About Planning Landscape Resilience for California Indian Allotment Lands
This project brings together California Indian Indigenous Knowledge, a baseline ecological dataset from the 1990s, and climate and fire modeling to identify critical sites of vulnerability and potential ecocultural climate refugia on public domain allotment lands in California. We are working to collaboratively develop culturally-based adaptation strategies, including cultural fire (highlighted in the 4th California Climate Assessment and the recently released White House guidance on Indigenous Knowledge). Dr. Beth Rose Middleton Manning is leading this project in close collaboration with California Indian Legal Services (CILS), a longstanding non-profit organization exclusively dedicated to serving California Native people, and the California Public Domain Allottee Association (CAPDAA), a nonprofit led by allottees with support from CILS that focuses on advocating for allottees on issues including access to landlocked allotments.
What are Public Domain Allotments?
Following the 1887 Dawes or Allotment Act, Native Americans could apply for up to 160-acre parcels of land on the so-called "public domain" (seized Indian land). The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) held these Public domain allotments (PDAs) in trust for Indian allottees with the goals of assimilation, containment, and appeasement. However, they became sites of refuge, resilience, and resistance. Due to the U.S. government’s failure to ratify treaties negotiated with California Indian peoples, many California Indians successfully applied for allotments on the "public domain" in the late 1800s and early 1900s. While many of these allotments were lost due to illegal cancellations, forced sales, and outright theft, today over 400 public domain allotments totaling over 16,000 acres remain across California. These allotments continue to be held in trust by the BIA for descendants of the individual allottees and are not subject to property taxes or local zoning regulations.
Suggested readings on California Indian public domain allotments:
Middleton Manning, Beth Rose. 2018. Upstream: Trust Lands and Power on the Feather River. University of Arizona Press.
Miller, Larisa K. 2017. “Native American Land Ownership in California’s National Forests.” Forest History Today.
About California Indian Legal Services (CILS)
California Indian Legal Services (CILS) is a legal firm committed to securing justice for California’s Tribal peoples by protecting and advancing Indian rights, self-determination, and tribal nation-building. For over fifty years, CILS has provided free and low-cost legal services to individual Native Americans and to tribes. CILS also carries out community education resources and training focused on improving the lives of Natives, strengthening tribal governments, and more.
About the California Public Domain Allottee Association (CAPDAA)
California Public Domain Allottee Association (CAPDAA) is a federal tax-exempt non-profit incorporated in 2018 to protect and advance the interests of public domain allottees and to educate the public about their needs. A five-member Indigenous Board of Directors controls CAPDAA. In specific, CAPDAA works to sustain and protect the aboriginal land base in California as represented in public domain allotments. CAPDAA works to increase the visibility of public domain allotments (PDAs) within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, put pressure on the United States federal government to honor its trust duty, gain access to federal and state services and funds, and give PDA owners a way to communicate with each other and unite as a voice throughout California. CAPDAA is collaborating with California Indian Legal Services and the University of California in Davis, particularly with this project, to accomplish these goals.