The Ohlone and Lisjan Identity

The Indigenous peoples of the eastern San Francisco Bay called themselves the Ohlone. For thousands of years before European contact, the Ohlone maintained sophisticated societies adapted to the Bay Area’s diverse ecosystems. They harvested acorns, hunted game, fished the bay, and gathered shellfish from the shoreline. Their knowledge of local ecology allowed them to thrive in a land of remarkable natural abundance. Ohlone villages, or rancherias, dotted the Bay Area, each with distinct identities while sharing cultural, linguistic, and trade connections.

The specific Ohlone peoples whose home territory included present-day Berkeley were the Chochenyo and Huchiun bands. These communities inhabited the coastal and inland areas of the East Bay, developing rich cultures centered around seasonal rounds of resource collection and social gatherings that reinforced community bonds and alliance networks.

Today, the Lisjan Nation represents the direct descendants of the Ohlone peoples enslaved and displaced during the Spanish mission period. Lisjan (also spelled Lisjian) refers to the seven Ohlone nations that were directly enslaved at Mission San Jose in present-day Fremont and Mission Dolores in San Francisco. These nations include the Chochenyo (Ohlone), Karkin (Ohlone), Bay Miwok, Plains Miwok, Delta Yokut, Napian (Patwin), and other allied groups. Though geographically dispersed during colonization, these people share deep historical and kinship connections that the contemporary Lisjan Nation both honors and revives.

Colonization, Displacement, and Cultural Survival

Spanish colonization of the Bay Area, beginning in the 1770s, devastated Ohlone communities. Spanish soldiers and priests “reduced” the Ohlone into missions, converting them to Christianity and appropriating their labor. The missions represented a complete reorganization of Ohlone life—people who had lived in autonomous communities, making decisions about their own labor and resources, suddenly became enslaved, forced to work on mission lands under military discipline.

The missions also introduced European diseases, particularly smallpox, that killed enormous numbers of Ohlone people. Within decades of Spanish contact, the population collapsed. By the early 19th century, the Ohlone had been nearly eliminated as a distinct political and cultural entity. Survivors were dispersed, many mixed with other populations, and official history declared the Ohlone “extinct.”

This declaration of extinction was inaccurate. Ohlone people survived, maintaining cultural knowledge and identity despite centuries of displacement and marginalization. Contemporary Lisjan Ohlone people are living descendants of these survivors, carrying forward Ohlone language, culture, and traditions that were nearly destroyed but never entirely erased.

The West Berkeley Shellmound: An Ancient Site

Perhaps the most significant location in Berkeley’s Ohlone heritage is the West Berkeley Shellmound, located at what is now 1900 Fourth Street in West Berkeley. This 2.2-acre site is the repository of one of the oldest known human settlements in the San Francisco Bay Area. Over 5,000 years ago, Ohlone ancestors began depositing shells, creating a massive mound that served multiple purposes: a settlement site, a ceremonial ground, a burial place for ancestors, and a lookout and communications point overlooking the bay.

Shellmounds—archaeological sites composed of shells and cultural materials accumulated over centuries of habitation—are distinct and irreplaceable. Unlike other archaeological sites that are primarily underground, shellmounds are visible three-dimensional structures. The West Berkeley Shellmound stands as a physical manifestation of deep Ohlone occupation and continuous inhabitation of the Berkeley area over millennia.

For decades, the West Berkeley Shellmound remained neglected, occupied by a surface parking lot while the cultural significance of the site remained unacknowledged in mainstream Berkeley. This invisibility reflected broader patterns of settler colonialism, where Indigenous history and sites were erased from public consciousness and protected in name only. The site became a symbol of what Ohlone advocates described as “unsettled” lands—territories where European displacement of Indigenous peoples was incomplete and could potentially be addressed.

The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and Land Return

In 2024, the City of Berkeley took a historic action: it purchased the 2.2-acre property for $27 million and transferred title to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, a San Francisco Bay Area organization dedicated to returning land to Indigenous peoples. This transfer represented the first significant “land back” victory in the Bay Area and one of the largest urban land return projects in the United States.

The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is an Indigenous-led collective founded and led by women, including Corrina Gould, tribal chair of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Ohlone. The organization’s mission centers on acknowledging Indigenous sovereignty, supporting Indigenous land stewardship, and returning stolen lands to Indigenous peoples. The West Berkeley Shellmound represents the fulfillment of this vision on a significant scale.

The transfer of the West Berkeley Shellmound to Lisjan Ohlone stewardship through the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust constitutes a profound acknowledgment of Ohlone sovereignty and rights to their ancestral territories. Rather than the land being managed by city or state authorities, the Ohlone people now have authority to determine how the site is protected, preserved, and interpreted for future generations.

Ohlone Sovereignty and Contemporary Challenges

The transfer of the West Berkeley Shellmound represents a step toward addressing historical injustices, but it does not resolve broader questions about Ohlone sovereignty and rights to Bay Area lands. The Lisjan Ohlone and other Ohlone nations continue advocating for recognition of their territorial rights, consultation in land-use decisions affecting their homelands, and protection of sacred and culturally significant sites.

Contemporary challenges include protecting remaining sacred sites threatened by development, revitalizing Ohlone languages and cultural practices, and ensuring that Ohlone voices are central to decisions affecting Bay Area lands and waters. The land return movement, of which the West Berkeley Shellmound is a significant example, represents one approach to addressing these challenges. Returning specific parcels to Indigenous stewardship acknowledges Indigenous rights while supporting Indigenous-led land management and cultural revitalization.

Understanding Ohlone Presence in Berkeley

Visitors to Berkeley can engage with Ohlone history and contemporary Indigenous presence through several means:

West Berkeley Shellmound: The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust invites visitors to the site to learn about Ohlone history and the land return project. The organization provides walking tours and educational programs explaining the site’s significance and the broader history of Ohlone displacement and resistance.

Acknowledgment of Territory: Many Berkeley institutions, including UC Berkeley, have begun formally acknowledging the Ohlone as the original inhabitants of the territory, a practice that makes Indigenous presence visible and asserts the incompleteness of settler colonialism.

Cultural Events and Programs: Local Indigenous organizations host cultural events, language classes, and educational programs. The Berkeley Public Library and other institutions provide resources about Ohlone history and contemporary Indigenous communities.

Placenames: Some placenames in the Berkeley area preserve Ohlone origins—geographic terms that document the deep history of Ohlone occupation, though many Ohlone placenames were erased and replaced with European and American names.

Reclaiming History, Asserting Futures

The return of the West Berkeley Shellmound to Lisjan Ohlone stewardship represents a pivot point in how Berkeley reckons with its history. Rather than viewing Berkeley’s founding as beginning with European settlement or university establishment, engagement with Ohlone history situates Berkeley within a much deeper temporal frame—a place continuously inhabited and stewarded by Indigenous peoples for millennia before colonization.

This shift in historical consciousness has implications for how contemporary Berkeley understands itself. It requires acknowledging that the university, the city, and all current residents exist on unceded Ohlone territory. It raises questions about appropriate relationships with the land and its Indigenous stewards. It challenges assumptions that historical injustices are merely past events rather than ongoing realities requiring present-day reckoning.

For visitors to Berkeley, engaging with Ohlone history and visiting sites like the West Berkeley Shellmound offers opportunities to expand understandings of the city’s complex past and to recognize Indigenous peoples not as historical artifacts but as living communities with ongoing presence, voice, and rights. The Ohlone struggle for land, sovereignty, and cultural survival continues, and visitors can support these efforts by learning Ohlone history, visiting Ohlone-managed sites, and recognizing the ongoing injustices of colonialism that contemporary land return projects begin to address.