‘California must reckon with our dark history…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Long before companies like Google and Twitter were pricing out San Francisco Bay natives with escalating real-estate costs, forcing people to flee their homes, Spanish conquistadors, missionaries, and a slew other land speculators were doing the same to groups such as the Yelamu tribe.
Now—perhaps as prelude to a broader push from the radical Left to make restitution for its historical sins through slavery reparations—California Gov. Gavin Newsom has issued a formal apology for Califorina’s past wrongdoings against Native Americans while decreeing the establishment of a new Truth and Healing Council.
“California must reckon with our dark history,” Newsom said in a statement. “… We can never undo the wrongs inflicted on the peoples who have lived on this land that we now call California since time immemorial, but we can work together to build bridges, tell the truth about our past and begin to heal deep wounds.”
The Los Angeles Times reported that Newsom planned an in-person apology Tuesday during a blessing ceremony at the future site of the California Indian Heritage Center in Sacramento, where more than 100 tribal leaders had gathered for an annual meeting.
According to a press release issued by the governor’s office, the new Truth and Healing Council will be convened by the governor’s tribal advisor and include an array of stakeholders—among them, tribal representatives and government agencies.
Its goal will be to seek ways “to more closely explore the historical relationship between the State of California and California Native Americans in the spirit of truth and healing.”
Although what, precisely, that entails remains unclear, the new council will report its draft findings annually to the governor’s tribal advisor beginning in January 2020, with a final written report on the findings submitted on or before January 2025.
Unfortunately, those most aggrieved by the cesspool of evils that became California are no longer around.
Starting during the Gold Rush era of the 1850s, the state formally began what its then-governor referred to as a “war of extermination” with the Indian populations, reducing them to about 20 percent of their former size, with many being sold into indentured servitude.
The Yana, or Yahi, tribes, mostly eradicated by what was known as the California Genocide in the late 19th century, are believed to have become extinct when their last known member, Ishi, died in 1916 after living out his final years as an object of curiosity in Berkeley.
However, Newsom was able to find at least one token Native American with a claim better than that of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to commend his latest efforts.
The decree will “go a long way to start the healing process between the state and Native American communities throughout California,” said James Ramos, a Democrat in the State Assembly and former chairman of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians in San Bernardino County.
“This historic acknowledgment by the Governor marks the beginning of a new relationship between the state and the more than 700,000 Native Americans who make the State of California their home,” Ramos said.
The governor’s order did not specify how much money the state intends to spend in funding its research.
Currently, despite claiming a recent budget surplus, California is afflicted by considerable expenses—among them the cost of rebuilding after recent wildfires and other natural disasters, a forestalled light-rail project that once was intended to link San Francisco with Los Angeles, and Newsom’s recent plan to provide free healthcare to illegal immigrants.
Those expenditures have recently resulted in another state-sanctioned, forced migration of indigenous Californians: the exodus of both middle-class workers and wealthy Silicon Valley millionaires to areas like Nevada and Texas with more favorable tax shelters.