C-SPAN Cities Tour - Palm Springs: Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians transcript

the AUA band of KU Indians located here in Palm Spring California has an oral history dating back to um the last ice age 10,000 years documented in our bird songs and our migration back to this area we have grown into one of the wealthiest tribes in the United States by um integrating you know the wants and needs of the outside Community to what we will do to sustain ourselves going into the future this Central area of Palms Springs was um all the activity was centered around SEI which is in Kia the sound of boiling water that is the springs that Palm Springs is named after it is our winter home for the kaas clan we came around there during the winter time when it was a little bit more temperate and we were able to um Farm around that area because of the spring Fred year round River but we also were able to utilize the B bathing Waters and heal all of our cure um illnesses um the first point of contact for the Kia people actually happened up in the mountain kuas and at the kuia reservation wanza was coming across looking for a trade route from Sonora Desert to Monteray California where they had an encampment when they met with the kuia they actually uh instantly established trade because that was our custom to trade with those people coming through our property but also trade with other cultures when the Gold Rush happened up in Northern California um on Sutter's Mill almost instantly you know that stopped being a Mill sto producing Lumber and all the other businesses around there started to change so people weren't raising cattle weren't raising food weren't raising the things that are necessary to sustain that type of economic activity Southern California became the source for about 95% of all the beef consumed up in Northern California and what happened is this became a very rich area supplying the supplies and the meat for sustaining the California Gold Rush California as a whole the economic activity increased and for the kuas themselves after we lost the yearound pfed river we actually made that transition into helping others by helping militarily and helping you know protect the economic activity in Southern California so in 1850 California was basically admitted into the Union as a 31st state it recognized the Mexican land grant land rights it also recognized the Indian Land rights for a period of time what happened next was that the California as well as the United States government sat down started to NE negotiate treaties with the tribes the treaty rights that we agreed to in 1852 ours uh Treaty of Tula basically honored our land rights established our territories and gave the solemn oath of the US government that our land rights would be protected and respected the treaties themselves were never ratified and with that our land rights were never recognized all up and down California some 9 million Acres were of treaty right you know property was put in Jeopardy and only because we had the military establishment on either side of our reservation were we able to hold our property until the um railroad came through this area in 1878 it established a um ownership system uh for compensation to build the railroad they were given the odd-numbered sections 10 miles either side of the railroad tracks those even numbered sections that were left over were later established as the agoan reserv as well as some other Checker Bard reservations along Interstate 10 and the railroad path and that's where you know between 1850 and 1878 where we had to basically hold our property by our own um initiative about 1863 when there was a smallpox epidemic wiped out a large number of Kia um territories what began to happen is that the smallpox not only affected k it also affected urban areas and those with enough resources basically wealth sought to try to figure out how to deal with some of the urban ills small pox was one but there was also tuberculosis and other ailments that affected people's breathing and it was thought at that time that if you got into a dry desert climate that it would actually help relieve your you know symptoms here in Palm Springs we had that year round we also had the medicinal Healing Waters of SEI our Mineral Springs here in Palm Springs people began to come out here to the desert and they wanted to have place to stay we recruited other people um from The Bowman Banning pass area to come out here and establish little hotels around our area and we began to lease them land and let them use our mineral Waters to try to cure that process and also help the people with tuberculosis breathe better and that's where he Palm Springs originally was a health resort it was more like a sanatorium where people came to you know relieve themselves of their ills but it really began a whole process of us in about the 1880s 1890s we began leasing our property and that became a really a source of wealth for us it became important for us to have the mentality that we wanted to understand what your needs and wants were and then we would find a way to fulfill your needs and your wants and that would be integrated into our um method of perpetuating ourselves into the future either through labor for your you know Mexican land gr rench Arrow or through military assistance to protect those assets that you had created on that property or to help you with the you know Urban ills that were affecting the non- populations in Los Angeles San Bernardino and we integrated that into our method of building an economic system we've grown from the 50 or so members we had and at the turn of the century um 1900s um we have about 450 members at this time and we continue to grow we continue to respect and honor our culture but we also continue to integrate into the outside community on an economic basis and one of the things that we have to do is balance the economic activity and the economic relations and the social and political relations as well as preserving our culture and preserving our unique um view of the world