Pioneers

Now we all know of California and the gold-digging, pan-holding, pioneers that came to parts of California throughout the early 19th century in hopes of obtaining unimaginable riches via gold mining. It's a time in history known as the gold rush and is the reason why a silly man panning for gold is on all state-issued IDs. But, have we ever stopped to think who might have inhabited the land of California and particularly Los Angeles millenniums before then? If you are not an absolute nerd or maybe an AP US History veteran then the presumable answer is no, it's almost acceptable that California's history is of simple existence starting from those gold diggers and nothing more. Wow, it's almost as if history has been erased!

However, the reality is much more complex compared to that of the one we have been fed for centuries by the white narrative-unsurprisingly. The little men with their pickaxes and gold pans were called the 49ers. Bringing joy to millions of Americans nationwide with the idea that if they too ventured out into the West, they'd bring riches back home for themselves and their families so the concept of manifest destiny-obsessed leaders told them. Many poor and desperate Americans believed this, they thought "What a great idea! What could go wrong?" but like most times, everything went wrong. It also went wrong for the Native Americans we were already living in California before the 49ers even stepped foot into California. But of course, this is never mentioned in history books.

Before the 49ers, the Gabrielino people known as the Tongva people called Los Angeles and the remainder of the Greater Los Angeles Basin, home. Their territory reached the heights of the San Bernardino mountains to the coast of San Pedro Bay and from the Santa Susana mountains in the north to Aliso Creek in the south. Hundreds of miles, hundreds of communities, and hundreds of people interact with each other daily.

Foes or Mirrors?

Despite what white settlers described the Native Americans as being; savages and ungodly, the Native Americans- and in this case the Tongva people, were one of the most advanced tribes in the west and in some instances, their way of life mirrored that of colonial American civilization.

What this means is that the Tongva tribe's social class system, economy, and politics had similar aspects to that of white Americans, an example of the gender roles in the Tongva tribe and their importance to society. Although women in Toga society withheld power, some even becoming chiefs(the highest position of power in tribe nations)after their fathers, women in society still had to bear children and teach them the sacred values of the tribe-something that greatly mirrors colonial American and the concept of republican motherhood which is the belief that American women should be at the forefront of family, teaching their children the patriotic values of the US to become an efficient participant in society. As for the economy, trading was the game for both societies. Interregional trade was the pinnacle of society in both Tongva and US society, although the things being traded and the methods that trade was enacted (ships vs. canoes) were different, trade was the backbone of a functioning society regardless.

Nonetheless, the Tongva tribe occupied one of the most bountiful environments in California, having access to both game and plant foods like acorns and pine nuts in the basin of California to the Pacific Ocean for fish and other small ocean mammals, all staples in the Tongva diet. They also had access to the rivers running between those basins and valleys. However, because of American expansionist propaganda, it was the 49ers and the American narrative of manifest destiny that acted as a poison to the same rivers that once belonged to the Tongva tribe, essentially becoming the last nail in the coffin Spanish missions built for the Tongva people. They too created irrevocable damage, mostly through methods of forced assimilation via boarding schools or manual labor for native children and adults alike, "educating" the Tongva people in the Catholic way of life, the only way of life to obtain salvation from the "sinful" lives they were living prior.

The Repercussions of Greed

Americans' rampant search for gold within creeks and rivers all around the Tongva territory would not only erode the bodies of water but also facilitate the creation of establishments or "settlements", forcefully pushing the Tongva people out of their centuries-long ancestral homes that could be traced back to the 7th-9th century B.C.E. something recently discovered as a Tongva tribe woman's skeletal remains were found in the La Brea tar pits.

Americans forceful removal of Native Americans is nothing unheard of, but what makes the removal of the Tongva people from their ancestral lands different is the aftermath of it. As a result of the removal, countless natives were left homeless and extremely vulnerable to what can be considered a makeshift slave trade in what is now downtown Los Angeles. Its goal was to imprison Natives for their homelessness and "inactiveness", something similar to that of the reconstruction era's black codes and more specifically the vagrancy laws that would justify the imprisonment of Black Americans for their failure to find a job within a certain amount of days.

The imprisoned Tongva would then be put to work to pay off their bail- a centuries-old new version of indentured servitude was created. However, instead of being given money to pay off said bail, they'd be paid in cheap liquor, making the system of Native American indentured servitude an ongoing one.

Because of the utmost loss of power and authority, the Tongva people experienced in California after American arrival, with their people being ignored and deemed an erasable part of history by the US Government over petitions and cries to create and uphold Native American protective legislation and on rare occasions that legislation is passed, it is usually the bare minimum for centuries of racial annihilation. As a result, the Tongva Nation feels disconnected from their government, unrepresented by their Spaniard given name "Gabrielinos" in the US census, and bound by politics- never being able to connect with their ancestors nor proudly identify as Native.

Justice in Today’s POV

Today, as US politics increasingly become a liberal political ideology that encompasses American core values of equality, toleration, and liberty), albeit with restraint because of the complexity and almost aberrant form of Democracy we have in the US, we are bound to see some initiative towards amending the relationship between Americans and their predecessor, Native Americans. Alas, this is just optimism speaking.

But as a person of color myself however, I can separate from the romanticized view of patriotism in the US, the red white, and blue feelings, the salute of the flag, and the "Trump save us!" political hysteria. As an outsider in simple terms, I can see how the relationship between Native American tribes and US bodies of government has not changed since 1776. Native Americans remain captured in their land, forced to reconcile with the fact that they might never even have the chance to step foot on ancestral lands. Their history is shunned and hidden from American consumers who only see the amazing deals at Trader Joe's for Thanksgiving.

Berated for attempting to uphold traditions, being called antiquated and not "with the times," I see the continuation of disillusionment, distrust in the Native community, and not even getting their rightful name on the US census. It's such a small detail compared to mass displacement but it shows how the government today, in the year 2023, won't do anything. It is the harsh truth, even a frightening one, that those responsible for brutality and horror in US history won't demonstrate a sliver of empathy for the remaining 2,500 members of the Tongva tribe and the many more nationwide.