"It appears that the Winnemem Wintu Tribe has once again become inconvenient. This has happened to us before and, generally speaking, it is not a good thing.

Let me explain.

We are the former proprietors of a good stretch of riverfront property along the lower McCloud River. This section of the McCloud, a tributary of the Sacramento River, was once renowned for its beauty and its winter salmon runs. Since 1945, however, it is best known by its new name—the McCloud River Arm of Shasta Lake.

The majority of our tribal homelands lie under water, behind Shasta Dam. At the time of the dam’s completion, the U.S. government promised to make us whole for our losses. In the 66 years since, we have lost homes, land, the graves of an estimated 14,000 of our ancestors, more than 125 sacred sites, and even our official federal designation as a tribe. This included our tribe’s World War II veterans, who left their villages to enlist, and returned home at war’s end to find a reservoir where their homes had once stood.

Inconvenient tribal location, tidy solution.

This followed the California Gold Rush—or as we like to call it, land theft, white people’s diseases, vigilantes, bounty hunters ($5 a scalp!), and state militias. We went from as many as 60,000 tribal members, prior to contact with whites, to 125 members today, who still follow the original tribal structure and lifeway. Profoundly inconvenient tribal location, tidy (albeit messianic and genocidal) solution.

So you’ll have to excuse us if we don’t act surprised when we notice the inconvenience business happening again. And you shouldn’t act shocked if we start to get aggravated."

Get the Story:
Mark Franco: An Inconvenient Tribe - The Winnemem Wintu and the Proposal to Raise Shasta Dam (California Progress Report 7/5)

Related Stories:
Opinion: Heckling of Winnemem Wintu Tribe hurts us all (5/31)
Opinion: Winnemem Wintu Tribe outraged by federal fishkill (5/20)
Caleen Sisk-Franco: Help protect sacred ceremonial site (5/12)