The Healing Work of Returning Stolen Lands (yesmagazine.org)

While it has long been a place of refuge for those who love the natural world, it has also been the site of the immense tragedies of the Gold Rush, which resulted in the attempted erasure of Indigenous life and livelihood by the genocidal policies of 19th-century California.

Central to the Wiyot’s ancestral land is Tuluwat Island, a 280-acre island located within Humboldt Bay in what is today the city of Eureka, California. On Feb. 26, 1860, the Wiyot were holding their annual World Renewal Ceremony on the island. A gang of settlers attacked and massacred a majority of the Wiyot, effectively carrying out a genocide. The survivors dispersed themselves and eventually moved to Table Bluff Reservation in the southern region of their homeland.

In the 1970s, Albert James, the son of Jerry James, a survivor of the massacre, had a dream of returning to the island. He approached the city of Eureka with a proposal to that end, but his request was ignored. His dream held power, however, and in the 1990s, James’ nieces Leona Wilkinson and Wiyot Tribal Chairwoman Cheryl Seidner began to organize and act on the proposal.

Wilkinson and Seidner began hosting open prayer vigils to honor what was lost and to rebuild the heart and power of Wiyot people on the island. These vigils brought intergenerational Indigenous people together with settlers who had truth, restoration, and justice in their hearts. Over the years, the vigils created widening circles of education, action, and understanding within the broader tri-county Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities of Northern California, becoming the seeds of the profound healing that can emerge from truth-telling and coming together with love to honor a place.

During this time, the Wiyot discovered that a small part of the island was for sale. The tribe worked with the Seventh Generation Fund, an international Indigenous grant-making and movement-building organization located within the Wiyot homeland, to create the Wiyot Sacred Sites Fund.

To read more of Pennelys Droz' article, please click here.