Indigenous People and Supporters Occupy Sacred Land at Glen Cove

On April 15, 2011, approx­i­mate­ly 150 Indige­nous Peo­ple and sup­port­ers occu­pied the ancient bur­ial site at Glen Cove, Valle­jo, Cal­i­for­nia, block­ing the Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict (GVRD) from gain­ing entry to the site with bull­doz­ers to begin work on their new pub­lic park. The GVRD’s plans, which involves grad­ing a hill and build­ing toi­lets and a park­ing lot in the area, would deface the land­scape and des­e­crate the sacred site.

Indige­nous Peo­ple at the protest, includ­ing Mem­bers of the Amer­i­can Indi­an Move­ment (AIM), have said they will remain at the site until the GVRD and the City of Valle­jo agree to not car­ry out their plans.

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has report­ed­ly stepped in to medi­ate talks between the Indige­nous Peo­ple and the park dis­trict.

See Below for a Press Release from Sacred Site Pro­tec­tion & Rights of Indige­nous Tribes (SSP&RIT).

Media Con­tacts: Mark Anquoe (415) 680 0110; Morn­ing Star Gali (510) 827 6719; Nor­man “Wound­ed Knee” Deo­cam­po 707–373-7195; Cor­ri­na Gould 510–575-8408.

Please Urge the GRVD and the City of Valle­jo to respect the Ohlone Peo­ples wish­es of pre­serv­ing Sogorea Te. They do not have to des­e­crate the site. They are choos­ing to des­e­crate it.

Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict
707–648-4600
Shane McAf­fee, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er
395 Amador St.
Valle­jo, CA 94590
E‑mail: smcaffee@gvrd.org

Osby Davis, City of Valle­jo May­or
707–648-4377
555 San­ta Clara St

Valle­jo, CA 94590
E‑mail: mayor@ci.vallejo.ca.us

Cur­rent requests from the group: shade struc­tures, tents, paper tow­els, banner/sign mak­ing sup­plies, rope, moist hand wipes, Bron­ners soap, hon­ey, and most of all, more peo­ple to stand with us. We do not need any more bot­tled water!

An Emer­gency Defense Fund has also been set up to sus­tain the ongo­ing effort.

To send a mes­sage to the group, just leave a com­ment on any of the arti­cles at http://protectglencove.org.

Direc­tions: If you’re in the Bay Area, you are invit­ed to stop by for a few hours, or a few days. Direc­tions to Glen Cove can be found here.

April 15th: Occupation underway, demonstrations at City Hall and GVRD Headquarters

Native Amer­i­cans and sup­port­ers have suc­cess­ful­ly occu­pied the ancient bur­ial site at Glen Cove, Valle­jo, pre­vent­ing the Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict from begin­ning work that would des­e­crate the sacred site. Begin­ning with an ear­ly morn­ing spir­i­tu­al cer­e­mo­ny attend­ed by over 100 peo­ple, pro­test­ers vowed to block bull­doz­ers and pre­vent any work that would des­e­crate the site from tak­ing place. The occu­pa­tion will con­tin­ue until there is an agree­ment to pro­tect the bur­ial site. Dozens will camp at the site tonight.

At 11:30 am today the pro­test­ers held a peace­ful ral­ly and cer­e­mo­ny at Valle­jo City Hall and then marched to the offices of the Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict.

Last night the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Jus­tice sent a senior con­cil­i­a­tion spe­cial­ist to Glen Cove to meet with Native Amer­i­can lead­ers. The Native Amer­i­cans asked the DOJ to help facil­i­tate a meet­ing with the GVRD to try to reach an agree­ment to pro­tect the sacred bur­ial site. It is pos­si­ble a meet­ing between the sides, medi­at­ed by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice, may occur Mon­day. The State Attor­ney General’s office has also become involved after the orga­ni­za­tion SSP&RIT filed an admin­is­tra­tive civ­il rights com­plaint against the City and GVRD on Wednes­day.

Native Amer­i­can activists and sup­port­ers have begun the occu­pa­tion of Glen Cove as an esca­la­tion of their strug­gle that has been going on for over a decade, since the Greater Valle­jo Recre­ation Dis­trict (GVRD) first pro­posed plans for a “ful­ly fea­tured pub­lic park” includ­ing con­struc­tion of a paved park­ing lot, paved hik­ing trails, 1000 pound pic­nic tables and a pub­lic restroom on top of the 3500 year old bur­ial site.

On Wednes­day, April 13th, Sacred Site Pro­tec­tion and Rights of Indige­nous Tribes (SSP&RIT), a Valle­jo-based com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tion, filed an admin­is­tra­tive civ­il rights com­plaint to the State of Cal­i­for­nia alleg­ing that the City and GVRD are dis­crim­i­nat­ing on the basis of race in threat­en­ing to destroy and des­e­crate sig­nif­i­cant parts of the Glen Cove Shell­mound and bur­ial site, for harm­ing Native Amer­i­cans’ reli­gious and spir­i­tu­al well-being, and effec­tive­ly exclud­ing Native Amer­i­cans from their right to full par­tic­i­pa­tion in deci­sion-mak­ing regard­ing the site.

The his­to­ry and cul­tur­al val­ue of the site has nev­er been dis­put­ed. Human remains have been con­sis­tent­ly unearthed as the area around the site has been devel­oped. Native Amer­i­cans con­tin­ue to hold cer­e­monies at Sogorea Te just as they have for thou­sands of years. The Glen Cove Shell Mound spans fif­teen acres along the Car­quinez Strait. It is the final rest­ing place of many Indige­nous Peo­ple dat­ing back more than 3,500 years, and has served as a tra­di­tion­al meet­ing place for dozens of Cal­i­for­nia Indi­an tribes. The site con­tin­ues to be spir­i­tu­al­ly impor­tant to Cal­i­for­nia tribes. The Glen Cove site is acknowl­edged by GVRD and the City to have many buri­als and to be an impor­tant cul­tur­al site, yet they are mov­ing for­ward as ear­ly as Fri­day with plans to build a toi­let and park­ing lot on this sacred site and to grade a hill that like­ly con­tains human remains and impor­tant cul­tur­al arti­facts.

SSP&RIT have asked GVRD to recon­sid­er their plans to grade the hill and build toi­lets and a park­ing lot at the site.

Video of trip there