Leandra’s Lineage

Written by Jonathan Cordero

Over the past two centuries the Ramaytush peoples have been declared extinct. In an interview in the early 1850s, Pedro Alcantara, who was born in 1786 at Ssalaime village of the Cotegen tribe of the Ramaytush peoples, declared, “I am all that is left of my people. I am alone.” ¹

Joseph Evencio, a descendant of Pedro Evencio from the Ssalson tribe, is thought to have survived until the 1930s. Upon his presumed death, scholar Alan K. Brown declared that “the San Mateo County Indians have vanished from among us as completely as any could.”² But in 2005, Jonathan Cordero identified a surviving lineage from the Aramai tribe and Randall Milliken published this information in a report compiled for Golden Gate National Recreation Area.³

Although other families may have survived into the twentieth century, only one lineage of the Ramyatush peoples is known to have produced descendants that are living today. These descendants originate from the Aramai tribal village of Timigtac. Their lineage was carried forward through a sole descendant--their great-granddaughter, Leandra Ventura Ramos, whose children account for four branches of the Ramaytush peoples.

Leandra Ramos married Rafael Robles in 1825 and Eugenio Soto in 1839. Four of her daughters married and had children. These four families comprise the four branches of the current Ramaytush Ohlone tribe.

Jonathan Cordero descends from the Ascencion Soto and Marcus Chavoya line. The family lived in Pleasanton in the mid-1800s then moved to San Luis Obispo in 1886 and finally to Santa Barbara in 1914, where the family has resided since. Dr. Cordero is currently Chairperson of the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone.

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_{¹ Johnston, Adam,1852. "Costanos by Pedro Alcantara," in Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of Indian Tribes of the United States, edited by Henry R. Schoolcraft. Vol. 2.
² Brown, Alan K. 1973-1974. "Indians of San Mateo County." La Peninsula: Journal of the San Mateo County Historical Association 17(4).
³ Randall Milliken at al., 2009. “Ohlone/Costanoan Indians of the San Francisco Peninsula and Their Neighbors, Yesterday and Today,” (Oakland, CA, Archaeological and Historical Consultants)}