California Story Fund
Kashaya Oral History Project
The Cultural Conservancy, San Francisco
Project Director: Kent Lightfoot
Documenting the history of the Kashaya Pomo Indians
The Kashaya Pomo Indians have lived in Northern California for the past two centuries. Beginning in the early 1800s, foreign colonists became entangled with the tribe, starting with the Russians, who established California's first mercantile colony at Fort Ross in 1812, followed by Mexicans, and then by American ranchers.
This aim of this project was to gather oral histories about family experiences and interaction with Russian, Mexican and Anglo-American colonists over the past two centuries, to understand more fully how the Kashaya people dealt with colonial encounters over multiple generations and to provide a more inclusive history of the time. The stories were displayedon the California State Parks' website and incorporated into a booklet for distribution at Fort Ross State Historic Park.