AB 2115: California Native Americans: formal apology.

8304.

(a) This chapter shall be known, and may be cited, as the “Rowena Mae Ramos Act.”

(b) Rowena Mae Ramos was a beloved elder of the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation, remembered for a life grounded in cultural pride, generosity, and service. Deeply connected to her heritage, she was a familiar presence at community gatherings across the region, bird dancing and singing the songs passed down through her family, and carrying this cultural knowledge forward with enduring love and dignity. Through her teachings and stories, she passed down the history of her people, ensuring that future generations would remain rooted in their identity and traditions.

8304.1.

The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) Before the annexation of the California territory by the United States of America, the Native people of this land were subjected to systems of forced labor and enslavement under Spanish rule until 1821 through the Franciscan mission system.

(b) During the Mexican administration of the province from 1821 to 1845, Native Americans received land grants that were unequal in both size and quality compared to those granted to White Mexican citizens, leaving many Native Americans unable to sustain themselves on the limited lands they were allotted. The Native population continued to decline during this period while their ancestral homelands were continuously carved up by migrating Mexican, United States, British, and Canadian settlers.

(c) Since the incorporation of the California territory into the United States of America in 1848, the California State Legislature was complicit in the actions taken by the Governor against the Native people of this land. The California State Legislature directed, supported, and aided in the early persecutions of Native Americans.

(d) In 1849, delegates of the California Constitutional Convention willfully and deliberately agreed to provisions in the new constitution to deny California Native Americans the right to vote. The delegates of the conventions, in a majority, affirmed only allowing White male citizens of the United States and White Mexican men, who elected to be citizens of the United States under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the right to vote.

(e) As one of the first actions taken as the newly established Legislature of the State of California in 1850, it passed “An Act for the Government and Protection of Indians” (Chapter 133 of the Statutes of 1850), which facilitated the removal of Indigenous groups from their lands through family separation and indentured servitude. This act also prohibited Indigenous people from serving as credible witnesses against criminal acts committed by White citizens.

(f) The Legislature in “An Act for the Government and Protection of Indians” criminalized the actions of Native Americans who they believed to be “vagrants.” Specifically, the act imposed on Native Americans “who shall be found loitering and strolling about, or frequenting public places where liquors are sold, begging, or leading an immoral or profligate course of life” the threat of arrest “on the complaint of any resident citizen of the county and brought before any Justice of the Peace of the proper county, Mayor or Recorder of any incorporated town or city, who shall examined said accused Indian, and hear the testimony in relation thereto... .” If the Native American was so found to be a vagrant, the act directed the “officer having him in charge or custody, to hire out such vagrant within twenty-four hours to the best bidder, by public notice given as he shall direct, for the highest price that can be had, for any term not exceeding four months... .”

(g) The Legislature allowed the Governor to use Article VII of the 1849 California Constitution, relating to the Governor’s authority to call upon militias to execute the laws of the state, to suppress any insurrection and to repel any invasion, to pursue and punish Native Americans whom they suspected to be attackers in the state’s frontiers.

(h) In 1850, the Legislature enacted two laws that authorize the formation of militias for the defense of the state against Native American attacks. “An Act Concerning Volunteer or Independent Companies” (Chapter 54 of the Statutes of 1850) authorized citizens to organize into volunteer or independent companies that allowed them to arm themselves in the same manner as the United States Army, prepare muster rolls twice a year, and to render assistance and full obedience when summoned or commanded under the law. “An Act Concerning the Organization of the Militia” (Chapter 76 of the Statutes of 1850) delegated authority to the positions created by the Legislature to command and organize the state militias. The Governor was designated as the chief of all state forces. The Legislature would elect four major generals, eight brigadier generals, one adjutant general, and one quarter master general. The State Treasurer was made the ex officio paymaster, while county sheriffs held the authority to mobilize enrolled militias at the Governor’s request.

(i) The Legislature passed numerous laws and joint resolutions relative to the Indian Wars between tribal nations and the state from 1851 through 1859. These laws and resolutions aided and recognized the efforts of the state in defending against the “Indian attacks.”

(j) The state incurred an expenditure of eight hundred forty-three thousand three hundred seventy-three dollars and forty-eight cents ($843,373.48) from 1851 through 1859 for the subsistence and pay of troops ordered out by the Governor for the suppression of hostilities by Native Americans within its borders.

(k) Between 1854 and 1858, the state ordered expeditions against Native Americans in Humboldt, Klamath, San Bernardino, Modoc, Pit River, and Tulare, which accrued an estimated cost of four hundred forty-nine thousand six hundred five dollars and seventy-four cents ($449,605.74).

(l) The incurred costs by the state from the expeditions of 1854 through 1859 associated with the expeditions against Native American attacks amounted to one million two hundred ninety-three thousand one hundred seventy-nine dollars and twenty cents ($1,293,179.20). These war expenditures were funded by taxpayer dollars to suppress and eradicate Native American communities, which were deemed an internal threat by the state.

(m) In 1851, the state failed to intervene as officials of the local government of the County of Shasta encouraged violence against Native Americans, with local authorities reportedly offering “five dollars for every Indian head brought to them,” which was reported by local newspapers at the time.

(n) In 1852, the Legislature voted to oppose the ratification of 18 treaties between the United State government and California Indian tribes.

(o) In 1860, the Legislature established a Joint Special Committee on the Mendocino Indian War, which provided recommendations by both the majority and minority in regard to crimes committed between White settlers and Native Americans. The Majority Report determined that the state needed to pass legislation that would provide “better protection of the Indians of California,” while the Minority Report dissented and requested that the federal government “cede to the State of California the entire jurisdiction over Indians and Indian affairs within [its] borders” and that “the state should, then, adopt a general system of peonage or apprenticeships, for the proper disposition and distributions of the Indians by families among responsible citizens.”

(p) In 1861, members of the California State Militia sought compensation from the Adjutant General of California for actions taken against the Native American population, reporting at the time to have scalped 30 Native Americans.

(q) Between 1892 and 1974, California was home to 13 federal Indian boarding schools, which were institutions established by the federal government with the stated purpose of assimilating Native American children into American culture.

(r) These schools forcibly removed thousands of Native children from their families, communities, and traditional homelands, subjecting them to harsh discipline, cultural suppression, and the loss of their languages, identities, and spiritual practices.

(s) The legacy of these institutions continues to have profound intergenerational impacts on California Native American tribes, including enduring historical trauma and lasting harm to their communities’ well-being.

(t) In 1953, Congress enacted Public Law 83-280, granting certain states criminal jurisdiction over American Indians on reservations and permitting civil litigation previously under tribal or federal jurisdiction to be handled in state courts. The states mandated to assume civil and criminal jurisdiction over federal Indian lands under Public Law 83-280 were Alaska, California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, and Wisconsin.

(u) Public Law 83-280 has had devastating and long-lasting effects on tribal communities in states where it was imposed, leaving many tribes vulnerable to exploitation, violence, and the erosion of tribal sovereignty.

(v) In State of Arizona v. State of California (1963) 373 U.S. 546, the Supreme Court of the United States tied tribal water rights to the amount of acreage formally recognized within each reservation, rather than to the full extent of tribes’ historical, cultural, or subsistence-based water needs.

(w) This framework severely limited many tribes’ access to sufficient water by basing their rights on artificially reduced reservation boundaries, many of which had been diminished through federal and state policies, broken treaties, or unlawful land seizures.

(x) In 2001, the Legislature enacted Assembly Bill 978 (Chapter 818 of the Statutes of 2001), the California Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 2001, requiring all state agencies and state-funded museums that possess collections of Native American human remains or cultural items to establish a process for identifying and repatriating those items to the appropriate tribes.

(y) Despite the California Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 2001 being designed to address gaps in the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (25 U.S.C. Sec. 3001 et seq.), California’s institutions of higher learning, including the University of California and the California State University, still retain many ancestral remains and cultural items that have yet to be repatriated to their respective tribes.

(z) In 1878, the Legislature approved the “Act to Create Hastings’ College of the Law, in the University of the State of California,” (Chapter 351 of the Statutes of 1878) authorizing Serranus Clinton Hastings to establish the first law school in California.

(aa) A three-year investigation into Serranus Clinton Hastings in 2020 revealed his involvement in the mass killings of Native Americans in the 1850s, concluding that he perpetrated genocidal acts against California’s Native Americans, most notably the Yuki Tribe, in the Eden Valley and Round Valley regions of the County of Mendocino.

(ab) From 1878 to 2022, inclusive, the state continued to appropriate funds in semiannual installments while the college operated under the name designated in the original act.

(ac) In 2022, the Legislature enacted Assembly Bill 2022 (Chapter 479 of the Statutes of 2022), requiring the removal of the offensive term “squaw” from all geographic features and place names in the state.

(ad) Prior to its enactment, more than 100 geographic features and place names in California still contained the term despite its derogatory nature toward California’s Native Americans.

(ae) Despite the many wrongdoings committed by the Legislature and other institutions in the state, California Native Americans have survived. Their survival stands as a testament to their resilience and their spirit of resistance and defiance against those who wished them harm.

(af) In 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom issued an apology to California Native Americans through Executive Order No. N-15-19, which also established the California Truth and Healing Council.

(ag) The Legislature and California Native Americans have never formally examined or documented their own relationship for the express purpose of acknowledging and accounting for the historical wrongs committed through the state’s actions and inaction.

(ah) The Legislature has never formally apologized to California Native Americans for its historical wrongdoing.

(ai) The Legislature has never formally expressed a commitment to working with California Native American tribes to build a closer relationship with their communities and governments to rectify the historical wrongdoing.

8304.2.

(a) The State of California recognizes and accepts responsibility for all of the harms and atrocities committed by its representatives who promoted, permitted, facilitated, and enforced policies of violence against California Native Americans, which has left an enduring legacy of trauma and has led to the destruction of important cultural and spiritual sites, and recognizes the irreparable harms it has caused to its tribal communities.

(b) The Legislature commends and honors California Native Americans for their resilience and continued work to maintain their cultural and linguistic traditions for which this state proudly considers part of its history and cultural identity.

(c) The Legislature apologizes for perpetuating the harms experienced by California Native Americans as a result of policies enacted, sanctioned, or tolerated by this body throughout the state’s history. These harms, which include acts of violence, forced displacement, cultural suppression, land theft, family separation, and the deliberate erosion of tribal sovereignty, inflicted generational trauma and contributed to the systemic marginalization of Native peoples across California.

(d) The Legislature acknowledges that these were not isolated incidents but part of a sustained pattern of state-supported actions and inactions that denied California Native Americans their inherent rights, dignity, and humanity. The Legislature further recognizes that the consequences of these injustices continue to affect tribal communities today, contributing to disparities in health, education, land access, cultural preservation, and economic opportunity.

(e) The Legislature humbly asks for forgiveness from those affected by past atrocities, whether committed deliberately or through negligence, and affirms its responsibility to confront and end ongoing injustices that stem from these historical wrongs.

8304.3.

(a) A plaque memorializing this apology, including the title of this chapter and the contents of Sections 8304.1 and 8304.2, shall be installed and maintained publicly and conspicuously in the State Capitol Building.

(b) The Department of General Services, in consultation with the Joint Rules Committee, shall plan and install a plaque pursuant to this section in the State Capitol Building.

(c) The Department of General Services, in consultation with the Joint Rules Committee, shall complete both of the following goals:

(1) Ensure Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. Sec. 12101 et seq.) compliance and other safety concerns.

(2) Develop a maintenance plan for the long-term maintenance of the plaque.

(d) The Department of General Services shall, in consultation with the Joint Rules Committee, establish a schedule for the design, construction, and dedication of the plaque, implement procedures to solicit designs for the plaque, devise a selection process for the choice of the design, and establish a program for the dedication of the plaque.

(e) The Joint Rules Committee shall approve the design and any other aspect of the plaque and the Department of General Services shall provide for the continuous maintenance and upkeep of the fixture.

8304.4.

The Secretary of State shall submit a final copy of this formal apology to the State Archives, where it shall be available for viewing by the general public in perpetuity. The Legislature shall prepare the formal apology, which shall bear the Great Seal of the State and requests that this apology be signed by the Speaker of the Assembly, the President pro Tempore of the Senate, the Governor, and the Chief Justice of California.

8304.5.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Department of General Services and the Joint Rules Committee may receive moneys from any federal, state, or local grant, or from any private donation or grant, for the purposes of this chapter. Notwithstanding Section 13340, any funds received pursuant to this section are continuously appropriated to the Department of General Services and the Joint Rules Committee, without regard to fiscal years, for the purpose of this chapter.