Cancel Culture Comes for California’s Sutter Buttes Mountain Range

No one can rewrite history. Renaming statues, parks, museums, schools or even mountain ranges does not change history, regardless of whether they are named after Confederate military leaders, racially-biased political figures, Native American tribes or “Swiss Colonizers.”

And the people behind the attempts to erase history refuse to acknowledge the momentous events or awe-inspiring contributions to California and American history by those whose names were given to historical statues, schools, mountains or parks, so that we could learn and remember.

In June 2020, CBS13 reported on a Sacramento woman who announced that she wanted to change the name of Sutter Middle School, named after John Sutter, famous for the discovery of gold on the American River, after reports that he owned slaves. “There is no pride in John Sutter. There is no pride in enslaving hundreds of indigenous people,” she said.

This is one ignorant woman’s opinion. Yet the Sacramento City School District board was all-too eager to erase John Sutter from the district.

Jumping on the bandwagon to rename Sutter Middle School took place at the same time as the violent and destructive George Floyd protests, and as historic figures’ statues and monuments were being toppled across the country. Even the statue of former San Diego Mayor, Governor, and U.S. Senator Pete Wilson was removed from Horton Plaza in San Diego in 2020 under threats of vandalism by activists over Wilson’s support of Proposition 187 in 1994 while he was Governor of California. The statue was returned two months later.

The cancel culture ignores the context and the era in which events happened. John Sutter should only be judged according to the culture and traditions of his times, not by uneducated, ignorant grievance hustlers in the 2020’s who were taught social justice instead of Social Studies.

In June 2020, California Democratic Senate and Assembly leaders in Sacramento also announced that the statue of Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella in the State Capitol Rotunda would be removed.

The statue, “‘Columbus’ Last Appeal to Queen Isabella,” was gifted to California by gold rush banker Darius Ogden Mills in 1883. It sat almost entirely uninterrupted for 137 years in the Capitol rotunda.

If Columbus had not discovered America, none of us would be here today.

Recently I heard a local news reporter call John Sutter a “Swiss Colonizer” when reporting on the latest attempt to erase his history – the renaming of the Sutter Buttes mountain range. This ignorant talking point is used to abolish his importance; to eliminate his contributions to California and American history. Notably, the Sacramento Bee also used this misrepresentation:

“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,’” the Sacramento Bee reported. “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.”

Residents of Sutter County are fighting this effort.

The Sacramento City School District effort was more far reaching than just removing John Sutter’s name from one school – the district created a ridiculous policy, spent time and hundreds of thousands of dollars on it, despite that more than half of SCUSD students do not meet basic state English standards, and nearly three quarters fail to meet basic state math standards:

“As part of Sac City Unified’s commitment to confront and interrupt racism and create safe learning environments that are welcoming, inclusive, and inspiring places for all students and staff, the SCUSD Board of Education voted at the June 22, 2023 meeting to rename three schools as Miwok Middle School (formerly Sutter Middle School), Suy:u Elementary School (formerly Peter Burnett Elementary School), and Umoja International Academy (formerly Kit Carson International Academy).”

“A School Renaming Committee was appointed by the SCUSD Board of Education in the Fall of 2020 and was composed of one-third Native American voices, one-third administrators and staff, and one-third of Board-appointed community members.”

“The Committee was specifically designed to incorporate community voices from throughout the District and to uplift the native voice since Peter Burnett, John Sutter and Kit Carson led the systematic killing and enslavement of large numbers of California native peoples.”

This is what ignorant grievance hustlers do to signal their virtue and make themselves feel better, rather than teaching the history – all history – to teach school children about the times and customs of the past, and show how much we as a society have learned and changed. Apparently it’s easier to erase history than to teach it.

Peter Burnett was California’s first Governor.

Kit Carson was a famous frontiersmen, fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer who took part in the expansion of the American west.

Will the students in Sac City schools be taught any of this, or will they instead be trained as good little foot soldiers in the Marxist “social justice” movement? Their peers fighting over the Sutter Buttes seem to be making headway regardless of public outcry. Because now history must align with the Marxist left’s mission and vision, cloaked under the pretense of social justice, disassembling the bedrock of the American republic by rewriting history.

History is a continuous, systematic narrative of past events and people, countries, time periods, and usually written as a chronological account.

Just imagine what will be written about this time in history.