred burial sites of the Ohlone and Coast Miwok peoples. They are considered by Ohlone people to be living cemeteries, places of prayer, veneration and connection with the ancestors. “Shellmounds are places where we laid our ancestors to rest,” Corrina Gould explains. “We actually buried them in the soil and then covered them with shell and then more soil. As the years and centuries went by, these mounds grew larger and larger. They became monuments to the people that lived here in the Bay Area.”

As settlers flooded into the San Francisco area during the Gold Rush, the leveling and desecration of shellmounds began, clearing the way for development. Noticing the rate at which the mounds were vanishing, an archeologist from UC Berkeley named Nels Nelson worked to create a map in 1909 of those which remained. His map identified 425 distinct shellmound sites ringing the San Francisco Bay. Today, only a handful of those remain in a natural state. Most lie buried beneath parking lots and buildings.

“Every single time I go to a shellmound, it eats a little bit away from who I am just because I see that there’s absolutely no respect for who we are as Ohlone people, or who our ancestors were, or anything that happened on this land prior to America being created.”—Corrina Gould, Spokesperson of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan

No Federal Recognition

Officially “unrecognized” by the U.S. federal government as a tribe, the Confederated Villages of Lisjan have no reservations or protected land bases and receive none of the rights, benefits, compensations or protections afforded to Indian tribes under U.S. laws. The Lisjan have no access to federal scholarships or housing grants, and grossly inadequate protections of cultural, burial, and sacred sites.

Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) policy requires unrecognized tribes to undergo an exhaustive and costly “Federal Acknowledgment Process” by submitting thousands of pages of evidence to prove who they are, at the expense of the tribe. The BIA criteria for recognition requires tribes to demonstrate an unbroken continuity of leadership, tribal culture and organization— woefully ironic, since historically, U.S. policy deliberately sought to dismantle that very continuity. The requirements of this process are so onerous that achieving recognition is virtually impossible, especially for tribes whose ancestors were enslaved in the California Missions. Of the eight petitions submitted by Ohlone tribes since 1988, not one has led to approval.

“For me, it does not matter whether or not this government recognizes us. My ancestors recognize who I am, and who we are supposed to be right now. And so, this work is for them.”—Corrina Gould, Spokesperson of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan

The Emeryville Shellmound and the Bay Street Mall

In 1997, corporate developers were unearthing hundreds of Lisjan ancestoral remains at the Emeryville Shellmound to begin the construction of a giant new shopping mall. Located on the edge of the Bay at the mouth of Temescal Creek, this ancient shellmound was once the largest of all, standing 60 feet high at over 350 feet in diameter.

Although the Emeryville site had previously been bulldozed and desecrated, countless ancestors remained interred in the soil— some intact and others gravely disturbed. The site had been occupied for 70 years by industrial facilities including a paint factory, a cannery and an insecticide plant, which leached toxic wastes into the soil. In the midst of a redevelopment boom, the City of Emeryville received funding to clean up the property, which was deemed a contaminated brownfield. In the gruesome scene that unfolded, untold numbers of ancestors’ remains, saturated with industrial toxins, were disposed of via incineration at hazardous waste facilities, and many more were collected and piled in a mass grave on site.

“Emeryville broke my heart,” Corrina Gould recalls. Ohlone people, concerned archeologists and other community advocates vehemently campaigned for the preservation and restoration of the site in a manner that would honor its immense cultural significance and recognize the ancestors buried there. Siding with developers and the promise of increased tax revenues, the Emeryville City Council voted to pave over the entire 19-acre site to construct the Bay Street Mall. Every “Black Friday,” the busiest shopping day of the year, the local Indigenous community holds a protest at the mall, educating shoppers and asking them to take their business elsewhere.

Black Friday Protest at the Emeryville Shellmound 2014

Although the Emeryville fight was a traumatic and painful period for Ohlone people, it was also a galvanizing experience in which many new relationships were formed between local activists and tribal members, strengthening the overall movement to protect Lisjan sacred places.

The Shellmound Peace Walks

Outraged by the ongoing desecration of shellmounds by developers and the striking lack of public awareness about Ohlone people and their sacred sites, Indigenous activists Johnella LaRose and Corrina Gould were inspired to start the Shellmound Peace Walks. With the aid of Nels Nelson’s 1909 map, they set out to pinpoint the locations of the shellmounds and create a route by which they could walk as a group to each site, to pray with their ancestors in an act of spiritual pilgrimage.

2005 Shellmound Peace Walk

In 2005, the first Shellmound Peace Walk threaded its way through the Bay Area, starting in Vallejo at Sogorea Te’, proceeding south to San Jose, and then up the western shore of the Bay to San Francisco— a 280-mile journey that took three weeks to accomplish. The walkers were joined by Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist monks from Japan and supporters from the local community and as far away as Australia, Nova Scotia and the Cape Verde Islands.

“It was an incredible journey,” Corrina Gould recounts, “trying to figure out where my ancestors were, trying to figure out how we were supposed to protect them, and trying to figure out: how do we educate the Bay Area about what’s right here underneath them?” Each day, in addition to the act of walking and praying at each site, the walk would bring many people together over food and conversation. “We talked about our inherent responsibility to do what is right on behalf of the ancestors and those to come,” Gould explains, “really feeling like we are that bridge between the past and the future.”

The Shellmound Peace Walk continued for a total of four consecutive years, each time covering new territory and visiting additional monument sites. The collective act of walking and praying with the ancestors at each location was both healing and transformative, and each year it created a larger and larger network of people who were ready to advocate and fight on behalf of the Ohlone and their ancestral places. In this way, it laid a groundwork for protective actions to come.

Direct Action at the Village of Sogorea Te’

Spiritual re-occupation of the Karkin Ohlone village of Sogorea Te’ (Glen Cove), 2011

Denied their Indigenous rights, silenced by the law, and dismissed by developers and governing authorities, Ohlone people have often been forced to take matters into their own hands through outspoken community organizing and, at times, direct action. Read about the Reawakening of Sogorea Te’ to learn how this activism was a seed that grew into the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust.

West Berkeley Shellmound: An Ongoing Struggle

The West Berkeley Shellmound, at least 5,800 years old, is the oldest Shellmound in the Bay Area. Located along Strawberry Creek, which now runs through a culvert underground, the Shellmound remains a place of prayer for Lisjan people, despite being covered by buildings, asphalt, and a railroad. In 2016, while trenching for a new retail development, the remains of ancestors were unearthed. Despite the call of Lisjan leaders and community members to halt all development, the owners of the land are pushing forward. Currently, the City of Berkeley and the Confederated Villages of Lisjan are in a protracted court battle to protect the Shellmound.

“Protect Ohlone Lisjan Sacred Sites” mural, at the site of the West Berkeley Shellmound— painted by community as an act of resistance. (Photo: Scott Braley)

“We’re saying, enough. Stop. This is not just cement, this is a place that was intended by our ancestors’ ancestors to be here for us for all eternity, to put down those prayers.” Corrina Gould, Spokesperson of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan

Learn more about the ongoing campaign to Save the West Berkeley Shellmound.

Poster by Micah Bizant
Indigenous Sovereignty in the 21st Century

We are in an ongoing process of recovery from the impacts of Spanish, Mexican and American policies of slavery, extermination and forced assimilation. The violent and profound disruptions brought by colonization have destroyed our balance in the world with devastating impacts on the health and wellbeing of everyone who lives here. Faced with social, ecological and spiritual crises everywhere we look, we are envisioning what work to do, what path to take to bring us back into balance.

Although there are many valuable ways to support our struggle for sovereignty, one issue stands out as paramount: the need for rematriation, returning Indigenous land to Indigenous people. There is an urgent and profound need for today’s Indigenous communities to regain land bases within their traditional territories—land that can form a foundation for continued healing. The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust was created as a means to establish a land base in the unceded Lisjan territory.

Sogorea Te’ Land Trust envisions life in the Bay Area in which the Chochenyo language and Ohlone ceremonies are an active, thriving part of the cultural landscape, where Chochenyo names and Ohlone history is known and recognized, and where intertribal Indigenous communities can gather, pray and practice their spiritual and cultural traditions. We seek to heal and transform the violent legacies of genocide, colonization, and systemic racism that continue to impact our urban Indigenous communities. We are doing the work our ancestors and future generations are calling us to do.

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The Shuumi Land Tax is a voluntary annual contribution that non-Indigenous people living on traditional Lisjan Ohlone territory make to support the critical work of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust.

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Pawnee eagle corn harvest at Heron Shadows with @c Pawnee eagle corn harvest at Heron Shadows with @culturalconservancy 🌽. 

📷Bernadette 

[a glorious spread of purple to white colored Indigenous corn harvest] 

#pawneeeaglecorn #ancestralfoods #maiz #projectprocess #sogoreatelandtrust #urbanindigenous #womenled #Rematriation
Rinihmu Pulte'irekne 🌳 "The long term vision f Rinihmu Pulte'irekne 🌳

"The long term vision for Rinihmu is to restore the land and recreate a thriving, beautiful, ceremonial gathering place where Indigenous people and their guests can come together, and share cultural information, celebrations, and ceremony.” 

[ID: a group of Indigenous women and two spirit people working under a huge old Oak tree]

#Indigenousvisions #Rinihmu #sequoiapoint #oaklandhills #landback #landreturn #rematriation #regeneration
Summers End! Seasons change is a great time to re Summers End!

Seasons change is a great time to reflect on all the amazing things that took place. 

Thank you to our land team for keeping up with the hot summer days, to all the artists and creators we have been working with, everyone who has contributed to the efforts off screen, and the Indigenous women who are holding this community down! Summer would not have been as fun as it has without them. 

As Fall approaches we are planning our next wave of the Mitiini Numma youth program, the land is getting ready to rest, and we are getting ready for exciting projects to come. Stay tuned!

Reel by Namixtulu.

Video Id:

[ Clip 1- Blue and purple intro image with the Sogorea Te’ logo, top center reads “Sogorea Te’ Summer recap.” Clip 2- Mitiini Numma Youth Program with images of the youth in the land and at Run 4 Salmon and a video of the youth planting seeds. Clip 3- Seed Rematriation with Bernadette- the seed queen, with a video of tobacco seeds being harvested and a picture of seed balls being made. Clip 4- Run 4 Salmon video and picture of folks out on the water, and a picture of the youth holding up flags at the closing ceremony. Clip 5- Tabling events, Images of our stand set up at Red Market and a video clip of printmaking. Clip 6 (last clip) -  a video of the garden growth in Lisjan and another video of the Pinnantak Site, and a picture of a turkey perched up on a metal fence.] 

#summersend #equinox #Fall #sogoreatelandtrust #urbanindigenous #womenled  #landback #landreturn #rematriation
Over 250 Years of Resistance and Still Here Calif Over 250 Years of Resistance and Still Here

California Native Day is a day of recognition of over 250 years of ongoing colonialism, remembrance of those passed, and celebration of our communities today.

In Lisjan territory and much of the Bay Area and California, the colonization of this land began with the reign of terror inflicted by Spanish soldiers and missionaries in the late 17th century, who sought to convert all Indigenous people into Catholic subjects of Spain and steal their land. The Missions were plantations, built by slave labor and sustained through brutal physical violence and extractive land practices. The Spanish brought deadly diseases, invasive species and Christian ideology based on human dominion of the natural world with devastating consequences for the Lisjan people and all living beings they shared the land with.

Today, we continue to inhabit our ancestral homelands, fight for our sacred sites and revitalize our cultural practices.

Graphic by @tamitnicill 

[ID: Images of California Native dancer among the stars, with words “Over 250 Years of Resistance And Still Here”] 

#californiaindianday #californianativeamericanday #honoringourancestors
The sounds of a Tobacco seed harvest along with th The sounds of a Tobacco seed harvest along with the 880 freeway. Hopi Tobacco was one of the first plants we tended to in 2018. The upcoming year we grew a few hundred and shared with our Native community.  Folks came to Deep East Oakland to swoop up a few for their gardens all over the Bay Area. 
Tobacco is a cultural significant plant for many tribes all over Turtle Island and it continues to be aside from it being one of the first capitalized plant by settlers. 
#SeedRematriation #UrbanRez #UrbanNatives #throwback
Digital camera flicks from our youth in Mitiini Nu Digital camera flicks from our youth in Mitiini Numma ☀️

Youth learned photography skills this past summer and got to use cameras to document our time together and progress of the land. These are from a day at Pinnantak 🐝

ID: (1) Close up shot in the greenery, behind some plants is a youths hands holding a black digital camera. (2) Picture of ladybug poppies in the garden, flowers are red with black dots. (3) Close up photo of yellow flowers in the garden, there are garden beds in the background. 

📸: Mitiini Numma youth 

#mitiininumma #youthprogram #sogoreatelandtrust #picturesontheland #joinus #applicationsopen
Every Seed is the Past. Every Seed is the Future Every Seed is the Past. 

Every Seed is the Future.

Saving seeds connects us  to everything that came before and everything yet to come. 

[ID: a woman in shades of purple is reaching up to collect seeds from a tall sunflower, all around her is California Chia in bloom, there are some green plants, blue butterflies and a pink to purple gradient in the sky.  the text reads Every Seed is the Past.  Every Seed is the Future.]

#ancestralpractice #seedsaving #Nativeseeds #summersend #projectprocess #sogoreatelandtrust #urbanindigenous #womenled #landtrust #landback #landreturn #rematriation
Youth on the land 🌱 Photos from our Summer Mit Youth on the land 🌱 
Photos from our Summer Mitiini Numma program at Pinnantak. ☀️ 

Come grow the truth with us this fall in our wave 3 cohort starting this October! Fill out our interest form, link in bio ✨

ID: (1) Three youth participants planting in a native plant garden. Surrounded by green and kneeling on the soil. (2) Youth participant watering the native plants. (3) Two participants walking around garden, one next to a garden bed, and one next to a plum tree. 

#MitiiniNumma #growthetruth #sogoreatelandtrust #youthleaders #afterschoolprogram
🪶Women Warriors 🪶 Chief Caleen Sisk, (Winne 🪶Women Warriors 🪶

Chief Caleen Sisk, (Winnemem Wintu), Tribal Spokesperson Corrina Gould, (Lisjan Ohlone) and Kumu  Pua Case (Kanaka Maoli)  at the closing ceremony for Run for Salmon this summer. 

Through their respective and collective work, they protect their ancestral Sacred sites: the McCloud River in Northern California,  the West Berkeley Shellmound located in the Bay Area, California and  Hawaiʻi’s Mauna Kea. These Indigenous women leaders are culture bearers in Indigenous-led movements that center Indigenous knowledge and protocols, land rematriation, and Indigenous cultural practices. Through their work they build and inspire intergenerational, multi-racial, local, and global movements to protect the Sacred in their various homelands. 

Thank you for your work.

#tbt #womenwarriors #Indigenouswomenrising #run4salmon #sogoreatelandtrust #protectthesacred
“As we reclaim our land in this urban area, it’s important to understand that we are doing that work as Indigenous people from many tribes, working together to create healing on this land.”

-Corrina Gould, Lisjan tribal chairperson, Co-Founder/Director of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust

[ID: a deep blue background sprinkled with stars, a  silhouette of a cityscape, and the above text in white.]

#manytribes #sogoreatelandtrust #urbanindigenous #womenled  #landback #landreturn #rematriation #BayArea #indigenousland
Amaranth, Huaútli, Quihuicha 💜 Indigenous gra Amaranth, Huaútli, Quihuicha 💜

Indigenous grains once outlawed by colonizers, now growing on rematriated land in East Oakland. 

ID: a slow motion reel of two brown hands processing deep burgundy colored amaranth with seeds cascading an abundance. 

#ancestralfoods #outlawgrain #process #sogoreatelandtrust #urbanindigenous #womenled #landtrust #rematriatetheland
“Do you think in 100 years they’ll refer to th “Do you think in 100 years they’ll refer to this as “the time right before California became uninhabitable?”

Oh sh*t

No. 

Because the US is going to cede the land to Indigenous Stewardship. 

Speaking it into existence.”

🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽

… 

Three years ago today wildfire smoke darkened the daylight to an dusk in the Bay Area and beyond. 

Since then many of our relatives have continued to suffer fallout from environmental crisis and many continue to work towards another world. 

It’s not too late to rematriate! Speak it, deed it, build it, plant it, nurture it, grow it into being. 

Pics are from 9/11/20, 1pm, Oakland. 

Text thread Repost from  @stephgervacio . 

#climatechaos #stillonlyoneplanet  #rematriatetheland #returntheland #cedetheland #unsettle #landback #indigenousstewardshipnow
We invite BIPOC youth ages 13-18 in Huchiun to joi We invite BIPOC youth ages 13-18 in Huchiun to join us for Mitiini Numma Wave 3 starting this fall! 🍂
Join us as we combine youth leadership, community, liberation, and ecological knowledge on rematriated land! Program will be held after school starting early October, limited spots available. 
Fill out our interest form by September 21st via this link https://forms.gle/En8xH313WYhBQdNS9 also available in our bio! ✨

#joinus #mitiininumma #youthprogram #rematriatedland #growthetruth
The very first elderberry harvest at ‘Ookwe Park The very first elderberry harvest at ‘Ookwe Park in so called Richmond in 2021
From the land / For the land 🌿 Freshly bundled From the land / For the land 🌿

Freshly bundled white sage from Rammay Garden, West Oakland, Ohlone land. 

ID: a small stack of White sage bundles wrapped with red thread with sage in the background.

#rammay #medicinegarden #fromtheland #fortheland #sogoreatelandtrust
Shuumi means gift. Shuumi is a voluntary land ta Shuumi means gift. 

Shuumi is a voluntary land tax that non-indigenous residents living on the confederated villages of Lisjan Nation pay that contributes to the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people. 

The Land Tax supports cultivating urban gardens, building community centers and sacred arbors, purchasing and managing land, engaging in public education and advocacy, and developing community resilience. 

For more faqs on the Shuumi Land tax visit the Sogorea Te’ website and click the Pay Shuumi tab. 

Design by media fellow Namixtulu. 

ID:
[Blue color bordering an image with a ladybug on some leaves. On top of the image is written out “On Indigenous Land Pay Shuumi” in black and redish-orange] 

#onindigenousland #shuumi #voluntarytax #honortax #sogoreatelandtrust
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