BIA STABS MUWEKMA IN THE BACK

In 1927 an agent who worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs named L.A. Dorington illegally removed the Verona Band who were the First People of the area around what we know as Alameda today in the East Bay. Please read the history of the Muwekma at: www.muwekma.org. In the year 2002 yet another bureaucrat from the BIA taking his cue from the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs - Neal A McCaleb has committed another sacrilege and deprived the Muwekma Ohlone of self-determination, this is a shame. Please take some time to read the Code of Federal Regulations Title 25, (25CFR Part 83). We will go an extra step and provide this link so that our readers may enlighten themselves and view the circumstances and dire predicament of the Muwekma Ohlone: Title 25. Again if one goes to the Muwekma site and reads the history of the Muwekma Ohlone we have made every attempt to clearly demonstrate that the Muwekma Ohlone were indeed at one time affiliated to the Verona Band. As demanded by the Department of Interior under which the Bureau of Indian Affairs works and owes its allegiance to - the Muwekma Tribe has turned no stone to document its affiliation to the Verona Band going back to the period 1914 to 1927 to date. Contemporary history is remiss when it does not tell the truth. Up until 1924 most Whites could kill any Native American. One did not need a reason. If you took a scalp to the authorities you could fetch $10. For decades many Native Americans all over California did not disclose their ethnicity. As I said if you openly said you were Indian - then you were open game. You could be killed. The Missionaries who came here and the Army were quick to use Native Americans as labor. They did not pay them much - for sure they exploited them. Sexually the Whites bestowed Transmitted Diseases unknown to the Native Americans. Many Native Americans died. Others fell prey to small pox and other diseases that the Whites were immune to but not the Natives. The Whites looked at the Native Americans and called them savages. Even today there is an image that nothing good can come out from the Native Americans. Many were shocked at the Winter Olympics when Native Americans were given some opportunity to portray their culture. Native Americans was the forerunner of present day Democracy. One has just to study the cultures of the Six Nations of the Iroquois from back East - the Great Confederacy. In fact our Founding Fathers learned a lot from the Great Tribes and incorporated much into our Constitution. Our Constitution had NO room for Negroes now called Blacks or African Americans. It had NO room for Native Americans. It did not have room for women. Simply put none of them could vote until very recently. I say this because of Government has many elements of "racism" and this is NOT taught in school. Our children are lied to and not told the truth. I have side tracked a bit so that the reader may understand the plight of the Native American in California. This was and IS their land but it was stolen. To date 18 signed Treaties by the Unites States Government have not been ratified. Over 60% of California Tribes are not Federally Recognized. It takes the U.S. Government to recognize tribes so that they can have their own land and jurisdiction. Attain self-determination. The White person has done all in his power to destroy the culture of the Native American in California and the Bay Area. Just like he killed the Buffalo and polluted Mother Earth. Yet today in the year 2002 the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a creation of evil minded White men - wants any Tribe to produce documentation going hundreds of years back. This is a shame. Now when the documentation is produced and believe me the Muwekma have produced thousands of documents - all well documented - again and again the BIA will find fault. They want more. They circumvent the evidence - use delaying tactics - in short drive you to your wit's end. No one explains this to our children - no one explains this to our youth in schools - most Adults are ignorant of these facts. Right here in San Francisco up to the early 1920 you could buy Native Americans and use them as slave labor. We have documentation in our State and City offices that state so. No one really cared for the Native Americans. You all remember "Ishi" - when he was found he was treated like an animal. People came to see him while he was incarcerated in a cage. When he died - some White man removed his brain to check it out. Thinking that Ishi had an inferior small brain. Years later this brain which was sent to the Smithsonian was returned to California and interred with Native American ceremonials. My point the White men did all in his power to kill the Native Americans in California. It was next to impossible to rear a family for any Native American from the 1880 to the early 1920's. It was next to impossible to have an extended family. The Bureau of Indian Affairs have found it difficult to understand how the Muwekma Ohlone "could evidence since 1927 as a continuation of a historical 'Verona Band' or Pleasanton Rancheira". Convoluted language that makes one's stomach churn with disgust. Many of us know that this land we call California belonged to the Native Americans. None of us were here 500 years ago much less one thousand years ago. Why mess with a people who have suffered so much. Many of them died because they were killed for the sake of being killed. Murdered for the sake of being murdered. Raped and molested by cowards. Their culture destroyed, as do so-called barbarians. The Muwekma Ohlone has ONLY one route to take - go to Congress and initiate Legislation to be put back on the Federal Register. This is a difficult route but one that has to be taken. History and California History has not been kind to the Native Americans. The Department of Interior and the National Park Service together with the Bureau of Indian Affairs have banded together to make things difficult for the Muwekma Ohlone. The fight for self-determination goes on. It may be difficult but it is worth the struggle. The world should know that the U.S. Government is one of the most racist governments in the world. Its track record linked to the Muwekma Ohlone and most unrecognized Tribes is pathetic.