Portfolio at NYU

Posted 07.19.06
The Oldest Story in America
The Anderson Valley Advertiser

By Freda Moon

"...by the time the Americans came, Indian labor was no longer required to any great and pressing extent. And so the Indians suffered. The invaders prospered. The Indians gave. The invaders took, and did not pay, either in goods, cash, or in kind. When, finally, the Indians were able to see the need to stand and fight, it was too late. The invaders had the land, and the resources, and the numbers."

- "The Company Town in the American West," James B. Allen

On an overcast day in mid-April, Wallie Clark walked out of the front door of his grey, pre-fab home on Fort Bragg's Noyo headlands. Deep in thought-or, more accurately, deep in prayer (or communion or celebration-whatever you call it, Wallie was doing it), he held a long, reed-like, elderberry clapper, and walked-looking at the ground, "treading lightly" and focusing on the spirits.

Looking across the meadow grasses, he saw not one but three Fort Bragg Police cruisers. Inside the cars were six men. One of the officers demanded that Wallie drop his "stick." The clapper, which he had made himself and which he considered to be a sacred object, broke as it hit the ground.

Clark takes this walk often-at least weekly for the past 13 years-but he has never had a run-in with the FBPD. This was an unwelcome first in Clark's world, and he was angry. A short while before, while in the midst of his walk, he had wandered near a guard station on the now-vacant mill site. The guard that day, Fred Hollenback, a man Clark describes as a bit older than himself and lacking in "grace," noticed the long-haired Native American and ordered Clark to come to him.

"I am a warrior," Clark said. "I am a brave in the respect that I have fought for this country. I am a disabled veteran-fighting for this country. If somebody wants my attention in my community, there's a certain way that they come up to me, because I've already proven myself as a man. And this person, he doesn't really care who you are." Clark rebuffed Hollenback, and instead went on his way.

He and the other members of the tribe have permission from G-P to walk on the property, but-at least according to Clark's account-Hollenback refused to check on Clark's claim. (On the advice of his supervisor, Hollenback declined to comment.) Instead of calling his boss to confirm the Noyo River Pomo's right to walk on the land, Hollenback called the cops, who "escorted" Clark home.

When Clark's clapper broke, he was "ticked off." It's clear from the letter he wrote to the "Fort Bragg Advocate" shortly after, that he wasn't only angry about Hollenback sicking the FBPD on him, but about the larger, longer story that lead up to that day-the story of White Men taking Indian lands and lives and giving almost nothing (not even an apology, Clark points out) in return.

Clark fought in Vietnam, worked for years as a carpenter, a federal inspector, a tribal administrator, even a dishwasher, and is now retired. He has the soft, watery eyes of an old man, but his build is firm and sturdy and younger than his 58 years. He wears jeans and a sweater and giant pieces of abalone shell jewelry with glass beads that are the color of the surf.

As part of the "Noyo River" Pomo community, Clark and his wife, Lucy, live on a fenced-off, five-acre plot within Georgia-Pacific's 400-acre Fort Bragg mill site. The four households that make up the community have existed on the southern-most edge of the mill site since the late-1800s, when they were "re-located" from their village, Kadiu, which sat on the beach flats below.

A handshake agreement between the tribal leaders and Union Lumber granted the tribe "permanent" use of the land. Since then, these homes have been passed from one generation to the next. With the upcoming sale of the mill site (it closed in November, 2002 and the City and G-P are now planning for its redevelopment), it's unclear what the future of the tribe-and its ancestral land-will be.

According to the official history, Fort Bragg was "established" by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which, in 1856, created the 25,000-acre Mendocino Indian Reservation at Noyo. The fort in Fort Bragg was established the next year, the same year that the mill was built, to "maintain order" on the sprawling reservation, which extended from Simpson Lane to Abalobadiah, and inland to Bald Hill.

The city's official history notwithstanding, Native Americans in Mendocino Country were as abused and exploited as they were virtually everywhere else in the United States after Columbus's landfall. So it's not surprising that, once Fort Bragg was identified as a place of value (not simply an appropriate site for a human dumping ground, but a timber town, rich in towering redwoods, fur and fish), the reservation was dissolved and the land was put to use by the mighty Union Lumber, the first company to control the mill site.

Most of the coastal tribes were driven inland to the Sherwood Valley reservation, according to Wallie Clark. (His mother-in-law and the tribal elder, Harriet Rhoades, has a rosier perspective on how the tribe came to live on the inland reservation: "They weren't forced anywhere. People had an interaction.") But some members of the Noyo River Pomo stayed behind.

Union Lumber had expropriated their village for use in the timber operation. But after Union exhausted their need for the land, they allowed the tribe to return to Kadiu. But, several years later, the Union again found a use for the Noyo beach flats-and the Indians were again asked to leave. The tribe then moved to its current location, where four homes now sit beside the infamous, view-obstructing eyesore, the North Cliff Hotel, at the end of a PRIVATE PROPERTY-marked dirt road.

For a century or so-nobody seems sure of when, exactly, the tribe moved to the bluff-the tribe lived on the mill land. Several years ago, Georgia-Pacific wrote up an easement, legally-cementing their long-standing agreement with the tribe. "At the time that the easement was granted," said Linda Ruffing, Fort Bragg City Manager, "GP had offered to give the land, but the Native Americans didn't want it. They didn't want to take title to it because they would have to pay taxes on it." Instead of G-P signing the title of the parcel over to the families, the easement was attached to the property's deed.

"We have enjoyed a good relationship with them over the years, and they occupy the property with our permission," said Melodie Ruse, a G-P spokeswoman, in an expertly vague email statement. "We intend to continue that interaction and consider their interests in whatever decisions are made for the mill site property."

The City also has concerns for the tribe, according to Ruffing. "The Native Americans have been really active in our planning process for the mill site," she said. "There's a lot of concern about what happens to them."

It's not at all clear, however, what that actually means. Wallie Clark is concerned that promises to "consider" and expressions of "concern" don't amount to much when it comes to parcels of seem land worth over a million dollars an acre. And considering the tribe's history, his fears seem warranted.

Even if the land is given to the tribe outright, with the titles signed over to each family, Clark worries that the property taxes could force them off the land. These are, after all, water front lots, which may soon be surrounded by high-end homes, hotels and businesses. There are ways, of course (there are always ways), that the City, State or Feds could lesson the burden on the tribe. But so far nobody's clear on what those ways might be.


	Wallie Clark on the Noyo Bluffs