A new map co-created by scholars from UC Berkeley’s Geography Department challenges the way we look at the Bay Area by reimagining it through Indigenous perspectives. It highlights the cultural revitalization of Indigenous people and connects it to ongoing efforts for rematriation.
The map, titled “Before You Are Here: An Indigenous Cartography of the Ohlone Bay Area,” is a collaboration between UC Berkeley’s studio.geo-? geographic research lab and the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust — an urban, Indigenous, women-led land trust focused on returning land to Indigenous people in the Bay Area. The map is currently on view in the Oakland Museum of California's Natural Sciences Gallery as part of its “You Are Here” exhibition.
Clancy Wilmott, a UC Berkeley geography professor and the project’s lead, said the map was created to show that rematriation (the process of restoring the relationship between Indigenous people and their ancestral land) and settler-colonialism (a form of colonialism where settlers displace existing inhabitants of a territory — often Indigenous or marginalized groups — by claiming the land) are ongoing processes that continue to affect Indigenous people in the Bay Area. They are not just historical, fixed moments in time.
“Many maps respond to questions of time by freezing it, presenting a cross-section or snapshot of a landscape, that then needs more maps to show change,” she said. “This map addresses this issue by showing how spaces and landscapes hold time too, portraying both the past and present together, rather than freezing time in place.”
Wilmott added that settler-colonialist views of nature as a resource or way to create profit have transformed landscapes that Indigenous people carefully managed for centuries. An example of this is the destruction of California redwood and sequoia trees, which were a central part of Indigenous culture, and whose loss has had long-lasting effects on the environment and Indigenous peoples’ relationship with the land. The map illustrates such transformations using graphic icons that represent environmental processes like water management and the return of wildlife.
One such example is the illustration of the Chinook salmon near Angel Island, shown on the map returning upstream as a celebration of the species’ recent return to the area. The return follows over a century of dwindling numbers due to the colonial extraction of natural resources like minerals and agriculture, which destroyed their habitat.
Other illustrations described by Wilmott include blue mussel shells, which signify the resilience of Ohlone people in the face of massive urban redevelopments; a monarch butterfly near Gill Tract in Albany to represent its return after a period of decline due to pesticides, overdevelopment and climate change; and Olympia oysters near San Leandro, whose slowly increasing population is helping to restore the Bay’s floor after it was damaged by hydraulic mining in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
“Each of these are located at particular points in the map, but with them hold these ongoing processes of destruction and survival and tell these stories,” Wilmott said.
Beyond telling the story of Indigenous history, the map’s format and design also challenge traditionally-accepted cartography techniques, which Wilmott said are often shaped by colonialism.
“Digital (web) cartography has inherited a system rooted in domination and territory, from the decision to run the international prime meridian through the home of the British Navy, to the way existing geographic data often prioritises property,” Wilmott said.
Sogorea Te’ didn't want to buy into this system, Wilmott said. Rather than using the standard prime meridian in Greenwich, England, they created their own origin point (datum) at Lisjan — a traditional village site near San Leandro Creek in East Oakland.
“Where we start our measurements from is symbolically as well as practically important,” Wilmott said. “Datums are often measured from places of power in early colonial processes, whether it’s using naval or shipping dockyards for vertical height measurements or government buildings for horizontal measurements.”
The map also uses a circular, or stereographic, projection, which gives it the appearance of a complete world. It features three different perspectives, Wilmott said: one looks down at both the historic and contemporary coastlines; another looks across at the topography of the hills circa 1850; and the third looks up at the stars as if you were standing at Lisjan looking over Tuyuštak (Mount Diablo) in 1578 — the year before the Bay Area started to appear on maps made by English explorer Francis Drake.
Wilmott said she hopes the map will challenge people to not only consider the Bay Area from another perspective, but also to rethink the mapping tools and technologies we have become so accustomed to in our everyday lives.
“I hope that this map encourages those who view it to think differently both about the Bay Area and to check out the work that Sogorea Te’ are doing on rematriation and cultural revitalization,” she said. “I also hope that it helps people to see how naturalised certain kinds of maps have become in our everyday life and to ask more critical questions of technologies which appear to be so basic and embedded in our society.”
