Drop charges vs. protesters who pulled down statue
The history of California Missions is one of oppression and genocide. Junipero Serra, a Roman Catholic Spanish priest and friar of the Franciscan Order, was a force behind the construction of missions up and down the California coast.
Serra and the Catholic missionaries forced the California Indian people to construct the buildings where they were brutalized and their culture stripped from them.
Local scholar and author Betty Goerke, in her book
“Chief Marin: Leader, Rebel, and Legend” details the horrifying treatment of the Coast Miwok at the Mission San Rafael and how Chief Marin stood up for his people to the Spanish colonizers.
While the depth of devastation from disease, family separation, violence and slavery on the population of the California Indian tribes will never be fully known, that time period is not ancient history to the native people of California. The wounds are still clearly visible and felt.
Despite pleas by California native tribes for Pope Francis, the church’s leader, not to canonize Serra in 2015, the Catholic Church ignored those pleas and Francis made Serra a saint. This is an incredibly painful memory for native people. The history of the devastation of this period in history was not just overlooked and erased, but also cruelly celebrated.
The statue that was taken down outside the San Rafael Mission is a reaction to the existing pain that Indigenous people carry in family histories. Although we at the Museum of the American Indian feel the work of removing icons of historical trauma can be done through an informed communal process, we empathize with the protestor’s frustrations and cries for truth and reconciliation.
The toppling of this statue, and many other statues of historical figures, comes after centuries of oppression followed by the outright ignoring of native people’s requests for the true history of California to be told. The toppling of the statue was not an act of hate, but a cry for justice.
For California Indians, Indigenous people of the Americas from all nations, as well as those who stand in solidarity as allies, the image of Serra is yet another reminder that native people have not been accurately represented in history and are continuously traumatized by celebrating oppressors.
Most people don’t know the shocking fact that the U.S. Declaration of Independence refers to Indigenous people as “merciless Indian savages” which leaves American Indian people feeling disrespected in their own land. The museum was recently reminded of how inaccurately American Indian people are perceived when we received hate mail during Native American Heritage month and after the statue of Junipero Serra was toppled.
We would also like to state that at the Museum of the American Indian, we represent all Indigenous people of the Americas, which includes tribal people from Alaska to the tip of
South America. Indigenous people of the Americas traveled and traded freely across the continent without concerns for borders until colonizers enforced their land restrictions.
We hope that this can be a teachable moment to learn that Indigenous peoples of the Americas reach beyond the United States and so do the horrible effects of the historical trauma of colonization.
The staff and board members of the Museum of the American Indian stand in support and solidarity with the movement to drop the charges against the protestors who participated in the statue removal. The Museum of the American Indian calls on this moment to show compassion, acknowledge the truth behind the Mission San Rafael, and make amends for the suffering that took place at that site.
The toppling of this statue, and many other statues of historical figures, comes after centuries of oppression followed by the outright ignoring of native people’s requests for the true history of California to be told. The toppling of the statue was not an act of hate, but a cry for justice.