The Mass Grave of Santa Cruz

For generations, it was rumored thousands of human remains lay in a shallow, unmarked mass grave on the grounds of the Old Holy Cross Cemetery in Live Oak. Historic records proved it more than a rumor.

by Ryan Masters, December 16, 2016

For generations, it was rumored thousands of human remains lay in a shallow, unmarked mass grave on the grounds of the Old Holy Cross Cemetery in Live Oak.

Historic records proved it more than a rumor.

The Santa Cruz Mission was demolished in 1885 to make room for Holy Cross Church on High Street. In the process, workmen dug up more than 2,400 bodies from the old mission burial ground. The body parts were loaded like cord wood into 17 wagons, transported across town, dumped into a hole in Holy Cross Cemetery, and promptly forgotten for more than a century.

Holy Cross Cemetery, consecrated in 1873, continued to serve the local Catholic community until 1946, when a new facility bearing the same name was founded just a few hundred yards away — hence, “old” Holy Cross Cemetery.

Fast forward to 2006. During a tour of the Old Holy Cross grounds, on the Capitola Road Extension, local historian Norm Poitevan related the story of the mass grave to Santa Cruz businessman and philanthropist Bill Simpkins.

Haunted and intrigued by the story, Simpkins reached out to cemetery caretaker Jim Franks.

“At the time, the cemetery was in bad shape,” Franks said. “You had to step over the sign to enter. Headstones were kicked over and defaced by graffiti. Homeless people lived among the graves. I had family buried here so I was working to fix it up.”

Simpkins had a reputation as a community benefactor and Franks hoped he might help rehabilitate the historic cemetery, which served as the final resting place for many of Santa Cruz’s most distinguished families.

Among other projects, Simpkins had raised money to build the Live Oak swim center that bears his family’s name and — along with friend Jim Thoits — helped erect the Walton Lighthouse at the mouth of the Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor.

Simpkins and wife Brigid agreed to pay for a new sign and fence for Old Holy Cross Cemetery, but he never forgot the tale of the mass grave. Two years ago, Simpkins decided to do something about it.

“Bill challenged me to find out who was buried in the grave,” said Poitevan.

But first, Simpkins said, they had to find it. Franks knew the grave was somewhere in the north quarter of the cemetery. Thoits suggested using ground penetrating radar to confirm its exact location.

“The grave is small for 2,436 bodies; and shallow,” said Thoits. “There’s about three feet of disturbed earth above a layer of hard adobe.”

Locating the swimming pool-sized grave was the easy part. With the help of professional genealogist Sheila Prader, Poitevan spent the next two years poring through the original mission records to identify those cast into the unmarked, shallow pit more than a century ago.

Their work revealed horrifying data. Of the 2,436 sets of remains, half were children younger than the age of 12. Two thousand were Native American — ancestors of the Amah Mutsun tribe; the rest Spanish and Irish.

“During mission times, the Catholic church said California Indians possess no soul. They held a complete disregard for our ancestors,” said Valentin Lopez, tribal chairperson for the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of Costanoan/Ohlone Indians.

After so many years of obscurity, neglect and disrespect, Simpkins, Thoits and Poitevan decided those buried in the mass grave deserved permanent recognition. Upon consulting with Lopez, however, they confronted a cultural obstacle.

“We wanted to list their names on plaques, but the mission records only listed the Christian names used by the church in its death records,” Poitevan said.

“We consider those slave names,” said Lopez. “It is well documented that the church isolated family members from one another. They beat the men and raped the women. They imprisoned our ancestors and made them slaves.”

Unfortunately, no written record of the Amah Mutsun’s native names exists. Even if it did, uttering those names is a violation as it disturbs the ancestors in the afterlife, Lopez said.

The only other option was to use the numbers by which the dead were listed in the mission records. Deciding a number was too impersonal, Lopez agreed Christian names would tell the story “best” and “most truthfully.”

The memorial was erected at the site of the mass grave in November and funded by Simpkins and Thoits. Its three plaques bear 2,583 names. Not all of those represented on the memorial can be found in the grave, according to Poitevan. Some are still under the church at Mission Hill; others bear the name “unreadable” due to the poor condition of the mission records.

An arrowhead next to a name indicates a Native American. Symbols important to the Amah Mutsun ontology — an acorn, a hummingbird, a butterfly, a condor — also adorn the plaques.

“The condor flies so high and far it can carry messages across the ocean from the living to their ancestors,” Lopez said.

Seven young Aptos blue redwoods have been planted in a circle around the memorial. They will grow four to five feet a year and eventually create a natural cathedral around the final resting place of the 2,436 souls.

“During the mission times, when our people were enslaved, our elders said seven generations of our people would suffer,” Lopez said. “I am that seventh generation.”

Standing at the grave site with young Amah Mutsun tribal members Julisa Lopez and Marissa Gaona on Monday, Lopez expressed his gratitude to Simpkins, Thoits, Poitevan and Franks.

“We honor the contributions and work of these gentlemen and their willingness to reach out to our tribe,” Lopez said. “Now we have another place to honor our history, to perform prayer ceremonies and give thanks — a place to tell our ancestors we’re sorry for what they suffered and how they suffered.”