“Giant Redwood Trees of California” by Albert Bierstadt: Sublime Art, The American Frontier, and The History of Redwood Trees

A LONG, LONG TIME AGO, PLANTS AND ANIMALS WERE PEOPLE. So the Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok story goes. One of those was Coyote, who made the world from the Sonoma Mountaintop. The elders of Coyote’s village became giant redwood trees, and they were coloured blood-red to remind everyone that we are all intertwined. If you look towards the west coast, you can still see the red giants standing.

Greg Sarris, chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, tells this and other powerful tales alongside his collection of essays which underline the similarities between the mistreatment and genocide of coastal Indigenous peoples and the logging of redwood forests. It is estimated that up to 96% of California’s giant redwoods were logged. Sarris accounts that for the Indigenous people the rate of survival – at 0.07% – was even more dismal. As vast stretches of redwoods were logged for the…