A story of pride, lost heritage and shared cultural trauma
by Miguel Padilla
I love San Bernardino. The surrounding mountains here are a cherished reminder of my upbringing. While some may hold a harsher opinion over the city, I've grown close to it nonetheless. I've come to appreciate it's suburban sprawl, historic downtown, and sometimes rougher neighborhoods. This place has been an ever-present observer to my highs and lows, to my quiet struggles and triumphs. For reasons like those and more, I will always love my hometown. In the spirit of that connection, I bring to you today a story that I feel needs to be told.
It is a story about this land, and the people who once inhabited it.
To better understand San Bernardino, a look into the area's past is essential, because as I would soon found out, the city carries a sordid history shared by many other Southern California cities founded by Spanish missions. It is a legacy that is embedded in the dirt itself, pooling around the cracks and crevices of tales surrounding its origins. It is a history that maintains its relevancy as people continue to call this place our home.
A history that is as old as time; and as American as apple pie.
A history that is colonialism.
The graves of over one-hundred Native Americans lie buried beside SBVC, mixed in with the soil, in what was once the location of the lost Rancho San Bernardino Cemetery. Those buried were said to be that of religious neophytes – victims of a bloody retaliation and massacre that occurred on mission grounds in 1812. The cemetery was once venerated by the native Serrano, Gabrielino-Tongva, and Cahuilla tribal people of the area for over fifty years. It was a place where they laid their loved ones to rest, where they continued the Catholic rite of burying the dead the Spanish Padres once taught them.
In the space the single-acre cemetery occupied, sits a 7/11, car dealership, empty dirt lot, and San Bernardino Valley community college right beside it.
As it is vital to understand the context which has led us to the desecration and mismanagement of so many native lives, I will begin by prefacing some of the area's local history. So much of the native experience has been uprooted through the theft of this land, where the Serrano, Cahuilla, and Gabrielino-Tongva people once thrived as tribal entities. Spanish colonialism in the Americas created this precedent, which quickly became supplanted by American greed when California ceded into the United States in 1848 - after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
In my article, I will use the term “Guachama” often. Guachama meant a "place where there is plenty to eat.” It was also commonly used to refer to the area’s village, and to the people who once inhabited it.
The city of San Bernardino was founded by missionary priests under the order of Francisco Dumetz, hailing from the San Gabriel mission. The San Gabriel mission was the fourth mission of its kind to be built in what was then known as Alta-California. The mission proved a success, as records showed “the baptism of 7,709 persons; 5,494 burials, and 1,877 marriages from the years of 1771 to 1831” following its construction "History of San Bernardino..." (1902).
Continuing the tradition of missionary expansion, Padre Dumetz would send a party of missionaries to scout for an outpost eastward of the San Gabriel mission. The goal in mind was for the outpost to grant travelers on their way to the Northern Sierra’s some respite for food and rest. The party Padre Dumetz sent consisted of natives and soldiers – all neophytes (recent converts to Catholicism). They went to the San Bernardino Valley as a group on the 20th of May, 1810, and once there, were greeted by scenic, verdant views. That day marked the feast for Saint Bernardino of Siena in the Roman Calendar of Saints, and thus, the area was named on behalf of the patron saint. Over in the Americas, The Mexican War of Independence would soon begin that same year. Dramatic change was in store for both the Spanish and Guachama natives.
Once the location of the outpost had been agreed upon, a “capilla,” dedicated to the Spanish goal of religious conversation, was built. This newly-built “capilla," or chapel, would embody the name of the trusted native left in charge of overseeing operations there, named Hipolito. Hipolito’s name would serve as the etymological basis behind Politana, the first Spanish settlement in the San Bernardino Valley of California. The San Gabriel Mission expansion eastward became foundational for the missionaries seeking to expand their reach into the San Bernardino Valley. The surrounding Guachama villages would fall under Politana control soon thereafter. Many of the existing natives were subsequently moved into reductions; settlements that resembled housing modeled by the Spanish and the Portuguese. Gabrielino-Tongva laborers from the San Gabriel mission area were brought in to help with the construction of these reductions meanwhile. The Guachama tribal people of the area were converted to Catholicism at Politana, with the founding fathers returning for the occasional welfare check. Their visits were said to have been marked by promise – as the grain planted there in previous visits was said to now support a thriving community.
Not all of the natives were converted over to Catholicism however, as a small subset of the Guachama population resisted.
The closest landmark to Politana today would lie where the St. Prophet Elias Greek Orthodox Church stands, on the dividing line between Colton Avenue and Inland Center Drive.
This might come as a surprise to some readers, as no natural bodies of water exist in the area today, but the land was actually host to quite a number of hot springs. Urbita springs is an example of such, where soil and spring water once mixed in abundance.
The Inland Center Mall in San Bernardino now exists on the former site of the hot springs. The mud there was originally used by the Guachama natives for religious rituals, with the springs used as a medicinal resource. The Spanish soon became fearful of these practices however, as they believed it aroused unholy and sacrilegious superstition. They spurned what they saw as pagan ritual, and rejected the use of mud for Guachama practices soon after Urbita Springs had sprung up in 1812 – only two years after the settlement of Politana had been established. The heat of the hot springs was thought of by the Guachama as a manifestation of anger; an anger, born from the land's powerful spirits unhappy with Spanish colonization. To alleviate the Guachamas fears, the Spanish Padres from the San Gabriel mission would order for the hot springs to be leveled over with dirt. This however, did little to assuage the Guachamas veneration for the newly-sprung hot springs.
During that year of 1812, a series of earthquakes would cause additional alarm amongst the Guachamas. These quakes would go on to reaffirm their suspicions that the Spanish mission must be “the cause of the manifestation of evil spirits – Colton Courier (May 20, 1921). In response to this – the native Guachamas left unconverted by the missionaries at Politana, attacked and killed most of their neophyte-converted brothers and sisters that took residence inside the settlement – reducing the buildings to rubble. Their hope was to alleviate the anger felt by their gods. Which, to their defense, seemed a viable solution considering that the Spanish had upended nearly everything in those two years following their conquest. Spanish control on Politana and Guachama Rancheria would end almost twenty years later after that incident, in 1834.
The land where Valley College now resides was said to be the location of a smaller Guachama village; an extension of the main Guachama Rancheria found in present-day Loma Linda. Politana was located just south-east of the college, between Bunker Hill and the now non-existent Urbita Springs. You can still find remnants of these namesakes less than a mile away from campus; with Urbita Elementary, and South Bunker Hill Drive to the east of the college serving as historic reminders. The topography of the Bunker Hill area can still be seen from student parking lots #9, #10, and #11, as the hill slings upwards alongside Grant Avenue. The eastern side of the campus was built on that very terrain, the terrain that the Guachama's were known to live on, alongside the houses opposite of Grant Avenue.
The main site of the Guachama Rancheria is now a considered a historical landmark in the city of Redlands, bordering Loma Linda. From atop the hills at Hulda Crooks park, you could easily make out a stretch of land now inhabited by powerlines, orange groves, and walking trails where remnants of native life once stood. A chapel, irrigating canal, and adobe administration building existed there once before as a part of the main Rancheria.
As for Politana, a ranch was built upon the ruins of the settlement by Guachamas following the order of Antonio Maria Lugo, the former mayor of Los Angeles and son of a prominent Spanish landowner. A group of New Mexican settlers would come to reside on the land; and in exchange were told by Lugo to defend it from native raiders and outlaws seeking to prey on herds of cattle. They would soon abandon it in favor of new land offered south along the Santa Ana River. Mountain Cahuilla tribes people were eventually brought in by Lugo to replace the New Mexican settlers. From this end – the decline of the Rancho had taken root. A smallpox epidemic of 1862-63 had ravaged through the native populations; and the few Native Americans who remained continued to use a portion of the grounds for burial. The adobes left there eventually fell into disrepair, with only a few American settlers carrying any recollection of Rancho San Bernardino by 1902.
From this point forward, a new era to this land's history would begin.
By 1902, when Reverend Father Juan Caballeria published his book on the history of the San Bernardino Valley, the Guachama people had very little known descendants. Again, the Guachama’s of today are of Serrano, Cahuilla, and Gabrielino-Tongva descendancy. Many have intermarried, and through this intermingling have remnants of past Guachama ancestry still in their blood.
Before Politana had been completely lost to time, a section of the mission ranch grounds acted as the burial site for Guachama natives who had been converted to Catholicism. Before the Spanish forced their religion onto the natives, the Guachama’s would cremate their dead along with all their belongings. An old electric railway once passed alongside Mount Vernon Avenue, allowing us to approximate where the old cemetery grounds are today.
This is how I ascertained where the cemetery grounds lay today, which is located right alongside San Bernardino Valley College, just north-west from the intersection at Mount Vernon and La Cadena.
After combing through Father Juan Caballeria’s book, which I found in the archive room at SBVC, I took a hopeful trip out to the county library with the desire to find additional information there on the matter. I was told to check out the Arda Haenszel California Room, as anything pertaining to our local history might be found there. After arriving, I was greeted by a welcoming man by the name of Paul D. Garrity, who directed me to a folder titled “Cemeteries of San Bernardino County.” I would soon find that the folder hand documented the many cemeteries found (and no longer found), here in San Bernardino. The many articles, photoscans, and journal clippings in this book were collected by Arda Haenszel, a local historian known throughout her life for being a walking encyclopedia of knowledge. She served as a knowledgeable guide to this area’s history, and left behind a wealth of resources when she passed away on the 9th of January, 2002 at the age of 91. I found a San Bernardino Sun article in the same folder Arda had meticulously assembled, dated April 3rd, 1897. In this article I would go on to learn more about the cemetery's tragic fate.
Not surprisingly, the cemetery carried little value in the eyes of entrepreneurial white men who once eyed the land. An orange grove would soon be planted near the cemetery, to test the land for agricultural expansion. When that orange grove proved successful (as the Inland Empire once heavily relied on citrus crops), it was proposed that the cemetery would be plowed over in favor of an orange orchard. In my research, I learned that American greed had a history of failing when it came to occupying native burial spaces in Southern California. This is sadly not one of those stories.
Many of the native men living in area worked at Brickyard known at Goodcell, a place where bricks were stored and made. Native men by the names of Jose Maria, Lorenzo, Indian Pete, and many others who worked at the brickyard would go on to petition a Los Angeles congressman by the name of John Brown Jr. to put a pause to the plowing. Covering over an acre of land, the northern half of the cemetery had already begun to be plowed in 1897, but hope remained, as the gravestones had yet to be leveled. The natives would make appeals to their contractors, and those at their place of work as well, but their numbers were said to be few. John Brown Jr. would go on to write directly to the Los Angeles Bank that held the title to the land. A representative from the bank would arrive at a later date to speak with the natives to hear their plea. The bank representative ultimately made them an offer, allowing them the opportunity to relocate the bodies over to new grounds.
The natives staunchly refused the proposal.
They stood their ground, adamant about wanting the remains of their loved ones to remain undisturbed. Shortly thereafter, they announced that they would put up an active resistance. According to a San Bernardino Sun article dated the 27th of June, 1897, the matter was then sent to Washington D.C. to be heard. The United States government at Washington would respond by stating that they had no authority to interfere with the situation.
The graves would begin to be torn up.
Walter Bordwell, along with several officials from the bank, oversaw the plowing and planting, fully expecting violence and trouble. However, there was none, as the orange trees were planted seemingly without trouble over the graves. The natives were said to have been unsettled, as the plowing had happened suddenly and without warning.
They were fully expecting protections from the U.S. government, and were at a loss for what to do next. Some natives would arrive to the location, and carry away what they could of remaining bones. A street now bears the name of Bordwell, just south-west of the campus across Jay Liqueur along North La Cadena Drive. The street name is a reminder of how the government chose indifference, over the lives of Native Americans.
Taken from Father Juan Caballeria’s book "History of San Bernardino Valley..." – “A thriving orange grove now blossoms and bears its treasure of golden fruit over the crumbling bones of a dead and forgotten generation. But they sleep none the less peacefully, even through the land and where their forefathers roamed free and untrammeled, and of which they were the sole and original owners, denies them a place of undisturbed sepulchre.”
A passage written in Spanish and Latin text follows, translating to: “The dead with corruption in their bodies now feed the trees that bear the fruit for the living; only their spirit is elevated above the material and enjoys immortality. Because the Lord gave them the light to see him.”
In an article published by The Weekly Times-Index on the 20th of March, 1903, it was ominously said that most of the trees planted over the graves had rotted and withered away. The natives attributed this to a spell cast by the angry spirits of the departed. The departed who may still partially reside in that land, in land that is now taken up by businesses and houses. Native lives were traded in for profit, and profit is still being made on former burial grounds.
The lives of those families affected were unequivocally violated. It sickens me to know that a legacy of colonialism, of profit over lives, still continues to this day. How there is so little attention given to this, I do not know. Going through a section of the campus’s official website dedicated to the school’s history, the earliest years seem to only devote themselves to the purchasing bureaucracy of the school. Where is the native history?
For a school that sits on stolen land, I see no mention of a cemetery, or of the rich, surrounding native history. The information I uncovered even sits plainly in the campus library, as there are documents and pages of local history that speak to this. Why should the average student stumble on old texts to uncover these truths? I am in no position to say, but it feels disingenuous to the native people who still live here and who still attend this college.
This campus needs to do more, not only to honor the memory of those who have passed, but to inform and educate those who stand upon these sacred burial grounds.
In my research, I would stumble upon evidence of additional remains scattered throughout the area. What naturally intrigued me at first were the often morbid stories of people accidentally unearthing bones. In an article from the Jaysee, dated back from 1927, it was said that upon grading the front lawn for Valley College's old administration building (the current location of the campus Library), the remains of three bodies were found. Arm and leg bones were seen intact, while the remaining portions of their bodies had mostly disintegrated. Not only that, but three complete skulls, a jaw bone bearing a single tooth, a full set of teeth, beads, and some cloth-material were uncovered. The bones of toes and fingers were the most commonly found.
In another Jaysee article dated October 14th, 1927 – it was said that local historian and early settler John Brown Jr, the go-to man for all matters relating to the history of the pioneer days, immediately ruled that the bones had to have been of Guachama origin. Rumors first circulated that the bones were of prospectors who had died from starvation, whom were rejected a proper burial by a padre at a local chapel and therefore buried on the land which is now campus grounds. The prospectors once came to the home of Cristobal Slover in 1849; malnourished and close to starvation, when they asked Mr. Slover to prepare them some food. Rather than wait for him to prepare the food they had requested, they raided and gorged themselves on bacon and raw pumpkin found in his basement instead. It was said they practically swallowed the food, rinds and all. They died shortly thereafter in a few hours, of refeeding syndrome. The sudden reintroduction of food after a period of starvation can cause severe electrolyte and fluid imbalances in the body. In their case, it proved fatal. The bodies of those men were buried on what is now college campus grounds, after they were deemed “non-catholic” by a Spanish padre. Their bones were found in 1927 by C.B. Miller and G. Parks, who gathered all their bones in a box. The box was then relocated to the Pioneer cemetery in San Bernardino.
Urban legend and local tragedy aside, the bones underneath the administration building were ruled to be of Guachama origin, as native artifacts were found alongside them.
The consensus of remains found on campus grounds carries it’s way even further into the 1970’s. In a letter addressed to Arda Haenzel from a Winona Wilden dated June, 21 1979, she recounts a story told in SBVC’s early Warwhoop days – The Warwhoop was the second name given to the college newspaper after Jaysee.
In the letter, she recounts the story of a young college student named Walter Harford who crossed the “torn-up grounds” of SBVC after coming home from "practice late in the afternoon.” While he was crossing, his feet became tangled in what was found to be a skull, likely to be of native Guachama origin, considering the proximity to the graveyard. It is said that “the experience so unnerved him that he waited for a streetcar half an hour, across the street, before he remembered that his own car was in the parking lot.”
Having learning of the many stories involving the mismanagement of San Bernardino's native history, it's safe to say my heart as been upended. The Guachama legacy lives on through time, but without any local awareness of this history, many of those lives fall silent. I feel for the Native American descendants still recovering from this area’s past, for the pain Southern Californian politicians have put them through.
I can only pray that the souls once buried here have found some peace, mixed in with the soil, besides San Bernardino Valley College.
Comments