Honoring ancestral territory in downtown Sonoma

As thousands of tourists and school children resume sightseeing field trips to downtown Sonoma, many may not realize that they are walking over the ancestral territory of those who were here before us.

Sonoma State Historic Park is the sacred burial site of hundreds of Indigenous people who were once enslaved at the mission. In order to interpret the past and pay respect to those Indigenous people who suffered and sacrificed their lives here, on the west side of the mission there is a monument which was installed to honor the deceased.

The memorial monument’s inscription reads, "In this sacred grounds lie buried men, women and children of the local Coast Miwok, Patwin, Wappo and Pomo Tribes. They built, labored and died at Mission San Francisco Solano."

Mission San Francisco Solano is one of 21 missions that comprise California's Historic Mission Trail. They are all located on or near Highway 101 and the path roughly traces El Camino Real, which was named in honor of the Spanish monarchy that financed the expeditions into California in the quest for empire.

There was a time in our country's history when stories of settlement were romanticized. Schools were once taught the history of the California Missions in a Euro-centric that left out key pieces of the story. The real story of the California Missions includes the military and church expeditions to capture the Indigenous people and force them into a lifestyle that did not include their cultural beliefs, language or diet.

Off of the Sonoma Plaza there are six historical sites that span three distinct eras of California history, including the Mission San Francisco Solano.

The mission was secularized in 1834, while the chapel dates from 1841 to 1842, and was utilized as the local parish church until 1881. Then, in 1999, the memorial monument was erected.

Locals honor

“It's incredibly important for our people. It's a huge step forward in finally starting to set the record straight and have the truth be told,” said Clint McKay whose ancestors include Dry Creek Pomo, Wappo and Wintun is an educator who teaches at Summerfield Waldorf High School and is Pepperwood Preserve's Indigenous Education Coordinator.

It took the Sonoma Mission Indian Memorial Fund and their cultural committee two years and more than $30,000 to create the new addition to the mission.

The group met in the Sonoma Barracks, which is also part of the Sonoma State Historic Park, and at member's homes to work out plans for the monument. The committee members included Edward Castillo, Lanny Pinola, Patsy Greensterin, Betty Allen, Adrian Martinez, Bob Skelton, Susie Moore and others along with California Department of Parks and Recreation Senior State Archaeologist Breck Parkman as the state's liaison. The fund has since closed as of 2000.

After years of toil the monument became a reality.

Its foundation was made of adobe by local adobe craftsmen, while the names of the 896 Indigenous people's names were etched onto a stone slab quarried in Clovis.

“True, there are 896 names there, but the monument itself actually honors the tens of thousands of our people that were affected in that era,” said McKay who also served two terms as chair of the California Indian Basketweaver Association. “It goes much deeper than those names on that list because there are so many more than the names on the list that are affected and unaccounted for, and that is a statement and testament to the historical trauma that we went thru then and are still going thru now.”

I attended the somber ceremony in 1999 to honor those who were buried there. It was a touching and reverent event. Josephine Wright, 94, of the Pomo tribe, read the first ten names of the 254 children buried there, setting the tone for the day's long overdue event. Other names were read by the director of state parks, a representative from the governor’s office, the mayor of Sonoma, the local archbishop and all of the committee members of the Sonoma Mission Indian Memorial Fund. At the event's conclusion the mission bell rang out three times giving an end-of-ceremony pause to a powerfully human event.

Understanding the truth in the past

In order to obtain the names of those buried here, it required considerable research.

"Edward Castillo (Luiseno) and a couple of his Sonoma State University graduate students went to Santa Barbara and worked with the mission records in order to compile a list of the names of those buried at Sonoma Mission,“ said Parkman from the California Department of Parks and Recreation. ”They ended up with 896 names representing four tribal groups (Coast Miwok, Southern Pomo, Wappo and Patwin). It took some doing due to the condition of the records. Ed and his students did a lot of cross-checking, though and managed to get it right.“

Since the mission records documented both a native name and a Christian name, it was decided that to honor the elders whose belief held that the names of the dead were generally to be avoided, their Christian names were the names that were read aloud at the ceremony.

In 1769 there were approximately 340,000 Indigenous people in California, according to the Handbook of North American Indian, and then the Mission era ended around 1833, about 100,000 had Indigenous people died.

As a result of including the truth of the past by way of a monument, there may be opportunity for the healing process to continue and for an understanding of the vibrant community which still remains.

“It's really important that it is there,” McKay said. “It's starting to tell the truth for what really happened, but I think it honors far more people than the names on that plaque."

Many Native elders and culture bearers have willingly passing along the ways of their people to relatives and the public through interpretive walks at parks, informative classes and art installations in many museums and art centers.

If we but take the time to learn from California's many Native cultures the opportunity may be rife with stories, myths, reminiscences and other enriching content.

The goal of the Sonoma Mission Indian Memorial Fund committee was to allow for native people to become visible once again. Those built the mission, many involuntarily, and consequently the town of Sonoma deserved to be remembered and their lives discernible to those who take time to touch the names etched on the three stone slabs.

"We wanted to make Sonoma's residents and tourists alike see these people, and that's exactly what we did, make them visible once again," said Parkman.