The Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians Seeking Unique Land into Trust

The Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians is seeking federal approval to take into trust 266 acres of the former Point Molate Naval Fuel Depot. The tribe and their partner, Upstream Investments LLC, want to build a hotel-casino resort that would include 124,000 square feet of gaming, two hotels, shops, restaurants, a conference center, housing, tribal facilities, parks and trails on 85 acres.

The request is unique in that the Department of the Interior must declare Point Molate "restored Indian lands." Federal law prohibits tribes from gaming on land acquired after 1988, but there are exemptions. The Guidiville Band believes they qualify for an exemption due to their ancestral ties to the land. Few tribes have succeeded in accomplishing this and the fact that the Guidiville’s historical land, which was up in Mendocino and Lake counties, is a considerable distance from Point Molate may make it even more difficult.

The process, if it pans out, would be for the Navy property to be first transferred to the City of Richmond then over to the tribe by the end of the year.

The Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians is seeking the same exemption for building a casino along Richmond Parkway and a decision by the feds on that request is expected much sooner than one for the Guidiville Band, so that may set a precedent for them one way or the other.

The environmental impact report for the proposed hotel-casino is now available for public review and comments. The view and comment period will last through Sept 23.

The common history of the Guidiville Band with the rest of the early Rancherias is a sad tale of deception and termination.

During the Gold Rush hey day in the mid 1800’s, the European settlers drove the Guidiville from their ancestral lands up in Mendocino and Lake counties. The US government then sent agents to negotiate treaties with the tribe in 1851. The Guidiville, as did other Pomo tribes, agreed to cede more than 90 percent of their ancestral lands in Marin, Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino counties in exchange for 254,000 acres of land surrounding Clear Lake.

Just another broken empty promise by the US as the tribes never received the Treaty lands. Instead, the US Senators from California convinced Congress not to ratify the Treaties. That left the Pomos, along with many other Indians in the region, landless and homeless in a place where the new kids on the block, the white settlers, hated them. The treaties were locked away in a building in Washington, D.C. and weren’t discovered until the early 1900s.

Between the years of 1909 and 1915, the federal government purchased small parcels of land for homeless California Indians. This was the beginning of the Rancherias. The Guidiville Rancheria did not have the water or infrastructure for subsistence. Disease and harsh conditions resulted in early death and the tribe’s numbers dwindled. Those that could traveled to the Bay Area for work. Other tribal members picked hops or fruit as migrant farm workers.

Then came the Indian termination policy where the federal government unilaterally terminated the status of the Guidiville Rancheria in 19587 and their trust lands were sold to private owners. In 1987, the tribe successfully sued the US government for wrongful termination and began to reorganize as a tribe.

The tribe regained federal recognition in 1992.