This post is another in my ongoing blog series that acknowledges the ancestral lands on which the National Archives’ buildings are situated across the country. This series of acknowledgements is a simple way to offer our recognition and respect to the people who once lived on these lands.
The National Archives at Riverside and the Riverside Federal Records Center are located in Perris, California, which is situated on the ancestral lands of the Payómkawichum or “People of the West”, who are today known by the band names Pechanga, Pauma, Pala, Rincon, San Luis Rey, La Jolla, and Soboba; this area also saw traditional uses by the Cahuilla people to the east.
The treaties made with the peoples of California were never ratified by the U.S. Senate. The lands that the Perris Facility stands on were ceded under the auspices of the Treaty of Temecula (Unratified California Treaty K, 1852). These treaties were unratified, thereby leaving tribes without protections under U.S. law. See Lisa Miller’s treatment of the history in this Prologue article.
Enter your address in this interactive map of Traditional Native Lands to see who once lived where you are now.
My thanks to Gwen E. Granados, Director, Kimberly Gorman, Archives Technician, and Stephanie C. Smith, Archives Technician at the National Archives at Riverside, for the research, images and information they provided for this post.
Additional Information:
Pechanga Band website: https://www.pechanga-nsn.gov/index.php/history
Prologue Article regarding the Unratified California Treaties: https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/prologue/2013/fall-winter/treaties.pdf
Treaty of Temecula (Unratified California Treaty K, 1852) https://catalog.archives.gov/id/55030733
Photograph of Osevio Saldago and Family in Front of Their Old Home Near the Pechanga Reservation
Photograph of Osevio Saldago in Front of His New House at Pechanga
Curtis Collection photographs, LOC: