By Jon Ullman, Chapter Executive Director
Santa Barbara-Ventura Chapter is the new name of our Los Padres Chapter.
After several months of consideration, the Chapter Executive Committee in April voted to change the name, established in 1952 and named after the Los Padres National Forest.
“The change fulfills the commitment of the Sierra Club to remove names which refer to colonial occupation of the indigenous peoples which live in our region,” said James Hines, Sierra Club Santa Barbara-Ventura Chapter Vice-Chair.
The Chapter took this step out of respect for Native Americans, specifically the Chumash, who like other California tribes were subjected to harsh labor, a new agrarian diet, diseases like measles and smallpox, forced religious and cultural conversion within a Mission system they were forbidden to leave once entered.
The Padres who ran the mission system between 1769 and 1833, regardless of intent, coerced and stripped the Native American population of their autonomy.
They used their labor to build the Missions and surrounding grounds that would eventually entrap them. Below are links to do your own research, but regardless of the Padres’ motives, the historical facts are clear.
We realize many of our cities and counties, including our new Chapter name, are derived from individual missions, but we felt Los Padres was different as it represented the whole system. One litmus test for us was if you were Native American, and even if you’re not, “how would you feel?”
The “Los Padres National Forest” was signed into law by Franklin Roosevelt on Dec. 3, 1936, after Forest officials came up with a new name for the Santa Barbara National Forest, a name that outgrew its eight consolidated forests spanning six counties. The Forest’s proximity to nine Spanish Missions in Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura was apparently the rational for the name.
Later the name “Chumash Wilderness” was given to 38,150 protected acres of the Forest in 1992, but Los Padres remained. Los Padres was our chapter’s name for 70 years; the National Forest’s name for 86 years.
One of our close allies and Los Padres National Forest protectors has the name. We realize it’s harder to change the name of the Forest when national votes are involved, and a name is long-standing and familiar.
We just asked ourselves: Considering what we know, what’s the right thing to do?
The answer for us was to change it.
Maybe the Forest Service and Congress will take our cue.
It wouldn’t be the first time. Denali National Park was called McKinley National Park from 1917 to 2015, named after its highest peak.
“I hope that in the bill you will call it ‘Mt Denali National Park’ so that the true old Indian [sic] name of Mt Denali (meaning ‘the Great One’) will thus be preserved.”
That quote was from a 1916 letter from one of the Park’s main advocates to another on the legislation drafting team. Another Park advocate agreed it should be named Denali. But the recipient replied: “I don’t like the name of Denali. It is not descriptive. Everybody in the United States knows of Mt. McKinley and the various efforts made to climb it. In consequence, both Mr. Yard and I think that the name McKinley should stick.”
They needed the Park legislation to pass, so they went with McKinley until it was changed in 2015. The moral: It’s never too late to change.
Our new name Santa Barbara-Ventura may not refer to a majestic mountain range nor noteworthy flora or fauna nor well-known river or park unit, but it’s simple to understand. We serve Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties.
We hope our name’s simplicity is the key to opening new doors.
Further Reading:
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/5views/5views1b.htm