(366 words)
Before European colonization, the only humans living in (the land that contemporary American Society calls) San Francisco and the East Bay were various native tribes now collectively known as the Ohlone. (The name "Costanoan", from the Spanish costeño, coast-dweller, is also sometimes used, but Ohlone—which is at least of indigenous etymology—tends to be preferred.) They subsisted in the economic mode of hunter-gatherers: living in thatch villages and killing local wildlife and plants to survive (Gray-Kanatiiosh 8–11). Acorn meal was a specialty.
The Ohlone population in 1770 was estimated at about 10,000 (Gray-Kanatiiosh 24). As of the 2020 U.S. Census (which uses the term Costanoan), there are only 4,000 left (U.S. Census Bureau); other sources claim only 550 left (Gray-Kanatiiosh 28). The decrease of "only" a factor of 2.5 to 18 goes to underscore the difference in scale between pre-argicultural and industrialized Societies: apparently, it's not (just) that the colonizing population murdered many of the natives; it's that agricultural Societies, upon stealing the native land, can exploit it to support much larger populations.
One imagines that one of the factors that make it hard to arrive at a more precise population count is deciding who counts as contemporary Ohlone: over a sufficiently long timespan, it becomes harder to talk about a continuous "people" as populations mix and traditional lifestyles vanish: though the pre–European colonization Ohlone left blood descendants, it seems fair to say that their way of life no longer meaningfully exists, even as their name is used as a brand by the succeeding American civilization's park system (East Bay Regional Park District). A page on the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe's website proclaims: "We are Muwekma and We are still Here" (Muwekma Ohlone Tribe) ... but of course, the page is written in English: the centuries of cultural and technological development that led to things like websites existing at all happened on European terms. Is this the future the pre-contact Ohlone would have wanted for their descendants, if they had known about the possibilities of technological development? In many ways, probably not.
East Bay Regional Park District. "Ohlone Wilderness Regional Preserve." https://www.ebparks.org/parks/ohlone. Accessed 4 Mar. 2025.
Gray-Kanatiiosh, Barbara A. Ohlone. Abdo Publishing Company, 2001.
Muwekma Ohlone Tribe. "We are Muwekma and We are still Here." https://muwekma.org/we-are-muwekma.html Accessed 4 Mar. 2025.
United States Census Bureau. "2020 Census Detailed Demographic and Housing Characteristics File A. American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes in the United States and Puerto Rico: 2020." https://data.census.gov/table/DECENNIALDDHCA2020.T01001?t=2954&g=040XX00US06. Accessed 4 Mar. 2025.
(350 words)
The International Indian Treaty Council is a "voice for indigenous peoples" (IITC, "About IITC"): a non-governmental organization under the purview of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, dedicated to defending the interests of indigenous peoples from the ever-encroaching tyranny of the modern world.
The organization lists four main cause areas that they work on: defending human rights, food sovereignty, environmental health, and treaties and standard-setting (IITC, "Program Areas").
The other three are clear enough, but it wasn't obvious to the present author what "food sovereignty" was supposed to mean: apparently it's about increasing local control over food production and distribution, as contasted to corporate control geared towards international trade (Windfuhr and Jonsén)? Bluntly, this seems like a really bad idea to me: trade tends to make people wealthier, in accordance with Ricardo's law of comparative advantage; prioritizing local production is a route to poverty. (Indigenous peoples probably don't want to live at the economic development level of their ancestors, any more than European-descended populations do; being rich is more fun.)
Having been prompted to pick an area of interest that could lead to a final project for this class, which I'm taking to fulfill SF State's Lifelong Learning and Self-Development requirement (SFSU) while finishing up my math degree (Davis), and looking over the more specific programs beneath the four main program areas, a section on the "Environmental Health" page on "Mercury and the UN Minamata Treaty" jumps out at me: mercury poisoning is really dangerous! It's not immediately clear how it's an indigenous-peoples-specific issue—perhaps it falls under the aegis of the IITC's guiding principle regarding "the values inherent in Traditional Indigenous cultures, including respect for the sacredness of all life and our Mother Earth"(IITC, Guiding Principles)—but it's good that we have a treaty to not dump mercury into the environment where it could make people sick—and apparently it was only signed in 2013. Progress marches on!
Davis, Zack M. "Should I Finish My Bachelor's Degree?" An Algorithmic Lucidity, 10 May 2024. http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2024/05/should-i-finish-my-bachelors-degree/ Accessed 4 Mar. 2025.
International Indian Treaty Council. "About IITC". https://www.iitc.org/about-iitc/ Accessed 4 Mar. 2025.
International Indian Treaty Council. "Guiding Principles". https://www.iitc.org/about-iitc/guiding-principles/ Accessed 4 Mar. 2025.
International Indian Treaty Council. "Program Areas". https://www.iitc.org/program-areas/ Accessed 4 Mar. 2025.
San Francisco State University. "Lower-Division General Education: Area E". https://bulletin.sfsu.edu/undergraduate-education/general-education/lower-division/#areaetext Accessed 4 Mar. 2025.
Windfuhr, Michael and Jennie Jonsén. "FOOD SOVEREIGNTY: towards democracy in localized food systems". FIAN ITDG Publishing, 2005. Accessed 4 Mar. 2025.