History Resources

Pruristac Village by Amy Hosa and Linda Yamane, 2019 (from Sanchez Adobe in Pacifica)

Websites, Articles & Information

Bay Area Tribe Websites

Amah Mutsun Ohlone (of parts of Santa Cruz County Gilroy, and Coyote Valley area)
Lisjan Ohlone (of the East Bay): Villages of Lisjan & Sogorea Te Land Trust (of the East Bay)
Muwekma Ohlone (primarily of the East Bay and South Bay area)
Ramaytush Ohlone (of the San Francisco Peninsula)
Tamien Nation (of southern Santa Clara county and parts of Santa Cruz)

Signage at Cooley Landing in East Palo Alto’s Baylands includes information on the Puichon “Ramaytush Ohlone”, (in both English and Spanish):
"Ancestral Ohlone
The Bay’s bounty supported a thriving culture here. For thousands of years Puichon tribal members harvested fish, shellfish, birds, and other food from bay waters and marshes. Ancestral Ohlone built villages near the bay, fishing and hunting from tule reed boats. During the Mexican era of the 1800s this site was part of the Pulgas Rancho."

Monte Loma Park History in Mountain View; Scroll down to “The First Inhabitants of our Neighborhood” and stories about the Castro Shell Mound.

Native American Heritage Commission: California Indigenous People Webpage; includes maps and digital atlas, webinars, list of tribes with links, history and laws, timelines of genocide, many other resources.

POST Open Space Trust to Protect Open Space on the Peninsula and in the South Bay for the benefit of all; Partnering with the Muwekma Ohlone for a brighter future.

UCC Website; “Doctrine of Discovery”

UN Website: 2012: UN wrestles with “Doctrine of Discovery”

UUA Website: “Repudiating and dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery”;2012; also information from World Council of Churches, Episcopal, United Methodist, Menonite, Quaker)

The Ramaytush Ohlone: The First People to Call the Peninsula Home; “Have you wondered about the people who lived on the Peninsula before Europeans arrived in 1769? For thousands of years people built and lived in small villages on the Peninsula from the coast to the bay, gathered food and managed the land. These people developed their own culture and relied on extensive trade networks and well-worn trails for goods not available in their own communities.” Information from SM County with links to explore, including one to the Ramaytush Ohlone website.
Oct. 2025: San Mateo County Educator Resources: More Information and resources about the Ramaytush Ohlone People

Native American Heritage Commission: California Indigenous People Webpage; includes maps and digital atlas, webinars, list of tribes with links, history and laws, timelines of genocide, many other resources.Digital Map has layers for tribes, water resources, trails, Spanish and Mexican land grants, populations…and more. 2024

Articles

Article about the First governor of California Peter Burnett ; As Governor, Burnett signed into law the so-called Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, which enabled the enslavement of Native Californians and contributed to their genocide. Wikipedia

Article about Mission Santa Clara de Asis with information about their treatment of Indigenous Peoples. Wikipedia

Books

A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1810; by Randall Milliken. 1995. “…describes the independent Native American nations that lived in the Bay Area, their reaction to Spanish influence, and their choices when confronted with the mission system. It studies the circumstances under which tribal members joined missions, and recounts their subsequent experiences."

First Nations Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament: by Terry Wildman: “The FNV is a dynamic equivalence translation of the New Testament that captures the simplicity, clarity, and beauty of Native storytellers in English, while remaining faithful to the original language of the Bible.”

The Costanoan/Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area: A Research Guide; by Lauren Teixeira. 1997. Ballena Press; “Gives extensive details about sources, and how to access them. Teixeira has put her skill as a librarian and her familiarity with the Costanoan community to excellent use.”

The Ohlone: Past and Present, Native Americans of the San Francisco Bay Region, 1994; Ed by Lowell Bean, Phd. First book of its kind. From the Ohlone Scholars Conference (1992). “...remedies a long -standing wrong, the neglect of the Indians of the San Francisco Bay Area in the published anthropological literature, and especially the all-too-common statement in that literature to the effect that the Ohlone (or Costanoans) have long been extinct. Here we have the living descendants of the people found here by the Spanish missionaries and explorers in the 1770s telling us how very much present they are in the 1990s.”

The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area: by Malcolm Margolin. “One of the most ground-breaking and highly-acclaimed titles that Heyday has published, The Ohlone Way describes the culture of the Indian people who inhabited the Bay Area prior to the arrival of Europeans." 1978

The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History "Ned Blackhawk interweaves five centuries of Native and non‑Native histories, from Spanish colonial exploration to the rise of Native American self-determination in the late 20th-century. He argues that...Native nations helped shape England’s crisis of empire; the first shots of the American Revolution were prompted by Indian affairs in the interior; California’s Indians targeted by federally funded militias were among the first casualties of the Civil War; ... and 20th-century reservation activists refashioned American law and policy. Blackhawk’s retelling of US history acknowledges the enduring power, agency, and survival of Indigenous peoples, yielding a truer account of the US and revealing anew the varied meanings of America. " 2023

We Are The Land: A History of Native California; By Damon B. Akins and William J. Bauer Jr., 2021, University of California Press.
“...centering the long history of California around the lives and legacies of the Indigenous people who shaped it. Beginning with the ethnogenesis of California Indians, it recounts the centrality of the Native presence from before European colonization through statehood…and in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.“

Open Space Trust: 13 Books that will make you rethink California’s Indigenous history: by Matt Dolcas, Nov. 1, 2021; “Our staff came together to share our favorite books on California’s Indigenous people, worth the read if you’re looking to better understand the true stories of our home state’s first nation.”

Videos

California Historical Society: Writing the Land with Greg Sarris “Celebrated storyteller and tribal leader Greg Sarris explores how …Native American communities have preserved cultural heritage through the power of story…” Sarris shares insights of the Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo ancestors… and underscores the urgency of what these inherited wisdoms and the rise of Native American literature have to teach us in the era of climate breakdown. (07-1-22)

Dr. Jonathan Cordero and Gregg Castro video presentation “We are OF the land” with Fine Arts Museums of SF; Ohlone Land Acknowledgement series (Aug. 2022; shown at FCCPA forum on 5-29-22)

NPS Video: Real California History; “Gregg Castro (Ramaytush Ohlone) explains the history of California that is often not taught: the treatment of Indigenous tribes, and the lasting impacts.” 3.25 min.

Foothill College Archaeology Instructor Mark Hylkema: “Indigenous history in the Bay Area” (70 min video)

History and Heritage: Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area”; Alan Leventhal webinar by Los Altos History Museum

Palo Alto Historical Association Website: Videos including a talk by Alan Leventhal.

San Jose’s Native American Health Center: video Land Acknowledgement

Stanford Professor Michael Wilcox: “Muwekma Ohlone- Landscapes, History and the Narratives of California” (57 min.)

Stanford grad student Ariel Bobbett: Juristac lands (4 min video)
(Available to use for teaching with other churches to bring support to the sacred Juristac lands in Santa Clara County.)

Stanford Historical Society: “Searsville before Stanford” by Laura Jones, a Stanford archeologist that teaches about the indigenous peoples as well as Spanish and Mexicans. (4/27/2022)

UCC of Minnesota: Roxanne Gould, an Indigenous speaker, and Emily Fries, a UCC pastor, speaking about the “Doctrine of Discovery” which established a spiritual, political, and legal justification for colonization and seizure of land not inhabited by Christians in 1100.(28 min)

NOTE: Many of these resources are also on the "Educators" page along with curriculum ideas.