Resources for Exploration

 

Content

• Ask First! - A Better Practices Guide for Indigenous Engagement

• ​Truth-Telling Task Force Resources

• What is Land Acknowledgement

• Research Methodology

• The Report of the Truth-Telling Task Force

• A Synoptic Historic View of Regional Tribes and the Diocese of El Camino Real

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Ask First! ~ A Better Practices Guide for Indigenous Engagement

Offered by Kanyon Coyote Woman Sayers-Roods

Chairwoman of Indian Canyon Amah Mutsum

For Full Document go to:  https://voicesofamerikua.net/askfirst/

 

Note from an author:

Hello all,       

       This document  was written  in response to missteps and harmful impacts that festivals and various other events are making particularly by not honoring the consultation process of local Indigenous Peoples of whose territory that an event is held.   

Unfortunately due to a sad chain of events it  ended up not getting full input as anticipated so as a result it has sadly been sitting ‘collecting dust’ in the interwebs. People keep asking me about it so I’m opening it up to the public!  

       This document is a DRAFT and is being offered up for change – the flow and even the approach.  It lays a strong foundation but it needs peer-reviewed as I feel it is incomplete in its analysis, editing, and format. For example, on State Government-to-Government Tribal Consultation Procedures, the California Native American Heritage Commission carries a most up-to-date Native Nation Contact List.  Information like this is crucial.  What else is there to consider?  Indigenous representatives working in this field could be consulted. Perhaps a kickstarter or fundraising can happen to pay for peoples services- either someone who works with the commission or an independent body?  Peoples insights are welcome. Does anyone have  energy for this?  Is this Guide useful?

       As it is now this guide is geared towards event producers, mainly  non-indigenous  people but it could be more inclusive in many ways – shifted to locate event participants within these suggested guidelines so all are more educated about these types of Better Practices and event standards.   

 

     Acknowledgement and deep gratitude to the friends and comrades who participated in editing it, without whom this would not have been gotten nearly as far. Please do not use this document without crediting it or it’s writers. Permissions: This document is a work in progress and we imagine that it will grow.  Your questions, comments, and concerns are welcomed however please know that we may not be equipped to get back with you in a timely manner.  It’s why we’ve made it open source, but give credit where it’s due..

 

      “Permissions Users may copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format under the following terms: You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

 

If you transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material**.” Via: ‘Whose Land Is It Anyway? A Manual for Decolonization’.

**         = We just ask that you contact the writers. Email:  askfirstguide@gmail.com. The document is posted below in full and it can also be found in google docs here for reading it on a white backdrop, along with some suggested edits.

 

With humility and gratitude.  ~ Dixie Pauline

 

Truth Telling Task Force Resources

       As a result of the Truth-Telling work done at the General Convention in 2022, our Diocese created its own Truth-Telling Task Force to examine our church’s history, especially with groups or peoples who may have been harmed by our Church. We began this work by looking at the history of our Episcopal Church with native and indigenous peoples in our part of the land that is now known as California.

That report on our Church’s history will be available in October 2024.

We offer these other resources as we consider our Church’s history:

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The Office of Indigenous Ministries

      The Office of Indigenous Ministries celebrates the longstanding presence and influence of Native Americans throughout the history of The Episcopal Church. Exercising a deep spirituality grounded in respect for and care of creation and others, Indigenous Episcopalians enrich the church through myriad roles in lay and ordained ministry, modeling wisdom, resilience, and forbearance.

       Indigenous Ministries works for the full inclusion of Indigenous people in the life and leadership of the church.

https://www.episcopalchurch.org/ministries/indigenous-ministries/

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Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery

       As an institution, The Episcopal Church recognizes and repents of its harmful treatment of Native Americans. In 1997, the church signed a new covenant of faith and reconciliation almost 400 years after Jamestown colonization, apologizing for its past actions and launching a decade of “remembrance, recognition and reconciliation.” In 2009, the church’s General Convention passed a resolution repudiating the 15th century-based Doctrine of Discovery, which “held that Christian sovereigns and their representative explorers could assert dominion and title over non-Christian lands with the full blessing and sanction of the Church.”

https://www.episcopalchurch.org/category/doctrine-of-discovery/

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Land Acknowledgements

         A Land Acknowledgement is a statement about the native and indigenous peoples who were on church land long before we were.

        In response to two resolutions passed at the 80th General Convention (2022), many congregations, dioceses, and other church groups and organizations have begun the practice of making land acknowledgements regarding the Indigenous tribal people who used to live on the land they currently occupy, and in some cases still do.

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         When implementing a land acknowledgement, it is important to be aware of their purpose. In short, a land acknowledgement is the start of a process that is intended to lead to something more. This could result in any number of possibilities, with the overall objectives being a deepening of the awareness of Indigenous peoples and living in right relationship with humanity and all of creation.

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Land Acknowledgement Resource Document

Who Was On the Land Before Us?

We are not the first people to be on the land on which our churches currently reside. Use this online resource to discover who has gone before us.  https://native-land.ca

        If you have any questions about the El Camino Real Truth Telling Task Force, please contact Jerry Drino.

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What is a land acknowledgement statement? -from Cal Poly University

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A Land Acknowledgement is a formal statement that recognizes the unique and enduring relationship that exists between Indigenous Peoples and their traditional territories.

Why do we recognize the land?
ASI Poly Escapes aims to provide students with resources and access to the nature across California. The land in California is inextricably linked to the Indigenous Peoples. Expressing gratitude and appreciation to the Indigenous Peoples is a step to recognizing those who were living and working on the land across California long before Europeans arrived.

“It is important to understand the longstanding history that has brought you to reside on the o understand your place within that history. Land acknowledgements do not exist in a past tense, or historical context: colonialism is a current ongoing process, and we need to build our mindfulness of our present participation.”
– Northwestern University

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Research Methodology

Summary

 

       The Task Force has been unable to find any transactions or official relations between what is now the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real (the Diocese) or its individual parishes with Indigenous peoples. 

 

       The Spanish colonial period (1769–1821), the Mexican period (1821 to 1848) including the Secularization of the mission system (1933), and the American period, particularly the Gold Rush (1848 to 1855) and the California Bounty (1851 to 1869) mostly pre-date the formation of the first congregation in the Diocese, which is Trinity Cathedral in San José formed in 1863. It was during those periods that the indigenous populations were greatly reduced, and the majority of remaining indigenous persons were removed to reservations by the Federal government. 

 

The first congregations that are now in our diocese are:

• Trinity Cathedral (1861)

• St. Philip's Mission to Colored People and Academy (1863)

• Calvary Santa Cruz (1864),

• St Stephen’s San Luis Obispo (1867),

• All Saint's (Cristo Rey), Wattsonville (1874)

• St Paul's (San Pablo), Salinas (1875

• St. Stephen's, Gilroy (1875)

• St. Luke's, Hollister (1875)

• St. James', Monterey (1876)

• St. Luke's, Jolon (1878)

• St. Luke's, Los Gatos (1883)

• Christ Church, San Ardo (1885)

• St. John the Baptist, Capitola-Aptos (1889)

• St John’s Chapel Monterey (1891)

 

      The formation of these congregations is distanced by at least three prior periods, and up to almost 100 years of prior interactions with the native tribes. The land owned by legacy families of these and later congregations and the land for the parishes would have been gained from Spain or Mexico during the Rancho period, at the earliest, and by typical land sales after the distribution of the ranchos. In effect, Episcopalians were “third generation” of land title changes, so did not directly dispossess native people from their land.

 

       This is not to say that the founders and members of the parishes in what is now the Diocese of El Camino Real did not have interactions, positive or negative, with Indigenous peoples. The difficulty is finding documented occurrences of interactions such as land acquisition, slave ownership, bounty activity, marriages, actions taken by Episcopalians in positions of authority (judges, legislators, law enforcement, community leaders, etc.) etc. The Task Force believes that either the custom of the time or a deliberate silence meant that such interactions were not documented. There is simply not enough evidence of any collaborative, positive, negative or destructive interactions between Episcopalians and the Indigenous peoples of this area.

 

      Current interactions between Episcopalians in the Diocese and Indigenous peoples include St. James, Monterey, and St. Stephen’s, Gilroy, who have formed space use agreements with the Rumsien- Esselen and Amah Mutson, respectively.

 

Research Methodology

        In February 2024 the TTTF held a research seminar in which we shared best practices and tools that might be used by parishes to investigate their own history with Indigenous peoples. The practices focus on research of individuals. These practices include:

• Ancestry.com – This online resource contains census records from the nineteenth century that show the ethnicity of households and individual. For example, the census records for Arroyo Grande in 1860 showed 47 indigenous people of which 55 were servants (often a form of slavery), 1 was a rancher, and 1 was a carpenter. By 1870 census records of Arroyo Grande showed only one Indigenous person. As another example the 1860 census records for San Jose showed only 15 indigenous people of which four were identified as servants (often a form of slavery). This tool was used to research the founders of the earlier parishes that are now part of our dioceses. No data was shown linking the founders of the early parishes to Indigenous people.

• Newspapers.com – This online resource was used to look up references to the earlier parishes that are now part of our diocese. This resource was also used to look up the founders and prominent members of the earlier parishes. Many articles from the 1850-80 show a pervasive culture of racism and hostility towards Indigenous People. They also show vigilante justice against Latino gangs that could have also included Indigenous People. In addition Indigenous People were often stereotyped as dumb and made fun of. Finally, one of the founders of St. Stephen’s, SLO, Benjamin Brooks, was the longtime editor of the San Luis Obispo Morning Tribune. In the 1890 issues--the time of the Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee--and the news columns were typically bigoted but they were more than likely the work of wire services rather than Brooks or his reporters. However, a review of newspapers revealed no articles that link early Episcopalians with Indigenous People.

• Legislative records for the State of California – This resource is now online, and it was used to see if the founders or prominent members of the early parishes participated in legislation that was for or against Indigenous Peoples. A search of these records was inconclusive. We know that Episcopalians were part of the State legislative process in the 1850s, and there is good documentation about the earlier anti-Indigenous People’s legislation. However, we found no records that showed which individual legislators voted for or against a piece of legislation.

• Judicial records in the State of California - ???

• Property records – This resource is now online, and it was used to see if any of the early parishes or their founders received or purchased land that was taken from Indigenous People. Our research showed that the taking of land from Indigenous People happened well before the creation of the State of California. Furthermore, we found no linkages between the land grants done in the Mexican era and the individuals in the earlier Episcopal parishes.

• Various books on local history and local historical societies – Of note, Jim Gregory, a member of St. Barnabas, has researched and written about local history in San Luis Obispo County. He writes, “We have one settler in Arroyo Grande who, as a soldier, witnessed the execution of 38 Dakota in Mankato, Minnesota in 1862 (the mayor lives in his house), and two who participated in the 1865 Powder River Expedition against the Lakota and Cheyenne. Their commanding officer promised to kill "every male Indian over the age of twelve." His men wound up instead having to eat their own mounts to survive. And we have one more, a cavalryman, who, by sheer luck of the draw, was left behind with his company at a fort while John Chivington carried out one of the most brutal attacks on native people, the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. But I think they were all Presbyterians or Catholics.”

• Boarding School records – No linkage was found between “Indian” schools and the clergy of our area. Several members of the Santa Ynez band of Chumash were sent to an Indian school in Riverside, but this was nonsecular.

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A Synoptic Historic View of Regional Tribes

and the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real, 1848-Present

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        The Historic Overview  has given us the “optics” of over a ten-thousand year human history in the land which precedes the founding of the Episcopal Church in California. The survey constructed a framework to locate the context in which Episcopalians entered the State, in what the Federal Government labeled the Frontier Era.1 We now turn to our church’s history under the theme a beginning is not a beginning, something else has gone before. “Optic” is used intentionally. The Truth-Telling mandate by the Diocese needs to be seen through synoptic lenses, as is suggested in looking at the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The history of the Episcopal Church must be seen together with the history of the tribes on whose ancestral lands the churches of the Diocese of El Camino were founded. The Historic Overview gives the “optics” of the tribes, the events of impact of contact with the Spanish (1769), moving into the Mexican Era (1832-1846) and bringing us into the threshold of the Frontier Era (1846-1890) where Episcopal congregations begin to be formed. Consider the optics of the Episcopal Church. Our tradition is rooted in the English colony of Jamestown, founded in 1607. Its polity/organization has always been congregational. The overlay of bishops and dioceses does not appear for a hundred and seventy-eight years after Jamestown, over twice the Spanish-Mexican period of California.2

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       In the Historic Overview Episcopalians were starting to gather in worshiping communities in the late 1840s and early 1850s, replicating the pattern initiated in 1607. Eventually a diocese for the whole state would be established in 1857, even though there were only a handful of congregations. In the subsequent unfolding century it would divide four times, subsequently with the Diocese of El Camino Real being formed in 1979.

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Audit

       An audit requires a starting point, a baseline. In a financial audit you begin with a budget, periodically ledgers are updated with a full review at the end of the term of the the income and disbursements. From there adjustments and recommendations may be made for the future The budget is the initial threshold to a road map which the institution intends to travel into the future.

       Applying the metaphor, the audit discovery by Truth-Telling Task Force found that there was no line-item in any of the budgets of the dioceses in California in relationship to Indigenous people from the point where Episcopal congregations began to be formed.3 There was no initial mission stategy - or framed more appropriately today - partnership objectives. The only marginal ministry interaction starts appearing in the early 1960s, some hundred and twelve years after the Episcopal Church planting itself along El Camino Real. Today only three parishes in the last fifty years have had any covenant relationship with Indigenous peoples and groups. The formation of the Truth-Telling Task Force (2023) and this report is the first official act of recognition by the Diocese of El Camino Real since its founding.

         Only two contact references in the second half of the 19th could be found with Indigenous peoples in the diaries of Episcopal clergy Century.4 From 1850 into the 1880s historians call this time in California a period of unparalleled genocide only surpassed by Nazi Germany.5 However, no reference could be found in the minutes or documents of any of the parishes founded in that period in the region that is now our diocese.6

The Education Committee of the Task-Force considered the implication of the silence, the empty space on Episcopal side of the ledger and the experience of Indigenous peoples from 1848 to 1967. This set in motion the synoptic project of an interactive website, A Beginning Is Not A Beginning, There Is Always Something That Has Gone Before. The intention is to gather a wealth of resources that include documents supporting this report, essays, sermons and links to other websites of the tribes upon whose lands we exist. Included are links to our historic parishes’ websites and access to their history archives.

 

Frontier Era 1848-1890 – Episcopal Optics

Impact on Tribes - California Statehood and Continuing Displacement

The State’s first governor, Peter Burnett of San Jose, declares a “continuation of a war of extermination of all tribes.” 7 The first displacement of Indigenous peoples had been during the Mission Period (1771-1732). No tribes survived as discrete functioning societies. The culture was carried by individuals and family units, often “disappearing” or being absorbed if possible into “Mexican” identity in order to survived. The 1850s were extremely harsh on Native peoples with bounties for scalps offered to militia organized to clear the land.

As noted in the Overview, the US Senate failed to ratify anyl of the California tribal treaties mandated by President Lincoln.

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The Episcopal Optics

Founding in 1848 and Moving Forward to 1890

In the words of Bishop Kip: The “Mexicans” (including Indians) belong to the ’Romanish’ church. 8

 

A Chronology of the First Episcopal Congregations form 1848 – 1890

1853 William Ingraham Kip elected by the House of Bishops to be Missionary Bishop to California.

1854 an Episcopal worshiping community is formed at Colton Hall, Monterey

1856 Diocese of California is formed, Kip elected Bishop of California.

1861, Trinity Church, San Jose is formed, followed by St. Philip’s Colored Mission and Academy

       The Homestead Act,(see Impact on Tribal Lands) signed by President Lincoln in 1862, allowed citizens and immigrants alike to claim 160 acres of surveyed government land. The land rush became the context of massive migration, including Episcopalians and the subsequent founding of congregations. (1863), Calvary, Santa Cruz (1864), St. Stephen’s, San Luis Obispo (1873), All Saints /Christo Rey, Wattsonville (1874), St. Paul’s/San Pablo, Salinas (1875), St. Stephen’s, Gilroy (1875) which was yoked with St. Luke’s, Hollister (1876) St, Luke’s, Jolon, (1878), St. James, Monterey (1876), St, Luke’s, Los Gatos (1883), Christ Church, San Ardo (1885), St. John the Baptist, Capitola, now Aptos (1889)

       Cultural Context – the Initial Conditions Consider the importance of initial condition which are manifested in attitudes, values, goals and objectives which will continue to form and repeat in succeeding generation growth, developments and mission identity. Episcopalians were like other migrants streaming into California. At first the road the tide of the Gold Rush. Close by was the greed for “empty” land legitimized by the symbolic power Manifest Destiny. (See Dawes Act 1862)Both these currants opened up economic opportunities in agriculture, trade, and transportation. Not the least of motivations was adventure and exploration. Episcopalians arrived influenced by one or more of these motivations. When the Task-Forced viewed these conditions impacting Indigenous tribes, it searched for commentary and we find only two brief moral observation from any Episcopalians.9

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1900-1979

Impact on Tribes

       1900-1960 Land Loss and Cultural Suppression starting with the Dawes Act (1887 - See Below) to erode tribal lands and culture. While many of the treaties were finally ratified in the early 1900s, the recognition was short lived. In the 1930s, the Federal Government ruled that all the tribes in the diocesan area “extinct” because that had fewer than 300 members.

        1960-1990 Reaction and cultural revival and activism. By the 1960s there was a major move by the Federal Government at “relocation” of all the Indigenous from reservation across the country. With massive urbanization of Indigenous peoples had begun resulting in the continuing disconnection from culture and further jeopardizing the claim of tribal autonomy when the people no longer were living on ancestral lands. .Tribal reaction coalesced with the Civil Rights Movement, include the national American Indian Movement among whose leaders would form the future ministry at St. Philip’s and out of St. Luke’s, Hollister. The various Ohlone, Xolon, Salinian and Chumash tribes begin to reclaim their cultural heritage and seek Federal recognition. This continues to be their major struggle.

Expansion of the Diocese of Californian

Relationship with Indigenous Peoples

       Cultural Context: In this period the organization of the diocese becomes more centralized in the episcopate as parishes multiplied in the state. The Diocese of California would divide five times and saw a series of socially and liberal bishops. Construction of Grace Cathedral stopped when wealthy donors opposed Edward L. Parsons (Bishop 1924-1940) standing with the Longshoreman's Strike (1934). James Albert Pike (Bishop 1858-1966) lead in the turbulent Civil Rights Era as well as feeding the theological turbulence of the “Death of God” era the broke open the Church

       The Indian Center at St. John’s in the Mission District of San Francisco was founded during this period, along with diocesan support in the Black Power and Chicano Movements. The Vicar and Deacon at St. Philip’s, San Jose in the late 50’s and into the 60’s were active in the Civil Rights Movement in the South and the Farmer Workers Movement in California.

       In 1967 the Lakota Student Opportunity Program (LSOP) was established by the Rev. Jerry Drino, Associate at St. Andrew’s, Saratoga in partnership with the Episcopal Church on the Cheyenne River Reservation, South Dakota. 36 teenagers came to live in parish homes and attended school for at least a semester. In 1970 – Drino celebrated a Christmas Eucharist on Alcatraz Island during its occupation by the American Indian Movement.

       Again, for most of the 20th Century there is silence on the side of the ledger of the Episcopal Church until the 1960s. In this time of Federal relocation, all the “Indian Work” in the church can be attributed to leadership of Episcopal Lakota, Paiute, Navajo, Shoshone, Ute and Native Alaskan Episcopalians who were being relocated into our urban areas and wanted to be a part of “their” church in these places. Often, they found that they were considered “outsiders” and at best were treated with indifference. Only two Indigenous Ministries were established in the Bay Area: St. John the Evangelist, San Francisco during the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s and in 1989 at St. Philip’s, San Jose. The later followed a long winding trail walked by Lakota Episcopalians who arrived in the e Lakota Student Opportunity Program (1967-1972) at St. Andrew’s. In 1971, Drino becames Vicar of St. Philip’s, San Jose. 1978, Paul Willard (Tlingit) was appointed by the Vestry of St. Philip’s to be Indian Missioner to the Indian Center located nearby. When he sought access to the ordination process the door was closed.

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1979-Present

Impact and Resurgence of Tribes

        Land Reclamation continues to be a struggle with a few successes among Chumash and Esselen/Rumsen-Costanoan. Federal recognition and legal battles continue to grow with intensity with some successes among the Mutsun, Chumash and Esselen. Language revitalization grows with cultural and education programs. Environmental advocacy is primary with all eight tribes in our diocesan area, several of which have established nonprofit land trust. More conversations are developing with County and State Parks systems to work with tribes in land and resource management.

        Cultural Preservation is an ongoing effort for all local tribes and Indigenous peoples in our areas, focusing on preserving and revitalizing language, traditions and cultural practices, crucial for maintaining their heritage. The establishment of a new nonprofit, Indigenous Nations Diversity Network seeks to engage Ingenuous from throughout the Americas in the celebration, preservation and evolving of culture and spirituality as was experienced in the Second Annual Indian Gathering in Hollister last September. Half of the board of directors are Episcopalian.

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A New Diocese of El Camino Real – InterCultural Relationships

      In 1979 Diocese of El Camino Real was formed, and C. Shannon Mallory elected its first bishop. Inter-cultural foundations were already established in the diocese with San Pablo, Salinas, founded in the 1960s and the first Laotian ministry in the country was founded in 1980 at St. Philip’s. However, when aspirants for ordination were put forward from the community, like Paul Willard, they found no way forward through the Commission on Ministry.

      In 1988, Ethan Dupris and Garry Haskell, both students in the St. Andrew’s Lakota Student Opportunity Program, introduced Hank Swift Cloud LeBeau, his wife Sherrie and other Urban Indians to Drino, now Rector of St. Philip’s, San Jose. Hank, a counselor at the Indian Health Center of Santa Clara County, was looking for a safe place to hold Indian gatherings. Drino said that he had been waiting for him for seventeen years when a Harvest Feast that November saw over 300 gathered around tables enjoying a feat of turkey and “fixin’s”. The urban Indian population in the County at that point was around 9,000.

       In 1990 the sweat lodge is built at St. Philip’s to serve the needs of the Indian community, especially the services of the Indian Health Center where Hank was a staff recovery counselor.

This ministry joined the already established Laotian (1990-), Central American (1988) and Filipino (1989) ministries of the parish. 1991 Hank began studying in the Native Ministry MDiv Program of Vancouver School of Theology (BC) with Drino serving as tutor along with Dr. Andrew Kille and Dr. Jacob Ennolikara, both on the staff of St. Philip’s. He was ordained a Deacon in 1996 and a Priest in 1998

        The Indian (or soon called) First Nations Ministry continued until 2006 with Hank’s retirement. During that time St. Philip’s became the center for many activities of the Province 8 region of the Episcopal Church’s Indigenous Ministries. The only Native Hawaiian (Kanaka Maoli) Eucharists outside the Hawaiian Islands was started in 1992 and continued until 2006 with visiting Hawaiian clergy gathering the community for luau and Hawaiian Liturgy.

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The Present

      The 21st Century is marked by challenges and innovations which has provided opportunities for intersection with Indigenous peoples. Our diocesan area leads the nation in technological innovation. The Great Recession of 2008 recovery has focused on green technology and sustainability, both of which provide common ground for working inter-culturally. The whole state continues to grapple with issues of housing affordability, homelessness, and climate change, again, all areas of common concern that potentially could be the intersection with concerned Episcopalians and tribal people. The accelerating cost of housing has forced many parishes to provide for only part-time clergy support, with several parishes either merging into a new parish or closing.

       The Social Justice Commission hosted a diocesan conference on the Doctrine of Discovery in 2023, inviting local and national Indigenous leaders to explore this foundational proclamation, the Papal Bull of 1452.10 which defined the attitude of “Christian Nations” in their conquest of “heathen lands.”

        Several movements have arisen tangentially from the work of the Truth-Telling Tasks Force:

The partnership with the Indian Health Services of Santa Clara County continues to be a part of the inter-cultural ministry of (now) Holy Family Parish (blending of St. Philip’s, Holy Child and St. Joseph’s, Milpitas). A new cooperative venture with Mandala Children’s House (preschool at Holy Family, established 1975) is Common Ground: a Native Garden of Healing Plants. Expanding the area around the sweat lodge, plans are underway to develop a garden of native California plants, especially those which are used in healing. The garden will include an open-air classroom and space for additional ceremonies and family gatherings. The partnership is growing with interests from community colleges and universities as well as various Indigenous Groups. A Federal Grant has been awarded to the Health Center for this project and they seek a Mission Partnership Grant from the diocese, which will be the first investment by the diocese in Indigenous work.

       During the time of the Task-Force mandate parishes were encouraged to develop local History Research Teams, to investigate the history of the local tribes, the relationship, if any, with the parish and the tribes and to assess how this history and potential future relationships might be developed. Research resources were suggested by the Task Force with the aid of the Diocesan Archivist, Bill Whobry, Curator of Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo. Among those congregations engage in this effort have been Calvary (Santa Cruz), St. James (Monterey), St. Stephen’s (Gilroy) – hosting the meetings of the Amah Mutsum, St. James, Monterey - hosting meeting of the Rumsen and Esselen. St. Dunstan’s (Carmel Valley), St. Philip’s (Scotts Valley), St. Jude’s (Cupertino), St. Luke’s (Hollister), St. Stephen’s (San Luis Obispo), and St. Barnabas (Arroyo Grande). In several parishes there have been forums and sermons, book discussion groups and initial conversations with local tribal groups exploring ways to become allies and advocates for their efforts.

        In 2024, St. Jude's, the Rev. Annalise Deal (Curate) helped organize a Forum with Indigenous leaders as continuation of a discussion about changing the name of de Anza. The Rev. Jerry Drino preached on Land Acknowledgements at the Eucharist and was a part of the panel discussion. In the summer St. Jude’s yuth went to the Cheyenne River Reservation for a work camp. This was the reservation with the thirty-six Lakota youth came from in 1967-1971 to participate in the St. Andrew’s Indian Opportunity Program.

       In the spring of 2024, the Indigenous Nations Diversity Network was formed as a new nonprofit coming out of St. Luke’s, Hollister, initiated by its Senior Warden, James Whitebear (Assiniboine), and other Indigenous leaders in San Benito County. This network is inclusive of Indigenous throughout the Americas, not just the US but Latin America. [https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php/?story_fbid=122099419022401614&id=61562048435000

 

Footnotes

1 In the 1890 Census declared “the Frontier Era is over.” That is because the last Lakota were rounded up on reservations, many of whom were already Episcopalians.

2 Samuel Seabury was elected the first bishop in the newly organized Diocese of Connecticut in 1784. The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America was formed the next year with eleven dioceses.

3 The now-Dioceses of California, Northern California, San Joaquin and Los Angeles have and/or continue to have line-items in their financial budgets, with the Diocese of California going back to the 1960s and the Indian Center at St. John’s in the Mission District. The Diocese of El Camino Real has never had any official initiative.

4 See in "Notable Persons" below

5 Benjamin Madley, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe.

6 Go to Notable Persons (below)  and see diary entries from Bishop Kip and the Rev. James McGowan.

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