Who Are the Ohlone?
The Ohlone (also Costanoan, from Spanish "costeño" meaning coastal people) are indigenous peoples of the San Francisco Bay Area and central California coast. Approximately 1,500-3,000 people identify as Ohlone, though only the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe (unrecognized federally) and Amah Mutsun Tribal Band represent organized Ohlone groups. They spoke eight Ohlone languages (Costanoan family), all now dormant or extinct as first languages. The Ohlone inhabited one of North America's most resource-rich environments—San Francisco Bay and its surrounding lands—now home to 8 million people. No Ohlone tribe has achieved federal recognition; they remain invisible in their own homeland.
Bay Area First Peoples
Before colonization, Ohlone peoples thrived around San Francisco Bay—one of the world's richest estuaries. Shellmounds along bay shores accumulated over millennia, some containing burials of thousands; most were destroyed for construction material or urban development. Ohlone harvested abundant shellfish, fish, waterfowl, and sea mammals; acorns provided staple food. Small, autonomous tribelets (village communities of 50-500 people) maintained distinct identities; no unified Ohlone political structure existed. The rich environment supported dense populations—perhaps 10,000-20,000 in the Bay Area alone. This world would be transformed beyond recognition.
Mission System Devastation
Spanish missions devastated Ohlone peoples. Missions San Francisco (1776), Santa Clara (1777), San Jose (1797), and others forcibly concentrated Ohlone populations. Confined, forced to labor, punished for traditional practices, and exposed to diseases, mission Indians died at horrifying rates. Birth rates plummeted; death rates soared. By 1810, Bay Area Ohlone populations had collapsed by 90%. Secularization (1834) freed survivors but left them landless. Mexican land grants displaced remaining communities. American conquest brought further devastation. By 1900, Ohlone were considered extinct—a convenient fiction that erased living people.
Survival and Resurgence
Ohlone survived through intermarriage, quiet persistence, and community memory. The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe traces lineage through Missions San Jose and Santa Clara; they were federally recognized (1906-1927) before Bureau of Indian Affairs administrative errors ended their status. Decades of documentation proving continuous community existence have not achieved re-recognition. The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band (southern Ohlone) pursues cultural revitalization without federal recognition. Ohlone shellmounds—sacred ancestral sites—face ongoing development threats; the West Berkeley Shellmound struggle exemplified conflicts between development and heritage.
Contemporary Ohlone
Modern Ohlone navigate between invisibility and resurgence. Land acknowledgments now name Ohlone as original inhabitants of Bay Area lands—a recognition that doesn't translate into tangible rights. Language revitalization works with limited historical documentation; Chochenyo (East Bay Ohlone) has active revival efforts. Artists, activists, and scholars assert Ohlone presence. The "sоqqel (Land Back) movement seeks return of ancestral lands. Without federal recognition, Ohlone lack tribal sovereignty, land base, and federal services. How Ohlone achieve recognition, protect sacred sites, and maintain identity in one of America's most developed regions shapes these first peoples of the Bay's challenging future.
References
- Milliken, R. (1995). A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1769-1810
- Field, L. W. & Leventhal, A. (2003). "What Must It Have Been Like!: Critical Considerations of Precontact Ohlone Cosmology"
- Margolin, M. (1978). The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area