Category: Indigenous_Rights

Juristac is the indigenous name for a location in the coastal foothills of California near Gilroy.  The site is located on the 403 acre Sargent Ranch. After the Sargent Ranch went bankrupt, a firm bought the ranch and now wants to develop a massive sand and gravel pit on the site — an action that would be devastating for wildlife and destroy the natural beauty of a site that has great significance for the Ahma Mutsun Tribal Band. The Ahma Mutsun Tribal Band are descendants of the indigenous Ohlone-speaking tribe who lived in that part of California at the time of Spanish conquest. Juristac was in roughly the center of the territory of the Mutsun tribe which stretched in the early 1800s from the Pajaro River valley around Watsonville through Gilroy to San Benito County. At the time of Spanish conquest the Mutsun people lived by “proto-agriculture” — cultivating certain plants and engaging in stewardship practices to protect oak and other native forest plants. Juristac has great significance for the descendants of the Mutsun tribe as this was the location where the tribe held their celebrations and religious rituals. The Ahma Mutsun Tribal Band put on a well organized demonstration…