2000
A selection of these emails is found below. They may be of interest to people trying to get the Fort Tejon program to bolster its Native American information program as well as those interested in bolstering Tejon Indian participation in planning development projects on the nearby Tejon Ranch whose historic ties to Fort Tejon are well documented but neglected in the public displays at the fort.
The background for this discussion is the continuing neglect of native content in public history programs in the state of California. Hundreds of millions will be spent on a development project, native monitors are brought in to supervise the construction, and academics are hired to write reports on archaeology and history. Yet too often, these reports are filed away where no one will read them and no real improvement is made in the public history component of the state's programming.
The first selection presents my response to an email sent to me from a staff person working at Fort Tejon Park. He works in the park's public history program. The focus of our disagreements were web pages which I placed on the internet, criticizing the Park Service's web pages [on the history of Fort Tejon and the nearby Indian communities].
"Pleased to hear from you. Yes, I maintain quite a number of web pages on Fort Tejon and the Tejon Indians and they are being read by a growing number of readers.
Thank you for the invitation to volunteer at the Fort Tejon facility. I live in north Idaho and work
full-time, so I unfortunately cannot serve as a volunteer at the fort.
But I hope my web pages are of some help to internet readers, seeking to learn more about the history
of the garrison and the Tejon Indian Reservation [Sebastian]. And I would be delighted to volunteer
some time in consulting with you for free on my criticisms of the Park Service's web page(s), as well as
my research finding on the fort and the Tejon Indians.
Actually, I wrote the web page proposing that the Tejon Indians be given the facility for a cultural
center, a number of years ago. See Fort Tejon
My reference in this web page to the 'official' State Park webpage was correct. It is at: Official State Park Web Page .
I just looked again at this State Park site (more than one web page) on Fort Tejon, and unfortunately
my commentary about needing to correct and expand the Park Service's web page remains current.
The term Emigdiano does not refer to all of the Chumash living in the region of the fort. The
Emigdiano were not "an inland group of the Chumash people, but a coastal people who came to the
Tashlipun canyon. My research shows that the Emigdiano were sent by the Catholic Church to dig
and process gold, which was smuggled by the Church from California by sea and over the Colorado
River.
Whether the gold smuggling was correct or not, the State Park's web page is incorrect when it states
that "the Emigdiano avoided contact with European explorers and settlers, and were never brought into
one of the missions or even incorporated into the Sebastain Indian Reservation." My book called The
Yokut Shield explains that the Tashlipun and the other Mountain Chumash bands DID sign the Tejon
treaty of 1851 and did indeed integrate into the early reservation life at Tejon. It also explains that they
did NOT avoid contact with European explorers and settlers but actually were in open warfare with
them decades before the American invasion. This is acknowledged openly by the American army and
diplomats who signed the Tejon Treaty of 1851.
But these are only cursory criticisms of the Park Service web pages, touching on a larger and complex
topic.
My commentary on the Tejon Indians is spread over a number of Tejon related webpages, which you
may find of interest. I am in frequent touch with non federally recognized Chumash councils from
Bakersfield, San Luis Obispo, and and Santa Barbara. I am sure they would also be interested in
working with the Park Service in revising and expanding its web information and the information made
available to the public at the fort.
More Info on the Tejon Reservation
The Last Tejon Indian Community
These beginning web pages are only a place to start. They contain links to over a hundred web pages
documenting Chumash and Tejon Indian history and contemporary life. My main Chumash web page,
for example, is approaching 40,000 hits. It is at:
Info on Contemporary Chumash Bands
I will try to contact the above mentioned Chumash and see if they would be interested in further
dialogue with you and other staff working on the Fort Tejon public history programs.
It is my understanding that many members of these councils consider the State Park's program at Fort
Tejon inappropriately influenced by American military buffs and the nearby Tejon Ranch Corporation.
And they are convinced that the Start Park interpretive programs remain unwilling to clearly document
the genocidal policies of the early decades of the American era when the army served as an instrument
of oppression of native California natives.
These are painful topics to discuss. I am sorry if I have offended you in any way, but unless California
public history programs take on the hard task of frankly acknowledging the genocide and correcting the
European bias of public history displays [including web sites], then both Native Californians and
non-natives are unjustly deprived of their heritage.
You mentioned that the State Park web page on Fort Tejon is limited in space, and you explain that it
can't cover everything. One of the main purposes of my commentary is to try to convince the public
that when space is limited, less needs to be said about the military and the glory of the economic boom
for white immigrants and more about the native peoples of California and how they struggled heroically
against seemingly impossible odds to preserve their families, communities, and heritage.
Put simply, the struggles of the Tejon Indians to preserve their heritage should be a primary theme of
the Fort Tejon State Park museum presentations (publications and displays) and a primary theme of its
web page(s). Lets stay in touch, I am convinced much more dialogue is needed between the staff at Fort Tejon and
the Tejon Indians. Perhaps I can help in some way."
[ J Anderson, November 6, '2000, AmDes Research, Kootenai, Idaho].
I sent a copy of my email to a number of Chumash Indian colleagues, with whom I routinely discuss current issues of importance to native Californians. Below are related emails, addressing some of the issues I brought up in my correspondence with the staff at Fort Tejon.
For additional commentary, see: More
[Commentary by Chumash Historian Mike Khus]
"I sent written input to the state park staff at Ft. Tejon before the current displays were constructed, YEARS ago. I begged staff to highlight the native theme at Ft. Tejon because it was the focus for the embryonic federal relations with California Indians for both the central valley and adjoining coastal areas. The very purpose of the fort was to pacify damaging "marauding" natives who had decimated Spanish and Mexican ranches. Later, the facility served a crucial role in the disposition - if I dare use a neutral term - for our California Indian peoples in south-central California.
My comments and input were largely ignored.
Perhaps due to the name of the park, uninformed and I think, insensitive park management chose to turn it into a sort of 19th century/militaristic Disneyland. Civil War hobbyists use it for re-enacting battles that happened thousands miles away, in a different time period (to the uninitiated tourist, I think this is the source of some confusion about the fort's purpose and role in CALIFORNIA history) and most of the displays deal with the minitea of the drab, colorless life of soldiers serving garrison duty.
John, I think your comments do not overstate the hard feelings felt by most of the California native community. Most of us regard Ft. Tejon as just another plaything for state parks and non-Indian tourists, rather than a place where they can learn something significant about California history. Like the California Railroad Museum that glorifies the infamous Robber Barons, that part of California history that might actually ADD to the public's understanding of how the state became a US territory and subsequently a state, and what actually happened to the California Indians, is lost in the army gadgetry and physical architecture of the staff's displays at Ft. Tejon.
Are the California Indians willing to work with Ft. Tejon staff ? Frankly, so far as I am concerned, not until they show us something more than lip service; perhaps some actual sincerity ? "Show me the money" - it is all hot air, unless staff are willing to commit resources, NOW to remedy the inequities they have manufactured."
[email to J. Anderson, November 7, '2000. Mike Khus is a Chumash historian, with a M.A. from Stanford University. He served as the official historian of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation. Khus' knowledge of the Mountain Chumash and their resistance to colonialism is well respected among the Chumash/ For related commentary by Mr. Khus, see Nihilism. Other sites providing background information include Academic Nihilism and Haley/Wilcoxon Controversy].
[Commentary by Chumash hstorian Paul Pommier]
"As to the Fort Tejon issues mentioned in your web page, it my experience that any time the Chumash people deal with the National Parks we need to not only look at the immediate agenda presented to us but also be prepared what's coming next,
The Chumash have to be concerned with the legal and moral issues involved in the confiscation of our lands, and we also need to take a long look at the way the process of protecting California heritage sites is administered. I am certain that the Native American Heritage Commission and the National Parks staff discuss these issues before the various federal bureaucracies begin implementation of development projects on native California sites. This dialogue goes way back. If the land is not confiscated in according to the proposals of one developer, then new proposals soon appear from another developer. And there can be another blockage for the Chumash by going to the national register,
So how do we win against the big powers? The land historically belong to the culture of the Indians, if they the national parks invite us in as to hear our grievances ,and see what can be done to work together, it is always on their terms.
And once we orally agree, the traditional Chumash leaders hear the old saying: "Well, you should have put this down on paper? So the agreement soon changes to the benefit of the federal government. The Chumash elders ask to put aside some of their ancestral land, so we may have our own culture center and build a viable community base. Well such negotiations seldom works out, because the federal and state officials complain that their budgets are short and use whatever excuse to get us off their backs.
The dollar amount is great for the tourism that the National Parks generate. It is like having a object in the way, it slows down the process of progress, to preserve historical and sacred sites, and to maintain and build culture centers so that the future generations can come to learn the knowledge and history of these great people, as even today the true decendants continue to fight to preserve their way of life.
Please don't close the final chapter on us, but allow the traditional Chumash to live in harmony with mother earth so we may share with the world. What good is it to close the door on us and then have to dig us up later on, to only prove that we once existed.
Oh those poor anthropologists, who would then would have to look for another culture to dig up. And please don't make us promises about how you will work with us. This has been repeated over and over again. Once you invite us in we are then read the crying towel act; we then become the looky loos as to what piece of land we are going to tread on.
Number one in our priorities is the preservation of sacred sites, so we are asking now that the various levels of American government comply with our guidelines concerning our culture sites. The traditional Chumash wish that their sacred lands be maintained by our own people, administered by an independent council of elders.
Today, the whole world watches. The descendants of the Tejon Indians ask the federal government to act in good faith and ratify the Tejon Treaty, which you have acknowledge and signed in 1851. The State of California should formally ask the federal government to abide by this treaty. In Gods name, what is the delay?"
[Email from Paul Pommier, to John Anderson, November 28, '2000. Pommier is a member of the Barbareno Chumash Council, located in Santa Barbara].
The full text of The Tejon Treaty" (Anderson) is available for reading and free download at:
johnandersonlibrary.org
