WESTCLIFFE Main Street of this postcard-pretty town not far from the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains is just six blocks long.
Yet there are two weekly newspapers both thriving, both making .
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Spirit Olevia and her son Anaiah listen to speakers during the Bloody Island Sunrise Ceremony near Upper Lake, California on May 15, 2021. Spirit is a singer, often dedicating her work to her ancestors.
(Beth LaBerge/KQED)
O
ne-hundred seventy-one years ago, the small island of Bonopoti in Lake County was still a haven for the people who had lived here for centuries: the Pomo. It was where many people gathered to fish, and to collect plants and medicine at a time when the Gold Rush and colonial policies were already rapidly transforming Indigenous people s way of life.
On May 15, 1850, a U.S Army regiment arrived on the island and killed every Pomo man, woman and child they could find there. From then on, Bonopoti became known as Bloody Island.