Indian Country was honored and hopeful when President Joe Biden nominated Deb Haaland as the first Native American to serve as secretary of the Interior. But today, we are concerned that the Department of the Interior (DOI), on her watch, continues to ignore significant threats to our ancestral tribal homelands. We are profoundly disappointed that our voices continue to be ignored on this critically important issue.
For tribes like ours, nothing is more important than our ancestral homelands. Our Patwin lands in California have been the foundation of our cultural and spiritual traditions since time immemorial. They contain the final resting places of our ancestors, they are critical to transmitting our culture to future generations, and most fundamentally, they are a central, inalienable part of our identity as Patwin people.
Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland testifies during the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on the Department of the Interior budget on Tuesday, July 27, 2021.
Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
That is why we are alarmed that DOI is fast-tracking a proposal to allow the Scotts Valley Pomo tribe from Clear Lake—more than 100 miles away—to build a massive eight-story casino on Patwin ancestral lands in the Bay Area city of Vallejo.
This development, which is backed by Las Vegas investors, would bulldoze a known Patwin cultural site, while destroying environmental habitats, freshwater wetlands, and multiple endangered species who live there. It would be built on lands set aside for community open space—all the while undermining tribal sovereignty. It should be no surprise this ill-conceived project is opposed by a broad coalition of tribes, local governments, environmental groups, members of Congress, and, most recently, the governor of California.
Scotts Valley claims to be a landless tribe. This is not true. Scotts Valley owns property, maintains a government headquarters, and owns an energy company in its Clear Lake homeland, where most of its members live.
Scotts Valley also claims they have a significant historical connection to the lands in Vallejo. This is also not true. Scotts Valley also has no historical claim to the lands in Vallejo, and there is no evidence of any Scotts Valley villages, burial sites, or tribal lands in or near Vallejo. Their claim is directly repudiated by Governor Gavin Newsom.
In fact, Scotts Valley failed in 2012, 2017, and 2019 to receive a “restored lands” determination. The Department concluded in each instance that Scotts Valley lacked the historical connection to the area that is required by law—and the tribe only began claiming to have an ancestral connection to Vallejo after its 2012 request for property in Richmond, Calif. was denied by the Department. Yet, on the contrary, countless historians, ethnographers, and public agencies—including Solano County, named for a Patwin leader, and California’s Native American Heritage Commission—recognize Yocha Dehe as Patwin ancestral territory.
Yet despite all of this, the Department has completely shut local tribes out of the fast-tracked decision-making process. This summer, over the 4th of July holiday, the Bureau of Indian Affairs silently released a significantly flawed environmental assessment—instead of a mandatory and significantly more substantial environmental impact assessment—with a limited comment period. This sorry excuse for an environmental review relies on out-of-date information, fails to consider contrary data and evidence, leaves significant information gaps, and, in both its preparation and its contents, has excluded Patwin tribes and fails to incorporate important indigenous knowledge.
The Department and Secretary Haaland have a responsibility to ensure Native people are safe and prosperous in their ancestral homelands. No tribe should be excluded from federal decision-making processes that fundamentally affect their lands, culture, and people. And all tribal homelands—including our ancestral Patwin home—are deserving of respect and protection.
Anthony Roberts is Tribal Chairman of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation. Elected Chairman in January 2018, he has served on the Tribal Council since 2000 and as treasurer since 2006.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
