History of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe: From Pre-Contact Villages to Federal Recognition as the Verona Band of Alameda County

The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe represents the American Indian lineages aboriginal to the San Francisco Bay region, with a documented presence spanning over 10,000 years based on archaeological and genetic evidence. Our ancestral territory encompasses modern-day San Francisco, San Mateo, most of Santa Clara, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties, as well as portions of Napa, Santa Cruz, Solano, and San Joaquin counties. This diverse landscape supported a mosaic of related linguistic and cultural groups, including Seunen and Alson Ohlone (southern East Bay and Livermore Valley), Chupcan Bay Miwok (interior valleys around Concord and Mt. Diablo), Tamcan, Passasimi, and Yathikumne North Valley Yokut (Mt. Diablo, Byron, San Joaquin Delta, and Stockton areas), Jalquin Ohlone (Chocheño speakers from San Leandro to Oakland), Salcan Bay Miwok (east of Oakland toward Lafayette and Walnut Creek), and Napian/Karquin Ohlone (Carquinez Straits and North Bay).

These Tribes, though distantly related and occasionally intermarrying, maintained distinct village-based societies until European contact disrupted our autonomy. The Muwekma's history reflects resilience amid colonization, missionization, and administrative oversight, culminating in brief federal acknowledgment as the Verona Band of Alameda County from 1914 to 1927. Our telling of history draws from mission records, federal censuses, ethnographic accounts, and mountains of archaeological evidence.

Pre-Contact Period: Village Life and Sedentary Societies (ca. 10,000 BCE – 1776 CE)

Our ancestors were part of the broader Ohlone (or Costanoan) cultural sphere, characterized by semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer economies adapted to the Bay Area's rich estuarine, oak woodland, and grassland ecosystems. Archaeological evidence indicates human occupation in the region dating back at least 10,000 years, with intensified settlement around 2,440 calibrated years before present (cal BP). Key pre-contact villages in the Pleasanton and surrounding areas—core to Muwekma ancestry—include Rummey Ta Kuččuwiš Tiprectak (CA-ALA-704/H) and Síi Túupentak (CA-ALA-565/H), both in the Sunol Valley southeast of the Bay Area near Pleasanton. The former, a multicomponent site occupied most intensively from 2,440 to 1,610 cal BP, yielded 25 burials, 44 features (such as hearths and storage pits), and artifacts like ground stone tools, shell beads, and obsidian points, suggesting a stable village with seasonal resource exploitation. The latter, a larger 2.8-hectare settlement dated 605 to 100 cal BP, featured 66 burials, 36 features, over 13,000 artifacts (including mortars, pestles, and bone tools), and faunal remains indicating reliance on acorns, salmon, deer, and shellfish—hallmarks of Ohlone subsistence.

These sites, along with others like the Tupiun Táareštak Site in the Tamien Ohlone-speaking districts near Mission San Jose, demonstrate village organization around family clusters (10–50 people per household group) along creeks such as Alameda, Del Valle, and Corral Hollow. Social structure emphasized kinship ties, with leadership by elders or shamans who mediated resource sharing and ceremonies. Cultural practices included acorn leaching and grinding into mush (a staple food), basketry, shell money trade, and rock art at sites like Mt. Diablo. Genetic analysis of 12 ancient individuals from these villages (spanning 1,905 to 184 cal BP) reveals a distinct ancestry component shared with Southern California groups but elevated continuity within the Bay Area over 1,600 years, as evidenced by identity-by-state segment sharing. Modern Muwekma members exhibit this genetic signature, confirming direct descent and refuting earlier models of population replacement or migration around 1,500–1,000 years ago. Oral histories preserved through elders further describe a landscape of abundant tule elk, grizzly bears, and oak groves, underscoring a worldview tied to seasonal cycles and spiritual connections to place.

Contact and Mission Period: Disruption and Coercion (1776–1836)

European contact began with the Spanish expedition of Gaspar de Portolá in 1769, followed by the establishment of presidios and missions under the Franciscan-led Alta California colonization. The Muwekma's ancestors, speaking Chocheño (Jalquin) and other dialects, encountered these forces through overland expeditions and coastal explorations. By 1776, Mission Dolores (San Francisco) was founded, drawing initial converts from northern groups, but the core impact on Muwekma lineages came with Mission Santa Clara (1777) and especially Mission San Jose (1797), located in modern Fremont near the ancestral villages of the Alson, Seunen, and Jalquin Ohlone.

Missionization forcibly relocated thousands from over 50 Bay Area villages, including those in the Livermore-Amador Valley and Pleasanton areas, to labor in agriculture, herding, and construction. Between 1797 and 1836, Mission San Jose baptized over 2,800 neophytes, many from Muwekma-affiliated groups: for instance, Silvestre Avendano (baptized 1797, Alson Ohlone), Faustino Poÿlemja (1794, Chanclanes/Saclan), Liberato Culpeese (1801, Jalquin and Saclan Bay Miwok), and Primo Vueslla (baptized 1803, Seunen Ohlone from Dublin/Pleasanton). Intermarriages were common, such as Liberato Culpeese's unions with Catalina Pispisoboj (Jutchiunes/Huichiun Ohlone, d. 1811) and Efrena Quennatole (Napian/Karquin, m. 1818), producing children like Jose Liberato Dionisio Nonessa and Maria Efrena. These records, preserved in mission ledgers, document high mortality from introduced diseases (smallpox, measles) and overwork, reducing the neophyte population by up to 80% in some years.

Cultural suppression was systemic: traditional practices like feasting and shamanism were suppressed, though resistance persisted through hidden ceremonies and language retention (e.g., Chocheño spoken by figures like Angela Colos, b. 1839–1840). Secularization in 1834–1836, under Mexican governance, granted mission lands to elites but left neophytes landless, leading to dispersal into rancherias—small settlements on marginal lands. Key post-secularization sites included Alisal Rancheria (Pleasanton), El Molino (Niles), Del Mocho (Livermore), Sunol, San Lorenzo, and Newark, where families like the Colos, Piña, and Marine regrouped, maintaining kinship through customary marriages (e.g., Peregrina Piños to George Santos ca. 1904).

Post-Mission Rancheria Era: Survival and Community Reconsolidation (1837–1904)

The mid-19th century brought further upheaval with the U.S. conquest of California (1848) and the Gold Rush, which accelerated land loss through squatting and discriminatory laws like the 1850 Foreign Miners' Tax. Muwekma families, identified in early censuses as "Mission Indians" or "Costanoans," eked out livelihoods as laborers on ranches and railroads, often facing violence and exclusion. The 1870 U.S. Census listed survivors in Pleasanton Township, while the Ohlone Indian Cemetery (established post-1836 near Mission San Jose) became a focal point for burials and community gatherings.

By the 1880s, rancherias solidified as refuges: Alisal (Pleasanton) housed about 29 individuals by 1905, including the Colos family (Angela Colos, a Chocheño speaker consulted by ethnographers John Peabody Harrington, Alfred L. Kroeber, C. Hart Merriam, and others in 1902–1920s). El Molino (Niles) sheltered 14, with families like the Marines (descended from Avelina Cornates, b. 1863, and Raphael Marine). The 1900 Federal Census for Washington Township (Niles) and Murray Township (Pleasanton/Sunol) enumerated these groups as "Mission San Jose Indians." Advocacy emerged through the Northern Association for California Indians, which petitioned Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 to recognize Costanoan communities at Pleasanton and Niles. This era saw cultural continuity via oral traditions, basketry, and inter-Indian marriages (e.g., four documented 1911–1930), despite dispersal pressures from urbanization and the 1879/80 purchase of Alisal lands by George and Phoebe Hearst for the Verona Mansion and Western Pacific Railroad spur.

Federal Engagement and Recognition as the Verona Band (1905–1927)

Federal involvement intensified in 1905 when Congress, addressing 18 unratified treaties from 1851–1852, appropriated funds via the 1906 Act for homesite purchases for landless California Indians, including the Verona Band—named for the Verona settlement on Hearst property near Pleasanton. Special Indian Agent Charles E. Kelsey conducted a census that year, identifying 43 direct Muwekma ancestors: 29 at Alisal Rancheria (Pleasanton) and 14 at El Molino (Niles), families including Marines, Santos, Colos, Peraltas, and Piñas. The 1910 U.S. Census Indian Schedule for Pleasanton Township listed 17–19 at "Indian Town" (Alisal), including Mercedes Marine, Beatrice Peralta (Marine), Dario Marine, and Albert Marine (Arellano). A rancheria fire that year displaced many, but Kelsey formalized the band's identity on July 1, 1910, with an Indian Service Bureau map designating the combined Niles/Sunol/Pleasanton/Livermore communities as the "Verona Band" (ca. 30 individuals eligible under 1906–1908 acts). Maps from 1911–1913 reinforced this, portraying a cohesive entity under Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) jurisdiction.

Acknowledgment solidified in 1914 when Reno Agency Special Agent C.H. Asbury corresponded with the BIA, listing "Verona 30" as eligible for land purchases, referencing Kelsey's data: "The list is given to me by Mr. Kelsey... is as follows: Verona 30." Oversight shifted between Reno and Sacramento agencies, with the 1923 Reno Agency report by Superintendent James Jenkins noting "Alameda (County) Verona 30" among non-reservation Indians. Despite eligibility, no lands were acquired due to insufficient funds and landowner resistance. The band's status ended administratively in 1927, when Sacramento Superintendent Lafayette A. Dorrington's June 23 report—compiled without site visits—dismissed 135 groups, including the Verona: "one... commonly known as the Verona Band, which consists of about thirty individuals, located near the town of Verona; these Indians were formerly those that resided in close proximity of the Mission San Jose," concluding no land need. This unilateral decision severed federal ties without congressional action, rendering the band ineligible for the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act.

The Verona Band's recognition affirmed the Muwekma's people’s government-to-government relationship — which has never been terminated by Congress to this day.