Memorandum
Date: November 5, 2024
To: The Honorable Lake County Board of Supervisors
From: District 1 Supervisor Moke Simon and District 3 Supervisor Eddie Crandell
Subject: Adopt proclamation Designating the Month of November 2024 as National Native American Heritage Month in Lake County
Executive Summary:
WHEREAS, Lake County has been home to people for greater than 12,000 years, and the richly diverse cultures of the seven Tribal Nations indigenous to Lake County, Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians of California, Koi Nation of Northern California, Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake, Robinson Rancheria of Pomo Indians of California and Elem Indian Colony, have informed every aspect of our community's history. Policies and practices of the United States and earlier colonial governments deprived Indigenous People in the State of California and Lake County, specifically, of landholdings, liberty, even life, itself; and
WHEREAS, Native Americans have helped to make our community stronger and more prosperous. On August 3, 1990, President of the United States George H. W. Bush declared the month of November as National American Indian Heritage Month, thereafter, commonly referred to as Native American Heritage Month. The bill read in part that "the President has authorized and requested to call upon Federal, State and local Governments, groups and organizations and the people of the United States to observe such month with appropriate programs, ceremonies and activities"; and
WHEREAS, this landmark bill honoring America's tribal people represented a major step in the establishment of this celebration which began in 1976 when a Cherokee/Osage Indian named Jerry C. Elliott-High Eagle authored Native American Awareness Week legislation, the first historical week of recognition in the nation for native peoples. This led to 1986 with then President Ronald Reagan proclaiming November 23-30, 1986, a...
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