The Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians of California is a federally recognized tribe of Miwok in Amador County, California. The Buena Vista Miwok are Sierra Miwok, an indigenous people of California.
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Government
The tribe conducts business from Sacramento, California. The tribe is led by an elected council. The current tribal chairperson is Rhonda Morningstar Pope.
Tribal staff includes Dr. Roselynn Lwenya, the environmental resources director, and Arnold Samuel, the General Counsel. Tribal enrollment is based in lineal descent from original tribal members; that is, the tribe has no minimum blood quantum requirements.
The federal acknowledgement of "Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians," is being challenged by a lawsuit that is currently awaiting scheduling in the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals in San Francisco in "Friends of Amador County, et al. versus Ken Salazar, et al."
Reservation
The Buena Vista Rancheria is 67 acres (0.27 km2) parcel of land, located just outside the census-designated place of Buena Vista. The land once belonged to the Oliver family and was purchased by the federal government to establish an Indian rancheria in 1927.
History
The rancheria was unilaterally terminated by Congress, along with 42 other rancherias, under the California Rancheria Act of 1958. The tribe has been federally recognized since 1985. In 1970, President Richard Nixon declared the Rancheria Act a failure. The Buena Vista Rancheria tribe joined 16 other native California tribes in a class action lawsuit, Hardwick v. United States to restore their sovereignty, and in 1987, the tribes won their lawsuit. On 22 December 1983 the Buena Vista Rancheria tribe ratified its constitution.