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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
  • Initiatives
    • Cultural Revitalization
    • Himmetka: In One Place, Together
    • Mitiini Numma Youth Program
  • Rematriation
    • Land in Rematriation
      • Lisjan
      • ‘Ookwe
      • Rinihmu Pulte’irekne (Sequoia Point)
      • Rammay
      • ‘Ištune
    • Return Land / Land Return
    • Rematriate the Land Fund
  • Media
    • Updates
    • Resource Library
    • Creative Collaborations
      • Hella Feminist
      • On Indigenous Land Field
      • Rematriate the Land Billboard
      • RETURNS: Participatory Rematriation
      • STLT x Jackie Fawn
      • Tule in the Sky
  • Engage
    • Make a Request
    • Donate
    • Get E-mail Updates
    • Other Ways to Engage
      • Land Acknowledgements
  • Pay Shuumi
    • Shuumi Land Tax
    • Institutional Shuumi Land Tax
    • Shuumi Land Tax FAQs
    • Testimonials

Purpose and Vision

Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led land trust based in the San Francisco Bay Area that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people.

Through the practices of rematriation, cultural revitalization, and land restoration, Sogorea Te’ calls on Native and non-native peoples to heal and transform the legacies of colonization, genocide, and patriarchy and to do the work our ancestors and future generations are calling us to do. 

Rematriate: to restore a people to their rightful place in sacred relationship with their ancestral land.

“The loss of land plays out in our every day lives and it shapes how we look at things and how we feel about ourselves. We’ve spent 15 years in the Bay Area doing community organizing in the Indian community. And honestly, all the issues we’re struggling with come down to land. You know, the land was taken and that was such a deep soul wound. The taking of the land, the heart of the people, was the cause of a lot of problems. And I believe that with the land trust, and you know, the land itself, I think that’s really going to help us to find our way back.”

Johnella LaRose, Co-Founder/Director of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust

We envision a Bay Area in which Ohlone language and ceremony are an active, thriving part of the cultural landscape, where Ohlone place names and history is known and recognized and where intertribal Indigneous communities have affordable housing, social services, cultural centers and land to live, work and pray on.

Sogorea Te’ is centered in Huchuin, the ancestral homeland of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, now known as the East Bay.

Ohlone Led and Intertribal

The Bay Area is also home to a diverse diaspora of Indigenous people who, over the years, either moved by choice to the Bay Area or were pushed off their traditional lands during the era of the US Government’s Indian Termination (forced assimilation) policies, such as the Indian Relocation Act of 1956. While Ohlone women are central to our vision and leadership, the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is an intertribal and multicultural Indigenous women-led land trust. We work to restore reciprocal relationships with the sacred land we live on, and with the plants, animals and other human beings who we share this land with. Sogorea Te’ creates opportunities for all people living in Lisjan territory to work together in re-envision the Bay Area community and what it means to live on Ohlone land.

“There are many Indigenous people in the San Francisco Bay Area, and there are many important places in dire need of protection. The land trust and accompanying tool of the conservation (or cultural) easement are mechanisms that Indigenous groups can use to protect, access, restore, and reclaim lands.”

Beth Rose Middleton Manning, Sogorea Te’ Board Member

“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, Co-Founder/Director of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust

Bringing the ancestors home

“The remains of over 9,000 of our ancestors are locked up at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University, along with countless artifacts. The ancestors were violently taken out of the land because of development. That’s one of the main things this land trust is about: getting those ancestors returned to us and put back into the ground so that we can all heal.

Shellmounds are sacred funerary monuments, burial grounds, for Ohlone people. At one time, 425 shellmounds surrounded the entire San Francisco Bay. Every one of them has been destroyed by development. My goal is that one day, we can re-create a shellmound so there is a place for us to actually bring those ancestors home and re-inter them. With everybody helping out, it can happen.”

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

“We believe that these ancestors are taking care of us, and we’re going to become ancestors ourselves. If we don’t take care of these ancestors, we’re not going to get those messages, and those teachings that we need to move on in this life. So we have to do a good job of keeping them safe in their burial sites.”

Johnella LaRose, Co-Founder/Director of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust
Indigenous Women Leadership

Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is founded by and led by Indigenous women.

“Right now I really feel like the land is calling women back…to take care of the land. I really feel like that’s where we’re are at this time in history.”

Johnella LaRose, Co-Founder/Director of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust

“We have this opportunity to create an urban Native land trust that is women led: to bring in all our relations in a new kind of community that is so desperately needed in the world today.”

Melissa K. Nelson, Board Member of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust

“My ancestors have always been here. That’s my blessing, my grandchildren’s blessing, that they were born on the land that their ancestors have always been on. And maybe my great-grandchildren will be born here, too. Our umbilical cords are buried in this land. Our ancestors’ DNA is in this land. And we continue to stand our ground.”

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

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Our work of rematriation, returning Indigenous land to Indigenous people, is only possible with your support.

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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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Sogorea Te Land Trust
“It’s going to take a lot to heal but I think “It’s going to take a lot to heal but I think we’re at the beginning. people want to do something different, were finding the power to move in different ways...”

— Sogorea Te Land Trust cofounder Corrina Gould

From @culturalconservancy’s Native Seed Pod interview with Melissa Nelson.

Art from our geomorphic visualization of rematraited land with Maise Richards. 

Both available in our resource library. link in bio. 

Images are 1. Rematriated landscape with a stream passing through  green trees, native plants, and grasses with long roots extending into a sandy base. There is a fading freeway in the background. one slide has the above quote in sandy colored letters and the second has the words Rematraite the Land. 

#rematriatetheland #resourcelibrary #listenup #sogoreatelandtrust #urbanindigenous #womenled #rematraition #landback #landreturn #returntoland
❤️Himmetka ❤️ Throwback to the shipping ❤️Himmetka ❤️ 

Throwback to the shipping container for our first Himmetka arriving on a pink tractor trailer truck, January 2019, Lisjan. 

Named with the Chochenyo word for “in one place, together,” our Lisjan Himmetka includes a ceremonial space, food and medicine gardens, water catchment, filtration, and storage, first-aid supplies, tools, and a seed saving library.

Images are 1. A red shipping container being unloaded from a pink tractor trailer truck with logs in the foreground and a blue sky in the background. 2. Front view of the container covered in art with a sign that reads Himmetka, everything together in one place. 

#tbt #himmetka #sogoreatelandtrust #iniatives #urbanindivenous #womenled #lrematriation
The land formerly known as Sequoia Point has been The land formerly known as Sequoia Point has been renamed Rinihmu Pulte’irekne!

The Chochenyo name, meaning “Above the Red Ochre,” was given by @villages_of_lisjan language carrier Deja Gould. 

The name honors the location and connection to red ochre, once abundant in the East Bay hills.  Ochre holds cultural significance for Ohlone people and many Indigenous people of the world. It was among the natural materials extracted and exploited in the settling of California. 

Welcome back Rinihmu Pulte’irekne. 

Music: Landback @rebelwisemusic 
Drone video: Alfred @threesistersgardens 

Video is a peek of the view from the Oakland hills through tree branches fading into an aerial video of the land, panning out to the city and bay from an eagles eye view with text announcing the land formerly known as Sequoia Point has been renamed Rinihmu Pulte’Irekne. 

#rematraitetheland #sequoiapoint #RinihmuPulte’irekne #sogoreatelandtrust #urbanindigenous #womenled #landtrust #landback #landreturn #rematriation
Welcoming youth back as we continue our Indigenous Welcoming youth back as we continue our Indigenous led youth program, Mitiini Numma wave one! We are so excited to be back with you all and hope you had an amazing winter break ❄️. On our first day back we got to learn about and from each other during a yarn toss game 🧶, highlighting who we are, how we got to the land we are on, and sharing our relations. Looking forward to a spring full of fun activities, rematriated site visits, exciting field trips, amazing wisdom keepers, creative workshops, and more! 🤎

Image: Youth and facilitators gathered in a circle in our youth program space, each holding a piece of yarn connected to all of them, during a game of yarn toss. 

#MitiiniNumma #backinprogram #growthetruth #youthleaders #youthprogram #Indigenousled #oaklandyouth #rematriatetheland
This is what Indigenous women and two spirit land This is what Indigenous women and two spirit land rematriation looks like! 

Throwback to the official signing of the cultural easement returning the land formerly known as Sequoia Point to Indigenous care, December 13, 2022. 

Image is five Indigenous women and two spirit people of various ages wearing long skirts and dresses, standing in a line, looking out past the viewer. In the background is glimpse of an image of a ceremonial structure. 

#squadgoals #thecrew #matriarchylives #indigenouswomenled #sogoreatelandtrust #culturaleasement #itsofficial  #landreturn #landback #rematriation #Oakland #indigenousland
Lisjan: Rematriated Indigenous Land Ask Permissi Lisjan: Rematriated Indigenous Land 

Ask Permission 
Walk With Honor 
Respect The Sacred 

*No Photos * No Substances*

Image is a turquoise sign at the entrance of Lisjan with the above text in red and black letters with the Sogore Te' Land Trust logo- a silhouette of the Oakland skyline above an Ohlone basket- in front of an abundance of thriving green plants. 

#Lisjan #guidelines #comecorrect #askpermission  #sogoreatelandtrust #rematriatetheland
Winter Work ⛈️ Seasonal planning with the c Winter Work ⛈️ 

Seasonal  planning with the crew. 

Custom Ohlone Territory Hoody 
hand printed at a staff meet, 
By @creative_mudafukah 

Image is a figure in an orange Ohlone territory hoody, adding a post it to a large sheet of paper full of multicolored notes. 

#projectprocess #planning #sogoreatelandtrust #urban #Indigenous #womenled #landreturn
New year, new opportunity to Rematriate the Land. New year, new opportunity to Rematriate the Land. 

Hit us up. 

Image: a stack of stickers with a turquoise to pink gradient behind a silloutte of Oakland, with birds flying and the words Rematriate the Land, Sogorea Te Land Trust.

#2023 #landback #landreturn #unsettletheland #rematriatetheland #sogoreatelandtrust
🎄Land Back 🌲 If you have more that you nee 🎄Land Back 🌲 

If you have more that you need consider redistributing to Indigenous led work wherever you are. 

#landback #thatsthespirit #rematriatetheland #urbanindigenous #seasonsgreetings #sogoreatelandtrust #spotted #oaklandgraffiti #indigenousland
✨Rest ✨Reflection ✨Renewal ✨ Returning to ✨Rest ✨Reflection ✨Renewal ✨

Returning to balance with the seasons. ⚖️ Every year on Solstice we close for our Winter hibernation. This is a time separate from vacation for our crew to rest, reflect and recharge for the new year. 

Sending solstice wishes for winter wellness to all. 

Image is an Indigenous woman standing on the edge of a piece of green grassy land  high up in the Oakland hills hills looking out at the view of  dark winter clouds and green trees opening to  vista of the distant city and Bay. 

#solstice  #winter #hibernation #sogoreatelandtrust #urbanindigenous #womenled #returntobalance #rest #reflection #regeneration  #rematriaton  #territoryofhuchiun
Sogorea Te’ Land Trust Team wants to thank all o Sogorea Te’ Land Trust Team wants to thank all of our community members and allies who have volunteered & supported us throughout the past year. We are because of you all and we are immensely grateful for the continued support we have received. 

We look forward to connecting with folks in the new year! In the meantime, feel welcome to fill out our volunteer form to receive notification emails: https://tinyurl.com/STLTVolunteer. You can also find other ways to stay engaged by visiting our website: https://sogoreate-landtrust.org/other-ways-to-engage/ 

Alt Description 1:

The background is a transparent picture of some yellow and multi-colored corn. In the middle of the post, you find another yellow transparent box with a solid dark white box in front of it that says: “As Sogorea Te' Land Trust wraps up another incredible year, we want to say thank you to all our community members and volunteers who have supported us throughout these past twelve months. The work we do is possible because of the on-going support we receive from our community who believe in us and share the same goal as we do. Kiš horše ‘ek-hinnan (Thank you so much)”. At the bottom two corners of the white box, you find three vertical hearts. 

Alt Description 2:

The background is a transparent picture of some yellow and multi-colored corn. In the middle of the post, you find another yellow transparent box with a solid dark white box in front of it that says: “Our office has closed volunteer days and they will be reopening mid-January. We will be back with more volunteer opportunities in the new year so keep a lookout! In the meantime, feel welcome to fill out our volunteer form to receive notification emails: https://tinyurl.com/STLTVolunteer. You can also find other ways to stay engaged by visiting our website: https://sogoreate-landtrust.org/other-ways-to-engage/
🌿 Respect my Medicine 🌿 Block printing wit 🌿 Respect my Medicine 🌿 

Block printing with the crew for the end of the year. 
Art by vick @creative_mudafukah 

#respect #native #medicine #sogoreatelandtrust #blockprint #art
✨💛Rematriate the Land 💛✨ #customeveryth ✨💛Rematriate the Land 💛✨

#customeverything #lisjan #thepony #sogoreatelandtrust #urbanindigenous #womenled #landreturn #landback #rematriation
Big Valley Dancers ✨ Closing of the Rinihmu Pul Big Valley Dancers ✨

Closing of the Rinihmu Pulte'irekne land return celebration. 
December 13th, 2022

📷 @hulleah 

#sogoreatelandtrust #sequoiapiont #landreturn #landback #rematriation #celebration
Celebrating the Return of Rinihmu Pulte'irekne✨ Celebrating the Return of Rinihmu Pulte'irekne✨

December 13th, 2022

📷 Jean Melesaine 
@bayarealife 

#sogoreatelandtrust #sequoiapiont #landreturn #landback #rematriation #celebration
Round Valley Dancers✨ Opening of the Rinihmu Pu Round Valley Dancers✨

Opening of the Rinihmu Pulte'irekne land return celebration
December 13th, 2022

📷 @ines_ixierda 

#sogoreatelandtrust #sequoiapiont #landreturn #landback #rematriation #celebration
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