18 Broken Treaties
Tashina Boyer
Fourth World Journal (2025) 25 (1): 429-432
Keywords Broken treaties, Indigenous resilience, California Native history, Mono people, erasure poetry, tribal sovereignty, historical erasure, U.S. colonialism
Abstract
“18 Broken Treaties” is a piece that explores the lasting effects of the 18 treaties that were signed by 122 California Native American tribes between 1851 and 1852. These treaties were never ratified by Congress and never signed by the President. California has not made amends for this, which left many tribes without land or protection. California representatives influenced the U.S. Senate’s decision and ordered that the broken treaties be hidden for 50 years. My erasure-style poem is designed to bring these broken treaties to the front and center while adding my voice and my experience to the discussion. As a California Native, my goal for this piece is to show my readers the ways that broken treaties have negatively affected Native people and their communities not only in California but throughout the U.S. Although this short piece doesn’t analyze each treaty, it does add a level of visibility and awareness about the ways that the Mono people were forced to get creative and continue to be resilient.
Tashina Boyer
Published June 23, 2025
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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