protect glen cove, ca

California has a chance to do something really right. If you live in California and went through the public school system, chances are slim that you were taught that historians now consider our state to have, perhaps, the very worst record in the nation when it comes to past treatment of original Indigenous Peoples. What happened here in the 1800s, scholars now say, was worse than Wounded Knee in South Dakota, worse than the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado, the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo in New Mexico or the deadly pursuit of the Nez Perce from Oregon to Montana.

Since the arrival of the first non-Natives in the state, California Indigenous peoples have been betrayed, abused, enslaved, pursued, hounded and corralled onto reservations. Most chillingly, the slaughter of Native Americans was actually financed by the government here, who found plenty of vigilante-type thugs amongst prospectors and interlopers who took money in exchange for massacres. The end result of this violence was that the Indigenous populations who had managed to survive the Spanish/Mexican occupation were then reduced by an estimated 90% over the course of a few decades. This is the story of ‘sunny’ and ‘golden’ California that is still not being properly taught to residents, leaving too many people with a deficit of wisdom when it comes to understanding the things that Native Americans are organizing and working for today.

We have a perfect example of the lack of education and resultant poor decision making going on right now in Northern California, in a place called Glen Cove in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can read about this issue in depth at ProtectGlenCove.org, but here, I will summarize my understanding of what is taking place and how you can help California to make a much needed right move.

Glen Cove (Sogorea Te in the local Ohlone language) has been a sacred site and burial place for resident Native Americans since at least 1500 BC. There are hundreds of people buried there by the waterside. Imagine a large and important cemetery you have visited where your family going back many generations has received an honorable burial, and you have a good picture of Glen Cove. Glen Cove also contains some of the last ancient shell mounds left in the Bay Area. Most have been demolished in the name of city planning and development. This site continues to be of great spiritual importance to California Indigenous Peoples today.

Unfortunately, the city of Vallejo and the Greater Vallejo Recreation District have laid plans to turn the burial grounds at Glen Cove into a public park, complete with parking lot, restrooms and picnic tables. The plan includes re-grading the earth and installing paved trails. This will involve much digging, of course. The final insult is that the plan includes intensive applications of toxic herbicides for years to come, and this last point should be of significant concern to all Californians who have yet to recover from the LBAM spray disaster.

All of this is absolutely being deemed a desecration of the burial grounds, and representatives of the local Ohlone, Miwok and Pomo tribes are organizing with tribes, groups and citizens across the country to deliver the message that this is a sacred burial ground – not a park.

I want to take this opportunity to voice my unqualified protest of the park proposal, and my deeply felt support of the need to protect Glen Cove from any type of development now or in the future.

As a Californian of mixed Indigenous/European ancestry, I feel that listening to the needs of California Indians is the only way this state’s residents can begin to make peace with a disturbing and dark past. All our people can act for the good of all, and this means honoring the sacred spaces and spiritual devotions of every member of the whole community. When all are equally valued, we will have achieved peace. As a citizen, I feel that elected officials and city councils should always take account of Indigenous visions and plans first, before one more acre of land is developed here for general use. And, as a blogger, I don’t think there’s anything better I can do today than to promote awareness of what is happening in Glen Cove in hopes that you, my caring reader, will feel a call to help protect this sacred burial ground in any way you can.

Here is the page on the ProtectGlenCove.org site listing the various ways in which you can aid this important and humane work, whether this be through writing letters, making phone calls, publicizing the issue locally or giving monetary support. The organizers behind the movement to protect the cove are generously inviting all people to come visit the spiritual encampment and spend a few hours or days there, and ongoing events are planned.

Every day, each of us has the privilege of making decisions. What will we do today, where will we bestow our time, our thought, our care? As I see it, here is a chance for every Californian to make a decision for good, for the downfall of racism, the strengthening of human ties and the honoring of human life both past and present. I believe that if enough of us speak up in solidarity for the protection of Glen Cove, the park plan will be abandoned. The Californians of the 1800s made their decisions, and it is my sincere hope that we feel no sympathy for such evil choices today. We have the opportunity to choose differently.

Latest news is that City of Vallejo workers have come out this week to survey the site for the installation of a fence, flags and spray paint in hand. There is little time to be lost, it seems, and I’m asking all readers to ask themselves if they can lend a hand in whatever way. Please, visit the site we’ve linked to, and see what you can do.

—————
Photo Credit: Dospaz