Indigenous Landscapes
Past, present, future.
Checkerboarding
If you browse the "reservations" layer in a map, you will notice that Los Angeles County has no reservation. This is because tribal groups here do not have federal recognition--meaning that their land was stolen, promises were made and treaties broken, and no land was given to form reservations.
The checkerboard is a symbol of the resilience, perseverance, and determination of Native nations in the face of generations of disenfranchisement and separation of native people from their lands. Many reservations were "checkerboarded" to prevent the consolidation of Indian power during the time of railroad expansion. But this power grab was inverted by some tribal groups to instead consolidate their own power.
This time of land back coincides with the time of climate change and represents the strength of Native communities past, present, and future.
Legislation is pending to establish federal recognition for the Gabrielino/Tongva Nation, which would create a reservation in Los Angeles County. This is not the first time nor the first group to attempt to gain federal recognition for Tongva peoples.
SoCal Indian Land
In addition to being home to the original stewards of the land, Southern California has the largest population of urban Indian and Indigenous people in the United States, including Pacific Islanders and people from Indigenous groups in Mexico and Latin America.
There are over 100 federally recognized Native American tribes in California, and many of them are located in Southern California. The total number of Southern California tribal nations includes those recognized by the federal government, as well as state-recognized tribes and other groups who remain unrecognized or are seeking recognition.
According to Tongva community member Virginia Carmelo, "We are not urban Indians. We were urbanized. The city grew up around us."
We have compiled this page and selected data layers collaboratively with Tongva community members for education and information. There are so many Indigenous groups in Southern California. We have learned from our community partners how important it is to begin at home, which is something everyone can do.
Indigenous Land Data Layers
The layer below is from Native Land Digital, an Indigenous-led Canadian nonprofit, which runs a global mapping project. The boundaries are overlapping to show that how relationships can change through time.
Note on the layers: Browse from the StoryMap to review all Indigenous Land data layers that are available on our data hub.
If you add a layer and can't see it, drag and drop your desired layer to the top of the list to make sure it is visible.
Many Southern California tribal nations have active mapping programs for cultural and ecological resources.
Tribal geographic information systems can be a major resource for tribal groups. Some possible categories of interest include:
- Ecological resources (contemporary)
- Water, Earth, Fire, Air
- Ecological resources (historic)
- Species (thriving, sensitive, endangered, extinct)
- Indigenous Environmental Justice
- Tribal schooling, past and present
- Relationship to colonial institutions
- Relationship to governmental institutions
- General tribal information, such as courts and Indian Health organizations.
The data layers used in the projects below are available but scattered in different places.
Visit the data hub and make your own maps with the Experience Builder Indigenous Mapping app.
The Legacy of Barbara Drake
For settlers, looking at the history of the land where we sit is a critical beginning.
For us at the Robert Redford Conservancy, the person who taught us most about our land was Tongva elder Barbara Drake (1940-2022). We learned so much from Barbara about openness, grace, education, birds, plants, and reciprocity. Her spirit lives on within many communities across the Southland, and her generosity guides this work.
CLICK to flip through this book by Pitzer alum Eliza Scmidt.
To visit the Barbara Drake Papers, you can make an appointment at Special Collections at the Honnold Mudd Library of the Claremont Colleges.
Alluvial Sage Scrub
The Bernard Biological Field Station right next to the Robert Redford Conservancy hosts one of the last in-tact stands of alluvial sage scrub in Southern California. In botany, people talk about plant "alliances"--plants that are interconnected and "go together." This same principle applies to Native people's kinship with plants. Below are some of the resources available for this unique landscape as well as information about the cooption and poaching of White Sage in a film by Rose Ramirez and the California Native Plant Society.
Tongva Community Profiles and Projects: Reclaiming Community Voice
The work of Indigenous artists, filmmakers, musicians, basketweavers, scientists, doctors, lawyers, and teachers is interwoven into our Southern California landscapes, past, present and future. Many Tongva community members have had incredible impacts on Tongva cultural revitalization as well as cultural education. We are honored to provide profiles of this important work.
Film: We are still here
Watch with your child and/or for older children.
Data Sovereignty Resources
"Data are not a foreign concept in the Indigenous world. Indigenous peoples 'have always been data creators, data users, and data stewards. Data were and are embedded in Indigenous instructional practices and cultural principles.'"
–Stephanie Russo Carroll (from the U of A website below)
Part of data sovereignty is the ability to determine of how data are gathered and used.
See the University of Arizona's resources on data sovereignty.
ESRI's Arc GIS Pro is free to members of all recognized tribes.
Scholarly Voices
This growing list focuses on but is not limited to Southern California Indigenous scholars, oral histories, and Indigenous narrative resources. Submit your favorite resources at this link.
Alvitre, Cindi, Into the Stream. https://coah-repat.com/system/files/atoms/file/Into%20the%20Stream_0.pdf
Cleaves and Sepulveda Land Acknowledgements.
Mendoza, AnMarie Ramona. The Aqueduct Between Us film.
Mendoza, AnMarie Ramona. The Aqueduct Between Us-Inserting and Asserting an Indigenous California Indian Perspective about Los Angeles Water. Diss. UCLA, 2019.
Sepulveda, Charles. "Our sacred waters: Theorizing Kuuyam as a decolonial possibility." Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 7.1 (2018): 40-58.
Sepulveda, Charles A. "Hallucinations of the Spanish Imaginary and the Idealized Hotel California." California History 99.3 (2022): 2-24.
Douglass, John G., Cindi Alvitre, and Jeffrey H. Altschul. "The Politics of Archaeology." SAAarchaeologicalrecord (2005): 11.
Senier, Siobhan. "Where a Bird's-Eye View Shows More Concrete: Mapping Indigenous LA for Tribal Visibility and Reclamation." American Quarterly 70.4 (2018): 941-948.
Kimmerer, Robin. Braiding Sweetgrass.
Vanessa Watts “Indigenous place-thought & agency amongst humans and non-humans (First Woman and Sky Woman go on a European world tour!).”
Kyle Powys White, “Indigenous Climate Change Studies: Indigenizing Futures, Decolonizing the Anthropocene.”
Davis, Heather, and Zoe Todd. "On the Importance of a Date, or, Decolonizing the Anthropocene." ACME: an international journal for critical geographies 16.4 (2017): 761-780.
Tănăsescu, Mihnea. "Rights of nature, legal personality, and indigenous philosophies." Transnational environmental law 9, no. 3 (2020): 429-453.
Jarratt-Snider, Karen, and Marianne O. Nielsen, eds. Indigenous environmental justice. Indigenous Justice, 2020.