In 1972 the United States government came to a settlement agreement with the attorneys who supposedly represented the native peoples of California for the theft of their lands. For many of the people of California, this was a great relief, assuaging the secret guilt some felt for occupying land stolen at gunpoint. Finally, the land was paid for, and everything made fair.
The native peoples, however, saw it a bit differently. Particularly for those still alive from whom the land had actually been taken, the dispossessed, the ones with the memories of the times before and the bayonet scars across their backs from when they had been left for dead in a ditch for walking too slowly away from their desirable lands. Many would like to think this was all oh so far in the past, ancient history, but I knew these people, saw the scars, heard the stories.
Follow me, if you dare, past the orange fog of illusion for another view of the Settlement.
In the sweltering heat of midsummer 1972, my father and I pulled off the road in our old VW Bug and bumped down across the open oak parklands to Tom’s ramshackle cabin. The majestic oaks that dotted the meadow provided welcome shade as we drove through the dried brown grass beneath them. Tom kept it open using the traditional Maidu technique of burning, driving the fire marshal nuts, but the fire department had long ago given up on trying to change the old Indian’s ways. “Got to be able to see your enemies coming”, he joked, but these days it was the government and not the Mill Creeks he was referring to.
Happy as always to see us, he invited us in for acorn soup and venison. Moving with our plates out to the porch, where it was cooler, my father pulled out an old newspaper. “The settlement went through. Twenty-nine million dollars for sixty-five million acres. The entire state of California for less than the value of a square block in downtown San Francisco.“
Tom spat off the porch. “No one ever asked me. Those white lawyers got their millions, though.”
“The article says they sent a ballot to every registered tribal member in the state.” My father knew this was a joke- Tom only made it to town to get his mail every few months and less than 10% of eligible Indians had voted. Ballots had only been mailed in the first place because the vote at the tribal meetings where the issue was supposed to have been decided was unfavorable.
“Might as well go into town, grab a bottle. We can check the mail, too- your check should be in,” My father already had a bottle of whiskey in the car- he always brought one along, and no doubt Tom was aware of this. He didn’t get to drink often, but just the right amount of whiskey loosened him up, and the stories and songs my father treasured would start to pour out of him. The tape recorder my father would also bring no longer bothered Tom. He realized his language and culture were dying, and understood my father’s desire to preserve what he could in hopes that some day a new generation of Maidu would come to treasure what they had been taught to despise in the Indian Schools.
Tom had been born in the Stone Age, seeing his first metal, and his first white man, in his teens. He couldn’t read much, but remembered all of the old stories told by the elders in the long winter evenings. He was one of the few who still spoke Maidu, could still sing the old songs. To most he was just an old bum squatting in the Sierra foothills; to my father he was a living treasure.
So, into town we went. Sure enough, there in the post office was a check- $578 for Tom’s thousand acre share of California. Fifty cents an acre, the supposed value of the land when it was stolen, minus attorney’s fee but with interest for the eight years between the settlement and the check.
“Well, what are you going to do with your riches?” asked my father after they stepped out of the liquor store with a bottle of whiskey.
“I’ve always wanted to try driving a car” said Tom, eying the used car lot across the street. Impulsively, he walked over and fondled a classy looking old car from the forties. We watched from a distance, knowing better than to interfere. After a bit of negotiation, Tom signed over his check with the understanding that the car would be delivered to his place later that afternoon.
Back on his porch, the stories of old times before the white man flowed like the whiskey from the bottle. As the afternoon began to cool, two men from the car lot showed up with Tom’s car. He grabbed the second pint of whiskey and climbed into the driver’s seat. The car lurched forward under the power of the starter as he turned the key. The dealer showed him how to depress the clutch pedal before turning the key, then the two men retreated to their car and watched, feeling that things were going to get interesting.
Tom tossed the lid to his bottle, tossed back a swig, and started up the car. The engine died as he took his foot off the clutch. Starting it again, the engine roared as he floored the gas, then the car leapt forward as he dropped the clutch, literally flying across the field as he topped swales in the grass, only to slam into a giant oak with a sickening crunch.
Laughing wildly, Tom took another drink, started the car again, and ground the gears back and forth until abruptly the car took off backwards, shooting back across the field with the pedal floored in a great arc that ended with another crash into another oak tree. Back and forth, in fits and starts, the car crashed from tree to tree as the second bottle quickly disappeared, Tom screaming with joy and laughing like a madman all the while. It was a tough old car, but before long the oaks proved too much for it, and the car would start no more. Stepping out, miraculously uninjured, Tom finished the bottle and staggered back to the cabin. “I always wanted to try driving a car”, he said, before going inside and passing out on an old couch.
“Stupid drunk Indian- wrecking a perfectly good car for half an hour’s entertainment”, said the dealer, disgustedly getting into his car and roaring across the meadow towards the road. Me, I was worried about the huge old oaks I loved, appalled by the great gashes the car had left in their bark. Only my father, who knew Tom best, understood- he was expressing his utter contempt for the pittance he had been given for the loss of his people, his culture, his thousand acres of California.
The crumpled car in the meadow was Tom’s rejection of the settlement, Indian style.