June 23 Update on Homeland Return (Woolman Property)

The leading that Hans and I had to support the transfer of the Woolman property to the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe has rippled across the country and opened our hearts. This has been a truly amazing experience of a leading in action, and we wanted to share the story with you.

You may remember that Santa Cruz Friends Meeting enthusiastically supported a minute that Hans and I brought to the second month Meeting for Business. The minute was written to show spiritual and financial support for the transfer of the Woolman property to the Nisenan Tribe. The minute was also written to support us as we appealed to other meetings and Quakers across the country.

The minute that was passed and then amended this month reads:
Santa Cruz Friends Meeting Minute #2 5-19-24: Santa Cruz Friends Meeting supports a $500 donation from the New Concerns Line Item to the California Heritage: Indigenous Research Program (CHIRP), the nonprofit raising funds to purchase the Sierra Friends Center to return the land to the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe. SCFM also encourages individuals to make donations "on behalf of the Santa Cruz Friends Meeting”. The clerks and Hans Brinker and Nancy Wood will contact other Meetings and publications with this information.

We wrote the minute both for our meeting and for other meetings. We wanted to invite Meetings and Quakers across the country to support this effort, for we are all fundamentally involved in this legacy of fractured relationship with Indigenous peoples. To this end, we asked Quakers to state their Meeting affiliation with their donation. It was so important to broadcast our collective support far and wide as a faith community.

In this Light, our work began.

Our plan was simple, but time-consuming. We…

 Used the Friends General Conference Quaker Finder to find Quaker Meetings and Friends Churches across the country.
 Cross-checked and added to these listings with information culled from yearly and regional meeting websites.
 Created a spreadsheet with Meeting name, address, phone number, clerk name, email address, and website.
 Wrote an appeal letter.
 Sent our appeal letter by email, in small batches to stay under the radar of the spam filters. The letter was also posted to the Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples Google group, and published in the quarterly EarthCare Witness newsletter.

And then, we waited, with cautious optimism. We had faith that once this letter inviting Friends to participate in a process guided by Spirit and designed to heal and give hope was received, Friends would respond.

Within days, we had an enthusiastic email from a Quaker in New Hampshire who had decided to make a personal donation as well as encourage her Meeting to make a donation. Then another email arrived with a positive reply. And the responses kept arriving.

Many told us that their Meetings were already working on Indigenous concerns and Right Relationship, and that our appeal was timely and welcome. Some Meetings forwarded minutes they had written. Others wrote meaningful responses as they reported their individual or Meeting donation. There were many questions, which we answered with information sourced from the CHIRP and Woolman websites.

Truly, we could not have imagined the outpouring of positive energy, support, and gratitude we have received from Friends across the country. It has been an incredible show of unity, a testament to Quaker values, and a strong example of our faith in action.

Here are some of the responses we received:

Atlanta Friends Meeting (Georgia):
Thank you for alerting Atlanta Friends Meeting to the Quaker Call to Support Homeland Return to the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe. I am happy to report that Atlanta Friends Meeting has been able to donate to this worthy cause. The Quakers for Racial Equality group of the Atlanta Friends Meeting Social Concerns Committee approved a donation from the Making Amends to Indigenous Peoples section of the Social Concerns budget.
Atlanta Friends Meeting has made a donation of $250 to the California Heritage: Indigenous Research Program (CHIRP), the nonprofit raising funds to purchase the Sierra Friends Center to return the land to the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe. This donation was made by the Atlanta Friends Meeting bookkeeper via the Homeland Return to Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan site on March 21, 2024. We also encouraged members and attenders of Atlanta Friends Meeting to make individual donations.

Boulder Friends Meeting (Colorado):
A Proposed Minute
Boulder Friends Meeting Supports Land Return to Nisenan Tribe Brought forward by Indigenous Peoples Concerns Committee For discernment at meeting for business, April 14, 2024
Boulder Friends Meeting has held a concern for justice for Indigenous Peoples since the creation in the mid-1990sof the Native American Concerns Committee (later renamed Indigenous Peoples Concerns Committee). Our commitment is reflected in our financial support of Native American organizations, our financial and spiritual support of the Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples program, our Land Acknowledgment Statement, our program hours with Indigenous speakers, our approval of many minutes supporting state and federal legislation to benefit Native Americans, and our communications with our senators and representative regarding this legislation.

In accord with the City of Boulder’s 2016 Indigenous Peoples Day Resolution, we acknowledge that the land where we live and worship was stolen from the Arapaho people in violation of the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie. We acknowledge that we benefit unfairly from the theft of Indigenous land.

As we seek ways to welcome the Arapaho back to their Boulder Valley homeland, we have also learned of an opportunity to support land return to the Nisenan tribe in California. The 232-acre Sierra Friends Center (also known as the Woolman property) has entered into a sale agreement with the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe. The Nisenan lived in the Northern California mountains for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years until they were almost completely annihilated during the California Gold Rush. Similarly, it was the Colorado Gold Rush that forced the Arapaho people out of the area that we now call home.

Quaker meetings and individuals across the country are raising funds to help the Nisenan people purchase the Sierra Friends Center (Woolman) property. As of April 10, 2024, $1,614,690 of the needed 2,400,000 has been raised. Boulder Meeting joins in this national Quaker land return movement as an act of faithfulness to our testimonies. We designate $2,000 of the meeting’s available excess funds plus $1,000 from the Peace and Social Justice committee’s discretionary fund, this latter amount pending approval by P&SJ. We also encourage and thank individual Friends for making personal donations.

Cannon Valley Friends Meeting (Minnesota):
I am writing to let you know that Cannon Valley Friends Meeting (CVFM) in Northfield, Minnesota, conducted our regular Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business today, March 10th, and came to unity on offering our support to the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe, CHIRP, and the Sierra Friends Center. We are sending a $500 donation for Homeland Return. Please watch for our check to arrive. Thank you for your faithfulness and stewardship of this work.

Keystone Fellowship Friends Meeting (Pennsylvania):
We heard about your efforts to help the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe regain its tribal land. This is in keeping with our Christian witness to love one another and to be committed to a ministry of reconciliation. We are grateful for your work.

Lincoln Friends Meeting (Nebraska) Peace & Social Concerns Committee:
Minute of support of Lincoln Friends Meeting in returning land to Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan
We grieve the actions of our predecessors in claiming  lands for their own that other peoples for many generations had belonged to. We also deeply regret the significant effort to obliterate the history and culture of these peoples. It seems in good order to us to acknowledge this openly and to follow that with meaningful action. We are aware of a growing movement for reconciliation between those of us who are newcomers to this land and those of us who are indigenous. Margaret Jacobs, author of One Hundred Winters, notes that beginning in the 1980s many countries around the world began the work of reconciliation. In the United States our awareness of the harms done has been low, but that is changing. We see the return of the former Woolman School property as a significant step in the process of restoration and healing.

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Pennsylvania) Quaker Fund for Indigenous Communities:
Land Back: Homeland Return to Repatriate Lands of the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan tribe of Nevada City, CA. The Quaker Fund for Indigenous Communities is forwarding an action minute to approve a
grant of $2000 to support the proposed Land Back: Homeland Return.   Through acollaborative effort the Board of Sierra Friends Center has entered into a purchase agreement with the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe through the California Heritage Indigenous Research Program (CHIRP). This grant will contribute to the down payment for the return of 232 acres associated with the Sierra Friends (Woolman) Center in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Tribe. A group of Quakers originally purchased the land in the 1960’s and operated the property as an educational center, under the care of Sierra Friends Center nonprofit and College Park Quarterly Meeting. The closing date for the down payment is April 4, 2024, but the date is expected to remain active for 30 days, thereafter.

Southeastern Yearly Meeting (Quakers in Florida, Coastal Georgia, and South Carolina):
Southeastern Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends approves a 500.00 donation to the California Heritage: Indigenous Research Program (CHIRP), the nonprofit raising funds to purchase the Sierra Friends Center in order to return to the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe, their ancestral land, Yulica. We encourage individual Friends, Meetings, and Worship Groups to also donate as led. We are grateful to the Santa Cruz Friends Meeting for alerting Quakers to this opportunity to help redress inhumane wrongs  done to the Tribe by the state and federal governments from which Quakers were among the beneficiaries. We will inform the clerks of Santa Cruz Friends Meeting of our donation.

West Falmouth Friends Meeting (Massachusetts):
West Falmouth Friends Meeting acknowledges that our meetinghouse and land resides within the ancestral territory of the Wampanoag, People of the First Light. We recognize and respect that Indigenous Peoples are traditional stewards of the land and waterways, and that an enduring relationship exists between them and their sacred homeland. Our Meeting understands and appreciates the importance of belonging to the land. We wish to support the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe in their efforts to formalize their tribal ownership of the Sierra Friends Center (formally, College Park Friends Educational Association) as their own. Please accept the enclosed donation toward that effort.

To date, Quaker Meetings, Friends Churches, and individuals identified as Quakers from across the country have contributed over $86,000 to this effort for homeland return. Twenty-five Meetings donated a total of $34,100), with the remainder coming from individual Quakers. To collect this information, we reviewed CHIRP’s GoFundMe page and gleaned Meeting names as well as names of individuals we recognize as Quakers. Most likely, many Quakers have made donations anonymously, so the actual total is probably quite a bit higher. And, of course, there are probably many Quakers on the list we have never met.

Our collective Quaker contribution has helped the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe with their fundraising goals. We recognize that Quakers are a small fraction of the 3,200 individuals and organizations who have donated so far to make this dream a reality. But what a joy and affirming experience this has been to witness first-hand how our Quaker community has collectively chosen to participate in this historic Spirit-led moment in an historic way. We asked and Quakers responded.

We have learned so much through this process:
 When you have a leading, follow it. Way will open.
 Reach out to your Quaker community for support and guidance.
 Ask! People like to be asked, especially by those they feel to be fellow travelers. They can always say “no” but you never know until you ask.
 And, most importantly, the Quaker community is a wonderful community. Quakers have shown an amazing expression of unity in discernment, actions, and donations for Homeland Return.

Here’s a list of Meetings who made donations. It is so impressive how Meetings across the country have responded!

 Ann Arbor Friends Meeting (Ann Arbor, MI)
 Atlanta Friends Meeting (Atlanta, GA)
 Boulder Friends Meeting (Boulder, CO)
 Cannon Valley Friends Meeting (Northfield, MN)
 Central Coast Meeting (San Luis Obispo, CA)
 Davis Monthly Meeting (Davis, CA)
 Eggemoggin Reach Friends Meeting (Sedgwick, ME)
 Fort Collins Friends Meeting (Fort Collins, CO)
 Grass Valley Friends Meeting (Grass Valley, CA)
 Honolulu Friends Meeting (Honolulu, HI)
 Keystone Fellowship Monthly Meeting (Bird-in-Hand, PA)
 Lake Superior Friends Meeting (Marquette, MI)
 Lincoln Friends Meeting Peace & Social Concerns Committee (Lincoln, NE)
 Live Oak Meeting (Salinas, CA)
 Memphis Friends Meeting (Memphis, TN)
 Moab Monthly Meeting (Moab, UT)
 Mountain View Friends Meeting (Denver, CO)
 Napa Friends Meeting (Napa, CA)
 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Indigenous Concerns Subcommittee (Philadelphia, PA)
 Redwood Forest Meeting (Santa Rosa, CA)
 Santa Cruz Friends Meeting (Santa Cruz, CA)
 Southeast Yearly Meeting (Quakers in Coastal Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina)
 Strawberry Creek Friends Meeting (Berkeley, CA)
 West Falmouth Friends Meeting (West Falmouth, MA)
 Whidbey Island Friends Meeting (Whidbey Island, WA)

We will be giving a full report back to Meeting on June 23rd after worship. Please join us!