While November has formally been Native American Heritage Month since 1990, this year saw the first parade in California to mark the occasion.
The inaugural Native American Heritage Month for the state was declared on November 1st by Governor Gavin Newsom.
California has a larger population of Native American people than any other state in the US, the Governor noted at the time.
Members of at least 109 Tribes reside in the state. The parade marched through downtown Sacramento on Saturday.
Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians chairperson Regina Cuellar said "it's a really historic event".
"Really, educating the public and everybody else that we are still here and we are going to be here. We are a resilient people," she said.
California, like most of the US, has a long history of violence and repression against First Nations people.
John Sutter enslaved Native Americans, forcing them to build Sutter's Fort in 1840.
The state's first governor, Peter Burnett, in 1849 accelerated the campaign of genocide against Native Americans, and the enslavement of survivors.
California was home to 12 of the US's notorious Federal Indian Boarding Schools, known for inhumane treatment of children.
Baltazar Fedalizo, a member of Pow Wow on Parade said, "it's been a long time coming".
The state of California formally apologised to Native Americans in 2019.
The parade on Saturday marched through the Capitol Mall, where until last year a statue of Junipero Serra stood.
Mr Serra, a Spanish Franciscan priest and missionary, came to the Americas in 1749 to pursue the forced conversion of Native Americans to his particular variation of Christianity. His statue was pulled down by protestors in 2020, and officially removed in 2023.
Today, a bronze statue Miwok community leader of William "Bill" Franklin Sr. now stands at Capitol Mall.
California's first Native American state assembly member, James C. Ramos, said as the new statue was unveiled: "We're bringing to light the true injustice that has happened against California Indian people."
Mr Fedalizo said the parade also celebrated some of the political gains made by Native American people in the state.
"Passed AB 1703 the Native American School Act, they made the Miwok statue here, they made the parade here, they passed Public Law 202 to give tribal authority more legislative power on the reservations," he noted.
