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A request to change the name of the Sutter Buttes has led to an outburst of opinions from the public on whether a colonizer’s racist past should define the cluster of volcanic hills colloquially called the “world’s smallest mountain range.”
In March, a petition was filed to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to change the name of the Sutter Buttes to the Sacred Buttes.
Rachel Rein, who served as a director on the Sutter Buttes Regional Land Trust board at the time, submitted the proposal to “remove a name considered offensive and to acknowledge the sacred history of the buttes to various Tribes,” according to her petition.
The proposal, which many Sutter County residents only learned of in late July, prompted both outrage and praise from the area, comprising nearly 100,000 people.
“When is it going to end? When are we going to stop erasing the past? We benefit from the good, and we learn from the bad,” lifelong Yuba-Sutter resident Connie Coughlin said. “Hopefully we as a community can stop this.”
The history of the Sutter Buttes
The circular complex of lava domes has gone by at least 23 different names throughout human history, according to the Board on Geographic Names. The federal board is in charge of maintaining “uniform geographic name usage throughout the federal government,” as described on the agency’s website.
The route to changing the name of a well-known landmark can be a years-long process. Any person can propose a new name or modify an existing name for natural features, bodies of water or unincorporated communities “if there is a compelling reason and evidence of support for the change,” according to the board’s website.
The Sutter Buttes are not technically a mountain range, but the leftovers of volcanic action that occurred more than a million years ago. The remnants of the dormant volcano created a ring that covers about 75 square miles. The highest of the three peaks rests 2,100 feet above sea level.
Before Europeans arrived in the area, the Buttes were a refuge for Native Americans escaping the frequently flooded valley floor following severe winter storms and spring snow run-off. During this period, the Maidu and Wintun people referred to the volcanic hills as Esto Yamani and Onolai-tol, both which roughly translate to Middle Mountain. The Maidu also called them Histum Yani, or Spirit Mountain.
No indigenous peoples ever fully resided in the Buttes because the environment was considered deeply sacred. The Maidu believed that after they passed away, their spirits rested in the buttes before departing for the afterlife.
The Sutter Buttes is now mostly private land owned by a handful of farming families. In 2003, California State Parks acquired 1,785 acres on the north side of the Sutter Buttes, but more than 10 years later, the park still has no official name or public access point to enter. Residents and visitors alike must book guided hikes to access the buttes.
The volcanic ring’s most recent name revision occurred in 1949, when the Marysville Buttes were renamed the Sutter Buttes. That time around, county residents fought for three decades to obtain the new name.
Name change debate
The federal board is currently seeking input from local leaders, residents and federally recognized tribes to determine whether there is enough support for the new name.
At a July 23 meeting, the Sutter County Board of Supervisors discussed how to proceed after recently becoming aware of the proposal. They urged the public that Sutter County staff and officials “had nothing to do” with the name change petition.
Mike Hubbartt, board president of the Sutter Buttes Regional Land Trust, also declared the conservation organization had not been cognizant of the proposal beforehand and was “neutral to the idea,” even though a previous board member had submitted the petition to the federal agency.
The meeting was packed with community members stressed by the sudden possibility that a landmark they gazed upon every day could soon be renamed. Nearly a dozen residents submitted emails or voiced their thoughts during public comment.
Jerrie Libby, a Sutter Buttes landowner and cattle ranch co-owner, has lived in the area since 1955 and planned to eventually have her ashes spread on the buttes. She was staunchly opposed to the land being renamed the Sacred Buttes.
“It is a sacred place, but it’s also sacred to those who walk on it currently,” she said. “It’s the Sutter Buttes. It needs to stay the Sutter Buttes.”
Some feared changing the name would have an unintended ripple effect. According to County Administrator Steve Smith, there are around 350 businesses in Sutter County that use Sutter in their names, though the names board does not hold any power over private places or incorporated areas.
Local Native Americans commended the proposal for correcting a racist past that elevated a man who contributed to atrocities against Indigenous populations.
“It is an opportunity to honor the resilience and strength of Native American communities and to restore the sacredness of this landscape by disassociating it from a figure whose legacy is incompatible with values of respect, dignity, and justice,” Emma Blackthorne, a local resident and member of the Bad River Tribe in Wisconsin, said in an email.
Who was John Sutter?
John Sutter was a Swiss immigrant who is credited with building Sutter’s Fort and founding New Helvetia, an early settlement built near the confluence of the Sacramento and American rivers near where the city of Sacramento now stands.
Sutter made local tribespeople work for him, and if they refused, he sent troops to attack and sometimes kill them. He built a ranch, known as Hock Farm, near a Nisenan village along the Feather River in present-day Sutter County, so he could easily find workers and force them into indentured servitude.
Historical accounts at the Sutter County Museum stated that to keep indigenous peoples from escaping, “they were locked into their sleeping quarters overnight. Both Nisenan histories and white observers tell of workers being forced to eat out of troughs like livestock. If they disobeyed or refused to work for him, they were whipped, jailed, or killed.”
In her proposal to change the Sutter Buttes to the Sacred Buttes, Rachel Rein cited Sutter’s actions against indigenous peoples as a significant reason for revising the name.
“It feels especially harmful for a landmass that is sacred to multiple Native American tribes to retain the name of someone who is infamous for his horrific treatment of Native Americans,” she wrote in the petition.
Rein did not respond to multiple requests for an interview, but stated in the proposal that she chose the name Sacred Buttes because it recognizes indigenous history and the spiritual significance of the land.
There have been a flurry of previous efforts to banish Sutter’s name from nearby sites. In 2020, a John Sutter statue outside Sutter Health Medical Center was removed after protesters called for the monument to be torn down. Last year, Sacramento Unified School District changed Sutter Middle School to Miwok Middle School, and Sutter Hall at California State University, Chico was renamed Éstom Jámani after research was conducted into the building’s namesake.
What happens next?
In response to the renaming proposal, the Sutter County Board of Supervisors now has the power to act in several ways: supervisors can take no action, they can draft a position of opposition, support or neutrality for the proposal, or they can seek input from residents before determining how to respond to the names board’s request for feedback.
Two supervisors hinted that they were likely to keep the Sutter Buttes name if it came down to a vote.
“There was some very bad things that happened, but when I think of the Sutter Buttes, I think of what I’m wearing right here, my community, Sutter High School ... it means so much more,” Supervisor Mike Ziegenmeyer said.
Supervisors decided to hear out any residents before arriving at a conclusion. The board also directed the county administrator to alert nearby counties within eyesight of the Sutter Buttes about the possible renaming so their opinions could be gathered as well. Each county supervisor planned to hold a town hall in their district in the weeks ahead.
Ali Meders-Knight, a member of the Mechoopda Indian Tribe of Chico Rancheria, said she would attend so that indigenous voices remain a part of the conversation.
”There’s going to be resistance. It’s been resistance the last 180 years, but we’re breaking it down like water breaks down rock,” she said. “We’re going to make it happen because it needs to be done.”
Other community members thought a compromise could be reached. Ty Shaeffer has spent more than a decade leading hikes in the Buttes and incorporating Native American history into his walks. His family settled on the land in 1860.
“There are two stories here. There’s a story of a farmer…and then there’s the Indigenous story, the people who’ve lived here and lived within their environment,” Shaeffer said.
Maybe there could be a historical landmark that acknowledges indigenous peoples in the Sutter Buttes, but the name could remain the same, he said.
