Land Acknowledgement

Fort Ord Natural Reserve resides on the indigenous homeland of the Esselen people (also known as Carmeleno, Monterey Band, and Rumsen). The indigenous people of the Centtral California Coastal area existed peacefully in this region for thousands of years before Spanish Missionaries arrived in the 1760's. After years of enslavement under the Spanish missionary system the Tribe was forced into exile to avoid violent persecution by settlers and California State sponsored racist policies toward Native Americans. 

With ancestral lands ranging from San Francisco Bay to Big Sur and numbering at least 15,000 before European contact, the Ohlone people have been largely written out of historical accounts of California and erroneously recorded as extinct. Today the people are emerging to reclaim their cultural practice, language, and ancestral lands while letting others know of their continued existence. We Are Here - Let Ka Lai

Costanoan: Spanish for "coast people." The term denotes a language family as opposed to a unified political entity such as a tribe. Costanoans are sometimes referred to as Ohlone, the name of one tribelet.

Location: The Costanoans traditionally lived around and south of San Francisco and Monterey Bays and east to near the central valleys. Today many live in the same area and in Indian Canyon in San Benito County.

Population: The Costanoan population was roughly 10,000 in the mid-eighteenth century and about 200 in the late 1970's. There were probably thousands of Costanoan descendants in the mid-1990's.

Language: Costanoan, a group of about eight languages, belongs to the Penutian language family.

For more information about Ohlone/Costanoan-Esselen peoples, visit their official tribal website.