Acknowledging Who Owns the Land?

I had an eye-opening moment recently while researching the history of my ancestor’s ranch for the book I’m currently writing. My original search was to find out the price my Great-grandfather Charles Hoppin paid in the 1850s for a quarter of the Rancho Rio de Jesus Maria land grant in Yolo, Northern California.

Curious, I decided to trace the land even further back – and – it’s not what I learned in school! What follows is the short version of what I found. The rest of the story will be included in “The Life and Times of Emily Hoppin,” the biography of my pioneer, activist, Great-grandmother.

If you start with the land, you’ll find that it existed without human inhabitants for unknown eons. It wasn’t until the Ice Age that humans crossed a bridge of land between Siberia and Alaska and continued down the continent. In their book Yolo History, A Land of Changing Patterns, Shipley Waters and Joann Larkey suggest that human activity was present in Yolo County at least by 2,000 B.C. The Wintun (includes Patwins) people arrived in the upper Sacramento Valley about 1,500 years ago. They were the first peoples in the Yolo area. They have never, ever, ceded this land to anyone!

History books have traditionally overlooked this little detail. As a fourth grader studying California history back in the 1950s, I was so enamored by the flashy images of Spanish Conquistadores in the early 1800s and the virtuous Franciscan Father Junipero Serra who built a series of Missions from San Diego to San Francisco, each a day’s ride apart. Their plan was to protect Spain’s holdings in Alta California and to convert the savage heathens.

     “Indian women helped with the work in the house. The Dona taught them to cook the Spanish food. They spun wool into thread and wove it into cloth. Some were taught to sew. None of the Indians were given money for their work. What would they do with money? Did not the ranchero give them food, clothing, and a place to live?”

 It wasn’t until the 1970s that we started hearing the Indian’s version of this Missionization. Their reality was that missions were plantation-like estates with a workforce of enslaved Indians who had been ripped from their land, homelife, language, culture, and health, often beaten and tortured into submission. They are still struggling to recover to this day.

The Spanish government gave away massive tracts of their surrounding land to Spanish soldiers as favors for being stationed in such a remote outpost. By 1846, Spanish mission lands were owned by 800 private rancheros.

When Spain lost the war to Mexico in 1821, the Mexican governor Jose Figueroa determined that mission lands should rightfully return to the Indians rather than colonists. He died a year later (note: research this!) and conveniently, the land was distributed to private Mexican citizens. The era of Land Grant Ranchos began. We see the vestiges in today’s names such as Rancho Cordova and Rancho Murieta, although most names today have dropped the “Rancho” and are now La Brea, Santa Anita, etc.  Interestingly, many cities were conveniently founded on top of indigenous sites and still bear the footprint of the rancho land use.

When my Great-grandfather bought a quarter (8,000 acres) of the Mexican Land Grant called The Rancho Rio de Jesus Maria near Cache Creek in Yolo in the early 1850s, it had been previously owned by a naturalized Mexican citizen, then a European settler.

And yet….

The Wintun nation never conceded this land to anyone. After struggling from near extinction by the Spanish, Mexican, and European settlers, the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation is now reclaiming its heritage, culture, language and independence, and has created a Land Acknowledgement reminder that we are on their traditional land today.

Public Land Acknowledgements:  I had never heard of these until 2021 when I gave a webinar on Emily Hoppin for the Yolo County Library. Before my presentation, a statement was read acknowledging that we (in Yolo) are on the traditional lands of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation.

We should take a moment to acknowledge the land on which we are gathered. For thousands of years, this land has been the home of Patwin people. Today, there are three federally recognized Patwin tribes: Cachil DeHe Band of Wintun Indians of the Colusa Indian Community, Kletsel Dehe Band of Wintun Indians, and Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation. The Patwin people have remained committed to the stewardship of this land over many centuries. It has been cherished and protected, as elders have instructed the young through generations. We are honored and grateful to be here today on their traditional lands.

Land Acknowledgements are being replicated throughout the state. Closer to where I live in the northern Sierra Nevada, the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe created their Land Acknowledgement.

Today, I may have legal ownership of my parcel of land, but these Land Acknowledgements remind me of the real history behind that ownership. In truth, it’s better to consider myself a caretaker rather than owner of the land.