University of California Land Grab: Accounting for the Past and Actions Towards Justice

By Muriel Ammon

It was wonderful going down to Davis this past weekend, for the University of California Land Grab: Accounting for the Past and Actions Towards Justice. This symposium was brought about by U.C. Grand Challenges, moving towards “addressing the harmful origins” regarding the U.C. system’s ongoing benefit from colonial acquisition of Indigenous lands.¹ Native leaders, community, U.C./CSU affiliates, and educators gathered to discuss existing university initiatives and raise dialogue on how the U.C.s can actionably support California Native communities.

It wasn’t news to me that colleges are built on Native land. Everything is built on Native land. But I hadn’t understood what a land grant university was. Something far more sinister. These universities, of which the entire U.C. system is a part, were state-founded under 10.8 million acres of Native land allocated under the Morrill Act of 1862. This act followed the Homestead and Pacific Railway Acts, and was widely viewed as a generous measure on behalf of the federal government to expand public access to higher education. The American myth is, the Morrill Act generously donated funds from “leftover” land to public education. You can still read University of California’s 2012 webpost signed by Nicole Freeling, U.C. Office of the President, stating, “The Morrill Act, signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 2, 1862, created the so-called land-grant universities, donating land left over from the building of the Transcontinental Railroad to fund the creation of institutions of higher learning, charged with educating citizens from all walks of life and with advancing research into the cutting-edge fields of the day — agriculture and engineering. The idea was revolutionary at the time.²”

Scholars like Margaret A. Nash have, more recently, begun to unpack this history through a different lens. In ‘Entangled Pasts: Land-Grant Colleges and American Indian Dispossession,’ Nash identifies the Morrill Act as a mechanism for settler colonialism.³ The nation expands by setting up Western institutions that will further perpetuate the Western society, using their favorite currency: Native land. Around fifty universities were established with endowments that, totaled, in today’s day would equate to hundreds of millions of dollars.⁴ This was way beyond fundraising. The federal government was investing mass amounts of wealth into institutions that were meant to supply a workforce and add prestige to the growing nation.

I think of the Indigenous immersion schools, the mental health organizations, the artist collectives that would thrive on an endowment of a few million dollars. And that is only a fraction of what was stolen, extracted, purchased for pennies on the dollar from Native Nations.

Ahtone and Lee’s website: https://www.landgrabu.org/

It was invaluable to hear from scholars Tristan Ahtone (Kiowa) and Robert Lee, on their work regarding land grant universities. They’ve been tracking down each parcel sold under the Morrill Act to identify which university benefited from each sale. In efforts to make their work accessible, they’ve created an interactive map where users can see the links between land sold and universities built under the Morrill Act. Above is a zoomed in view towards Davis, CA. You can see several parcels sold for the benefit of varying universities.

Ahtone and Lee found the state of California was allotted 148,636 acres of land, which was divided up and sold in parcels. The sale of that land raised $730,860 for the establishment of the University of California. That’s over thirteen million dollars when adjusted for inflation.⁵ Moreover, Ahtone and Lee pointed out that California was unique in this process. All land designated for U.C. under the Morrill Act came from California. All California land sold under this act was acquired through treaties that were never ratified. So, all money raised under the Morrill Act for the University of California comes from the sale of stolen land. All of it. And sure, we had the Indian Claims Commissions. Decades later, some California Natives were repaid (meagerly) for some of their land. But all those decades of endowments and interest and wealth generated under the U.C. system are decades of stolen wealth.

So you’d think, they might owe us something.

As U.C. Regent Greg Sarris reminds us, the U.C.’s responsibilities to Native people are equally their privilege. When Indigenous people are a part of the conversation, everyone benefits. From TEK to peacemaking, Indigenous communities hold unique perspectives, knowledge, and practices that are not only relevant, but necessary for the whole community. Plus they’re fun and cool. Prime example: Drs. Cutcha Risling Baldy and Kaitlin Reed.

Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy presented on Cal Poly Humboldt’s shiny new Food Sovereignty Lab, for which she and co-founder Dr. Kailtin Reed have recently been awarded the 2025 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award. This student-led, student-built lab came from community conversations asking what could the university do for them? It has bloomed into a community space where cultural foods are processed, in-house chef Sara Calvosa Olsen leads cooking lessons with local foods, students from multiple disciplines can conduct research, and curriculum and and conferences are crafted on the topic of food sovereignty. Perhaps most importantly, it’s become a hub for Native students, community members, youth, and family. Risling Baldy shares that the lab is a place where Native youth feel a sense of belonging and ownership. She quotes, “Oh, the food sovereignty lab? I know where that is.” It’s feelings like this that start the cogs turning, prompting youth to enivsion what a college future might be.