California Native History (communities)

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California Native History (communities)



A Short Overview of California Indian History
by Professor Edward Castillo, Professor of History, Sonoma State
University


REGIONAL LIFEWAYS
One manner in which we can seek to understand aboriginal California
Indian cultures is to look at the tribes inhabiting similar climatic
and ecological zones. What emerges from this approach is a remarkable
similarity in material aspects of the many different tribes inhabiting
those territories. Generally speaking technologies and materials used
to manufacture tools, homes and storage containers show great
similarity. Hunting, trapping and fishing technologies also are shared
across tribal lines terrain, available water plants and animals affected
the density of populations, settlement patterns as each tribe adjusted
to its environment.
NORTHWEST
This area would include the Tolowa, Shasta, Karok, Yurok, Hupa,
Whilikut, Chilula, Chimarike and Wiyot tribes. The distinctive northern
rainforest environment encouraged these tribes to establish their
villages along the many rivers, lagoons and coastal bays that dotted
their landscape. While this territory was crisscrossed with thousands of
trails, the most efficient form of transportation was the dugout canoe
used to travel up and down rivers and cross the wider and deeper ones
such as the Klamath. These tribes used the great coast Redwood trees for
the manufacture of their boats and houses. Redwoods were cleverly
felled by burning at the base and then split with elkhorn wedges.
Redwood and sometimes cedar planks were used to construct rectangular
gabled homes. Baskets in a variety of designs were manufactured in with
the twined technique only. Many of these arts survived into the
twentieth century and traditional skills have enjoyed a great
renaissance in the past twenty years.
The elaborate ritual life of these tribes featured a World Renewal
ceremony held each fall in the largest villages. Sponsored by the
wealthiest men in the communities, the ceremony's purpose was to prevent
future natural catastrophes such as earthquakes, floods or failure of
acorn crop or a poor salmon run. Supplication to supernatural spirits.
Because such disasters directly threaten the community, great attention
to detail and the utmost solemnity accompanied such ceremonies. This and
other traditional rituals continue to be practiced, despite the grinding
poverty that plagues many of these groups.
These tribes were governed by the most wealthy and powerful lineage
leaders. The great emphasis on wealth found in these cultures is
reflected in the emphasis on private ownership of food resources such as
oak groves and fishing areas.
NORTHEAST
This region included the Modoc, Achumawi, and Atsugewi tribes. The
western portion of this territory was rich in acorn and Salmon. Further
to the East, the climate changes from mountainous to a high desert type
of topography. Here food resources were grass seeds, tuber berries along
with rabbit and deer.
These Indians found tule to be a useful source of both food (the
rootbulb is consumed) and a convenient material when laced together to
form floor mats and structure covering. Volcanic mountains in the
Western portion of their territory supplied the valuable trade commodity
obsidian. The Social-political organization of these peoples was
independent but connected to their neighbors by marriage ties. Following
contact, the Achumawi and Atsuguewi suffered a tremendous population
decline due to vigilante violence and respiratory diseases. The Modocs
spectacular 1872 resistance to removal to the Oregon territory was the
last heroic military defense of native sovereignty in 19th century
California Indian History.
Some surviving Northeast tribesmen received public land allotments
around the turn of the century. The XL Rancheria was established for
some of these Indians in 1938. Tragically the surviving Modocs were
exiled to either Oregon or Oklahoma.
CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
This vast territory includes: Bear River, Mattale, Lassick, Nogatl,
Wintun, Yana, Yahi, Maidu, Wintun, Sinkyone, Wailaki, Kato, Yuki, Pomo,
Lake Miwok, Wappo, Coast Miwok, Interior Miwok, Wappo, Coast Miwok,
Interior Miwok, Monache, Yokuts, Costanoan, Esselen, Salinan and
Tubatulabal tribes.
Vast differences exists between the coastal peoples, nearby mountain
range territories, from those living in the vast central valleys and on
the slopes of the Sierra Nevada. Nevertheless, all of these tribes
enjoyed an abundance of acorn and salmon that could be readily obtained
in the waterways north of Monterey Bay. Deer, elk, antelope and rabbit
were available elsewhere in vast quantities.
In this region basketry reached the height of greatest variety. Perhaps
the Pomo basket makers created the most elaborate versions of this art.
Both coiled and twine type baskets were produced throughout the region.
Fortunately basket making survived the years of suppression of native
arts and culture to once again become one of the most important
culturally defining element for Indians in this region.
Common in this area was the semi-subterranean roundhouse where elaborate
Kuksu dances were held in the past and continue to this day. These
rituals assure the renewal of the world's natural foods both plant and
animal. Despite differences, between tribes, these rituals share similar
purposes.
Like everywhere else, in California, villages were fiercely independent
and governed internally, The abundant food supply allowed for the
establishment of villages of up to 1000 individuals, including craft
specialists who produced specific objects and goods for a living. In
smaller communities, each family produced all that was necessary for
survival.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Southern California presents a varied and somewhat unique region of the
state. Beginning in the north, tribes found in this area are the
Chumash, Alliklik, Kitanemuk, Serrano, Gabrielino, Luiseno, Cahuilla and
the Kumeyaay. The landmass and climate varied considerably from the
windswept offshore channelIslands that were principally inhabited by
Chumash speaking peoples. Communication with their mainland neighbors
was by large and graceful planked canoes powered by double paddle ores.

These vessels were called "Tomols" and manufactured by a secretive guild
of craftsmen. They could carry hundreds of pounds of trade goods and up
to a dozen passengers. Like their northern neighbors, the Tactic
speaking peoples of San Nicholas and Santa Catalina Islands built
planked canoes and actively traded rich marine resources with mainland
villages and tribes.
Shoreline communities enjoyed the rich animal and faunal life of ocean,
bays and wetlands environments. Interior tribes like the Serrano,
Luiseno, Cahuilla, and Kumeyaay shared an environment rich in Sonoran
life zone featuring vast quantities of rabbit, deer and an abundance of
acorn, seeds and native grasses. At the higher elevations Desert Bighorn
sheep were hunted.
Villages varied in size from poor desert communities with villages of as
little as 100 people to the teaming Chumash villages with over a
thousand inhabitants. Conical homes of arroweed, tule or croton were
common, while whale bone structures could be found on the coast and
nearby Channel Islands. Interior groups manufactured clay storage
vessels sometimes decorated with paint. Baskets were everywhere
manufactured with unique designs.
Catalina Island possessed a soapstone or steatite quarry. This unique
stone was soft and could easily be carved with cutting tools and shaped
into vessels, pipes and cooking slabs.
Each tribe and community had a chieftain, sometimes females, whose duty
it was to organize community events and settle conflicts among their
followers. This leader was usually assisted by a crier or assistant,
Shaman or Indian doctors were known everywhere and greatly respected.
The ritual use of the hallucinogen jimsonweed (Datura meteloides) was
primarily in male puberty rituals. Like other California Indian
communities, society was divided into three classes, the elite, a middle
class and finally a less successful lower class. These robust peoples
were among the first to encounter the strangers who would change their
world forever.
HISTORY
The Spanish entrada into Alta California was the last great expansions
of Spain's vastly over extended empire in North America. Massive Indian
revolts among the Pueblo Indians of the Rio Grande in the late 17th
century provided the Franciscan padres with an argument to establish
missions relatively free from colonial settlers. Thus California and its
Spanish Colonization would be different from earlier efforts to
simultaneously introduce missionaries and colonists in their world
conquest schemes. Organized by the driven Franciscan administrator
Junipero Serra and military authorities under Gaspar de Portola, they
journeyed to San Diego in 1769 to establish the first of 21 coastal
missions.
Despite romantic portraits of California missions they were essentially
coercive religious, labor camps organized primarily to benefit the
colonizers. The overall plan was to first militarily intimidate the
local
Indians with armed Spanish soldiers who always accompanied the
Franciscans in their missionary efforts. At the same time the newcomers
introduced domestic stock animals that gobbled up native foods and
undermined the free or "gentile" tribes efforts to remain economically
independent.
A well established pattern of bribes, intimidation and the expected
onslaught of European diseases insured experienced missionaries that
eventually desperate parents of sick and dying children and many elders
would prompt frightened Indian families to seek assistance from the
newcomers who seemed to be immune to the horrible diseases that
overwhelmed Indians. The missions were authorized by the crown to
"convert" the Indians in a ten-year period. Thereafter they were
supposed to surrender their control over the missions' livestock,
fields, orchards and building to the Indians. But the padres never
achieved this goal and the lands and wealth was stolen from the Indians.

Epidemic diseases proved to be the most significant factor in colonial
efforts to overcome native resistance. Soon after the arrival of Spanish
colonists, new diseases appeared among the tribes in close proximity
Spanish missions. Scientific studies of demographic trends during this
period indicate the Indians of the America's did not possess any natural
immunity to introduced European diseases.
Maladies such as smallpox, syphilis, diphtheria and even children's'
ailments such as chickenpox and measles caused untold suffering and
death among Indians near the Spanish centers of population. Even before
the outbreak of epidemics, a general population decline was recorded
that can be attributed to the unhygienic environment of colonial
population centers. A series of murderous epidemic diseases swept over
the terrified mission Indian populations.
Beginning in 1777 a voracious epidemic likely associated with a water
born bacterial infection devastated Santa Clara Valley Costanoan
children. Again children were the primary victims of a second epidemic
of pneumonia and diphtheria expended from Monterey to Los Angeles was
recorded in 1802. By far the worst of these terrifying epidemics began
in 1806 and killed thousands of Indian children and adults. It has been
identified as measles and attacked Indian populations from San Francisco
to the central coast settlement of Santa Barbara.
Sadly, the missionary practice of forcibly separating Indian children
from their parents and incarcerating children from the age of six in
filthy and disease ridden gender barracks most likely increased the
suffering and death of above mentioned epidemics. Excessive manual labor
demands of the missionaries and poor nutrition probably contributed to
the Indians inability to resist such infections. Less easily measured
damage to mission Indian tribes occurred as they vainly struggled to
understand the biological tragedy that was overwhelming them. Faith in
their traditional shaman suffered when native efforts were ineffective
in stemming the tide of misery, suffering and death that life in the
missions resulted in.
With monotonous regularity, missionaries and other colonial officials
reported upon the massive death and poor health of their Indian
laborers. Pioneering demographer Sherburne F. Cook conducted exhaustive
studies and concluded that perhaps as much as 60% of the population
decline of mission Indians was due to introduced diseases.
NATIVE RESISTANCE
The unrelenting labor demands, forced separation of children from their
parents and unending physical coercion that characterized the life of
Indians under padre's authority resulted in several well-documented
forms of Indian resistance. Within the missions, the so-called
"converts" continued to surreptitiously worship their old deities as
well as conduct native dances and rituals in secret. By far the most
frequent form of mission Indian resistance was fugativism.
While thousands of the 81,586 baptized Indians temporarily fled their
missions, more that one out of 24 successfully escaped the plantation
like mission labor camps. Many Mission Indians viewed the padres as
powerful witches who could only be neutralized by assassination.
Consequently, several assassinations occurred. At Mission San Miguel in
the year of 1801 three padres were poisoned, one of whom died as a
result. Four years later another San Miguel Yokut male attempted to
stone a padre to death,
In 1804, a San Diego Padre was poisoned by his personal cook Costanoan
Indians at Mission Santa Cruz, in 1812, killed a padre for introducing a
new instrument of torture which he unwisely announced he planned to use
on some luckless neophytes awaiting a beating. Few contemporaries
Americans know of the widespread armed revolts precipitated by Mission
Indians against colonial authorities. The Kumeyaay of San Diego launched
two serious military assaults against the missionaries and their
military escorts within five weeks of their arrival in 1769.
Desperate to stop an ugly pattern of sexual assaults, the Kumeyaay
utterly destroyed Mission San Diego and killed the local padre in 1775.
Quechan and Mohave Indians along the Colorado River to the east
destroyed two missions, killed four missionaries and numerous other
colonists in a spectacular uprising in 1781. This last rebellion
permanently denied the only overland route into Alta California from
Northern New Spain (Mexico) to Spanish authorities.
Military efforts to reopen the road and punish the Indians were met with
utter failure. The last great mission Indian revolt occurred in 1824
when disenchanted Chumash Indians violently overthrew mission control at
Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez and La Purisima. Santa Barbara was sacked and
abandoned while Santa Ynez Chumash torched 3/4 of the buildings before
fleeing. Defiant Chumash at La Purisima in fact seized that mission and
fought a pitched battle with colonial troops while a significant number
of other Chumash escaped deep into the interior of the Southern San
Joaquin Valley. After 1810 a growing number of guerrilla bands evolved
in the interior when fugitive mission Indians allied with interior
tribes and villages. Mounted on horses and using modern weapons, they
began raiding mission livestock and fighting colonial military forces.
The impact of the mission system on the many coastal tribes was
devastating. Missionaries required tribes to abandon their aboriginal
territories and live in filthy, disease ridden and crowded labor camps.
Massive herds on introduced stock animals and new seed crops soon
crowded out aboriginal game animals and native plants. Feral hogs ate
tons of raw acorns, depriving even the non-missionized tribes in the
interior of a significant amount of aboriginal protein.
Murderous waves of epidemic diseases swept over the terrified Mission
Indian tribes resulting in massive suffering and death for thousands of
native men, women and children. The short life expectancy of mission
Indians prompted missionaries to vigorously pursue runaways and coerce
interior tribes into supplying more and more laborers for the padres.
Missionary activities therefore thoroughly disrupted not only coastal
tribes, but also their demand for healthy laborers seriously impacted
adjacent interior tribes.

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Finally by 1836 the Mexican Republic forcibly stripped the padres of the
power to coerce labor from the Indians and the mission rapidly
collapsed. About 100,000 or nearly a third of the aboriginal population
of California died as a direct consequence of the missions of
California.
Despite the devastating population decline suffered by tribes in whose
territories missions had been established, many managed to maintain
tribal cohesion. After 1800, most mission populations were a hodgepodge
of different tribes speaking a multiplicity of languages. Because many
Indians refused to learn or feigned ignorance of the Spanish language,
missionaries appointed labor overseers from each tribe to direct work
crews. Such practical policies kept tribesmen from losing culturally
distinct identity. Further evidence of cultural persistence was the
practice of tribes maintaining separate housing in multi-tribal Indian
villages built next to the missions. Finally, many former mission
Indians continued to speak their native languages and provide
researchers with detailed ethnographic and linguistic data well into the
20th century.
INDIANS AND THE MEXICAN REPUBLIC
In 1823 the Spanish Flag was replaced by that of the Mexican Republic.
Little immediate change in personal or Indian policy occurred. However,
the independence government was decidedly anti-clerical and the growing
body of colonial leaders deeply resented the monopoly of Indian lands
and the unpaid Indian labor enjoyed by the Franciscans. While no land
grants to the colonists had occurred under Spanish rule, some 25 grazing
permits or concessions had been issued to colonial citizens.
This was the beginning of the dispossession of tribal lands by colonial
authorities. The vast plantation like missions claimed about 1/6 of the
present territory of the state. But legal title to these lands was
assigned to the Spanish crown. The missions were only suppose to last 10
years, after which the developed estates were to be distributed to
surviving mission Indians. It was assumed that the Indians would evolve
into hardworking, tax-paying citizens of Mexico.
But the missionaries kept coming up with excuses why they should not
surrender the rich pastoral and agrarian empire they had erected with
the lands, resources and hard labor of mission Indians. The Mexican
Republic's 1824 constitution declared Indians to be citizens with rights
to both vote and hold public office. Despite this liberal declaration,
Indians throughout the republic continued to be treated as slaves.
COLLAPSE OF THE MISSION SYSTEM
In actual practice, the new government gave 51 land grants to its
colonial citizens between 1824 and 1834. These lands actually belonged
to various tribes then incarcerated in nearby missions. These actions
just increased the lust for more Indian lands by a growing body of
colonial ranchers.
There followed a growing chorus of demands that the missionaries
surrender their monopoly on Indian labor and "free" the Indians. The
sincerity those sentiments should be seriously doubted. The power of
this class prevailed and between 1834-36 the government revoked the
power of the Franciscans to extract labor from the Indians and
inaugurated a plan to distribute mission lands. Venal public officials
in charge of the distribution granted the most valuable lands to
themselves and their relatives.
The secularization processes, it was called, was so restrictive that few
ex-mission Indians were eligible for the distributed lands. More
significant still, the majority of surviving mission Indians were not
native to the areas of coastal missions. Most neophytes at this time had
been forced to relocate from their tribal domains and promptly returned
to them following their liberation.
Many of these returned exiles were faced with difficult tasks of
reconstructing their decimated communities in the wake of crippling
population declines. Furthermore their tribal lands had become
transformed by the introduction of vast herds of horses, cattle, sheep,
goats and hogs that destroyed the native flora, the primary source of
native diet.
Wild game animals were likewise driven off by these new animals. What
developed from this new condition was the emergence of guerrilla Indian
bands made-up of former fugitive mission Indians and interior tribesmen
from villages devastated by official and unofficial Mexican paramilitary
attacks and slave hunting raids. Eventually a significant number of
these interior groups joined together to form new conglomerate tribes.
These innovative and resilient tribes quickly converted the anti-mission
activities of their members into systematic efforts to re-assert their
sovereignty by widespread and highly organized campaigns against Mexican
ranchers and government authority in general.
Vastly overestimating their power, Mexican authorities authorized
additional 762 land grants by 1847. In reality the effectiveness of
Indian stock raiders increased dramatically when American and Canadian
fur trappers provided a lucrative market for purloined horses by the mid
1830's. Interior Mexican ranches were increasingly abandoned in the face
of economic ruin by native stock raiding activities.
Even Johann A. Sutter was reduced to begging the Mexican government to
buy his fort following a mauling at the hands of Miwok Indians near the
Calaveras in June of 1846.Despite these successes, a series of murderous
epidemics in the twilight years of the Mexican era severely reduced the
interior population.
For instance, in 1833 an American party of fur trappers introduced a
murderous scourge of malaria into the Sacramento and San Joaquin River
drainages. While traversing the epicenter of the plague, J. J. Warner
reported, "From the head of the Sacramento to the great bend and slough
of the San Joaquin we did not see more than six or eight live Indians;
while large numbers of their skulls and dead bodies were seen under
almost every shade tree near the water, where the uninhabited and
deserted villages had been converted into graveyards."
In this tragedy more than 20,000 Central Valley Miwok, Yokuts, Wintun,
and Maidu Indians perished. A new outbreak of small pox devastated Coast
Miwok, Pomo, Wappo, and Wintun tribes. Approximately 2000 died in this
1837 epidemic originating from Fort Ross. By 1840 these and other
murderous maladies had so thoroughly saturated the Indian population of
Mexican California that diseases became endemic. Mexican forced labor
and violence at the hands of the militia and paramilitary slave hunting
parties account for a significant amount of the population decline
suffered by California Indians.
On the eve of the American take-over the aboriginal population of
approximately 310,000 had been reduced to about 150,000. This gut
wrenching 50% decline had occurred in just 77 years. The implications
for survivors are largely a mute tale of suffering and grieving over the
loss of a stunning number of children, parents and elders. What came
next was worse still.
THE AMERICAN INVASION
Alta California the poorly managed and badly neglected stepchild of
Mexico was rapidly overwhelmed by a combination of aggressive Indian
raids and the arrival of United States Army, Navy and Marine forces in
the summer of 1846. Despite a seemingly irrational murderous attack on
Sacramento River Maidu Indian villages by U.S. Army forces under the
command of John C. Fremont, the majority of California Indians involved
in that struggle aided the Americans as scouts, warrior-soldiers and
wranglers.
When Mexican resistance collapsed in January of 1847, thereafter Indian
Affairs was administered by a succession of military governors. Stock
raiding Indians in the interior recommenced their depredations when they
learned Indian slavers such as Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo and Johann A.
Sutter had been appointed as Indian sub-agents. Military government's
policy was to suppress stock raiding and furthermore imposed draconian
restrictions on the free movement of Indians and required Indians to
carry certificates of employment.
THE GOLD RUSH
The discovery of gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada at a sawmill
construction site developed by Indian Agent Johann Sutter, ushered in
one of the darkest episodes of dispossession widespread sexual assault
and mass murder against the native people of California. Sutter
immediately negotiated a treaty with the chief of the Coloma Nisenan
Tribe, which would have given a three-year lease to lands surrounding
the gold discovery site.
During those negotiations, the chief prophetically warned Sutter that
the yellow metal he so eagerly sought was, "very bad medicine. It
belonged to a demon who devoured all who searched for it". Eventually
the military governor refused to endorse Sutter's self-serving actions.
Within a year a hoard of 100,000 adventurers from all over the world
descended upon the native peoples of California with catastrophic
results. The entire state was scoured by gold seekers. Thinly spread
government officials were overwhelmed by this unprecedented deluge of
immigrants and all effective authority collapsed. Military authorities
could not prevent widespread desertion of soldiers and chaos reigned.
A virtual reign of terror enveloped tribesmen the mining districts.
Wanton killings and violence against Indians resisting miners developed
into a deadly pattern. An Oustemah Nisenan female named Betsy later
recalled, "A life of ease and peace was interrupted when I was a little
girl by the arrival of the white men. Each day the population increased
and the Indians feared the invaders and great consternation prevailed
.... as gold excitement advanced, we were moved again and again, each
time in haste. Indian children.... when taken into town would blacken
their faces with dirt so the newcomers would not steal them.... "
Numerous vigilante type paramilitary troops were established whose
principal occupation seems to have been to kill Indians and kidnap their
children. Groups such as the Humboldt Home Guard, the Eel River
Minutemen and the Placer Blades among others terrorized local Indians
and caused the premier 19th century historian Hubert Howe Bancroft to
describe them as follows.
"The California valley cannot grace her annals with a single Indian war
bordering on respectability. It can, however, boast a hundred or two of
as brutal butchering, on the part of our honest miners and brave
pioneers, as any area of equal extent in our republic......"
The handiwork of these well-armed death squads combined with the
widespread random killing of Indians by individual miners resulted in
the death of 100,000 Indians in the first two years of the gold rush. A
staggering loss of two thirds of the population. Nothing in American
Indian history is even remotely comparable to this massive orgy of theft
and mass murder. Stunned survivors now perhaps numbering fewer than
70,000 teetered near the brink of total annihilation.
The newcomers sometimes met organized Indian resistance. In 1850 a
Cupe–o chief named Antonio Garra Sr. organized local Southern California
Indians to resist an illegal tax imposed upon San Diego Indians by the
county sheriff. Sporadic attacks upon both Americans and some Mexicans
by Garra's followers resulted in a massive crackdown on Indian
communities. Soon a rival Cahuilla chief captured Garra and turned him
over to the authorities who promptly hung him and several of his
followers.
In 1851 several mountain Miwok tribes offered armed resistance to the
hoard of miners overrunning their territory. When one tribe destroyed a
trading post owned by an American who kept at least 12 Indian "wives" a
paramilitary militia was formed and aggressively attacked Indians
throughout the southern mines area. Eventually this group calling itself
the "Mariposa Battalion" breached the unknown granite fortress of the
valley of Yosemite. A ruthless campaign against the Yosemite Indians
resulted in the capture of their Chief Teneya and a temporary exile to
the San Joaquin River "Indian Farm".
In reality these Indian campaigns were motivated by rapacious greed of
the miners to gain Indian lands and provide political capitol for
ambitious office seekers. Sadly both the state and federal government
eventually reimbursed the vast majority of these paramilitary forays for
expenses incurred. This is indeed a dreary story of subsidized murder on
a scale unequaled in all of this country's Indian wars.
TREATY MAKING AND TREATY REJECTION
In 1849 Washington sent two special emissaries to California to report
on the nature of Mexico's recognition of Indian land titles in
California. Neither spoke to a single Indian and eventually produced an
ambiguous and inaccurate report to the great disadvantage of the
Indians.
Upon this misinformation, and in an attempt to stem the unprecedented
chaos and mass murder of the gold miners confrontation with the
California Indians, Congress authorized three federal officials to make
treaties with the California Indians.
Their purpose was to extinguish Indian land titles and provide the
Indians with territories that would be protected from encroachment by
non-Indians. They were given just $25,000 to accomplish this monumental
task.
Soon after their arrival in San Francisco in January of 1851, the
enormous size of territory prompted the commissioners to split up and
negotiate treaties on their own. The reports and correspondence of the
treaty commissioners clearly demonstrate that the suspicious and
reluctant Indians who could be persuaded to attend the treaty meetings
were only vaguely aware of its purpose.

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This can be attributed to the frequent problems of translators who often
had to translate several Indian dialects into Spanish and again into
English. Few if any of the Indians could understand English. The random
manner in which the commissioners organized the meetings resulted in the
majority of tribes not participating. Despite these crippling drawbacks,
the treaty process proceeded until January 5th of 1852.
In all, eighteen treaties were negotiated. The treaties agreed to set
aside certain tracts of land for the signatory tribes. They additionally
promised the assistance of farmers, school teachers, blacksmiths, stock
animals, seeds and agricultural equipment, cloth and much more. In
return the signatory tribes promised to forever quitclaim to the United
States their lands.
Just what specific lands being surrendered were not specified.
Anthropologists in the 20th century could only identify 67 tribes, 45
village names and 14 alternative spellings of tribal names. Eighteen
groups were unidentifiable. Despite the obvious fact that not all
California Indian tribes had been consulted or contacted they too would
be bound by the negotiations. Nevertheless, the federal government
promised to reserve 7,466,000 acres of land to the dispossessed Indians,

An immediate outcry from an enraged public followed the completion of
the commissionerÕs task. It was revealed that the commissioners had
overspent their budget by a half a million dollars in the incredibly
inflated economy of gold rush California. Local newspapers orchestrated
an abusive campaign and local politicians echoed the fears of their
compassionate electorate that the treaty reserves might contain
something valuable, like gold.
Most Americans simply wanted the Indians removed to some other territory
or state. California's newly elected state senators provided the final
blow. On July 8, 1852 the Senate in executive session refused to ratify
the treaties. They were filed with an injunction of secrecy that was
finally removed in 1905!
Meanwhile, Congress had created a commission to validate land tittles in
California. The commission was required by law to both inform the
Indians that it would be necessary to file claims for their lands and
report upon the nature of these claims. Because no one bothered to
inform the Indians of these requirements, no claims were submitted.
Through this neat trick, the federal government "legally" avoided the
normally lengthy and duplicitous negotiations over land sessions.The
practical result was the complete dispossession of the Indians in the
eyes of the government. Despite this chicanery, several tribes would
violently and later legally contest these frauds to defend their
territory, homes and families.
From the native viewpoint, signatories of the treaties had agreed to
move to specific locations promised in the treaties. Yet such attempts
often met with violent attacks by miners and others opposed to the very
existence of Indians. Non-treaty groups simply endured the madness and
race hatred of those waging a merciless war against them. Most tribes
did their best to withdraw from all contact with the mayhem overwhelming
them.
A HARSH STATE GOVERNMENT
The formation of the state government proved to be an official
instrument of the oppressive mentality of the miner's militia. In
Governor McDougall first address to the legislature he promised, "a war
of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the
Indian race becomes extinct...."
Despite guarantees in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Indians were
denied state citizenship, voting rights and more important still, the
right to testify in court. These acts effectively removed all legal
redress for native peoples and left them to the mercy of anyone who
chose to sexual assault, kidnap even murder them. Despite entering the
union as a free state in 1850, the California legislature rapidly
enacted a series of laws legalizing Indian slavery.
One of the laws sanctioned an indenture system similar to Mexican
peonage in widespread practice throughout California prior to 1850. All
levels of state, county and local governments participated in this ugly
practice that evolved into a heartless policy of killing Indian parents
and kidnapping and indenturing the victims children. Indian youth could
be enslaved by the cruel act to the age of 30 for males and 25 for
females. This barbarous law was finally repealed four years after
President Lincoln's emancipation proclamation in 1863.
The federal government finally decided to establish an Indian policy in
California in 1854 when Edward F. Beale was appointed Superintendent of
Indian Affairs for California. Beale quickly established a prototype
Indian preserve within the boundaries of the Army's military reserve in
the Southern San Joaquin Valley, called Fort Tejon. The site was chosen
because of the continuing problem of local horse raiding by Southern
California Indians. Yokut, Gabrielino and Kitanemuk tribesmen were
gathered together on this barren 50,000-acre parcel call San Sebastian.

Beale's instruction from Washington authorized him to establish four
additional reserves with a $250,000 budget. Apparently Beale squandered
his entire allocation on less than 200 Indians at San Sebastian. This
action becomes comprehensible only when it is known that within a
decade, Beale wound up owning much of that short-lived reserve. His
behavior in office set the standard for decades of widespread corruption
and incompetence that distinguishes the Bureau of Indian Affairs in
California and elsewhere.
Following Beale's removal from office in 1856, Col. T.J. Henely
established Indian Reserves on the Klamath River, Nome Lackee near
Colusa, Nome Cult (Round Valley) and the Mendocino Reserve at the mouth
of the Noyo River on the coast. The latter two were both located in
Mendocino County.
These hastily organized communities provided little in the way of
support or even minimal refuge for native peoples cajoled to move there.
These unsurveyed reserves lacked game, suitable agricultural lands and
water. They soon became overrun with white squatters who systematically
corrupted the Indians and introduced an epidemic of venereal diseases.
More unsatisfactory still, were Indian Farms located on lands rented
from newcomers now holding legal title to said lands.
The Fresno and Kings River Indian Farms were established in the
south-eastern San Joaquin Valley along the rivers of the same name.
Federal records clearly show these farms provided only a handful of
Indians homes, the majority completely lacked cultivation, but they did
provide paychecks for the superintendentsÕ friends and political
cronies. The majority of these early reserves and Indian Farms were
abandoned in the 1860's due to the state's Indian slavery codes that
allowed all able bodied males, females and even children to be
indentured to white citizens.
A great many reservation residents could not participate in the
agricultural and ranching programs because their labor "belonged" to
private state citizens. Frequently, federal and Indian agents themselves
indentured his wards for personal enrichment. Government records for
this period show that fewer than 3000 of the less than 70,000 surviving
California Indians received recognition let alone provisions for
reservations. South of the Tehachapi Mountains California Indians
remained totally ignored by Washington. So what were the vast majority
of Indians doing during this period?
LATE 19TH CENTURY ADAPTATION AND RESISTANCE
The vast majority of California Indians struggled to survive without
government aid or recognition. Many on the verge of actual starvation
dispersed throughout their territories and sought to support themselves
through agriculture and ranch labor for the new "owners" of California.
This was a traditional pattern of behavior when drought and other
natural catastrophes struck.
Deprived of land and their life sustaining resources, they were left
with no other options. With a few notable exceptions, the mass murder of
the Gold Rush era diminished, as Indian victims became scarce and
survivors learned to avoid Americans whenever possible.
The great hardships of this adaptation were made bearable with the
development of a messianic cult movement called the Ghost Dance of 1870.
In part triggered by the introduction of Christian missionary
activities, this new religious movement was pan-tribal in nature and
obviously a response to the massive population decline. The movement
promised the return of dead relatives and the disappearance of the
oppressors. It was most desperately embraced by those tribes who had
most recently suffered great population declines.
Despite lasting only a few years, it was fundamental in revitalizing
intra-tribal religious integration. In short, it provided hope for the
nearly hopeless situation Indian found themselves confronted with.
The last organized violent reaction to dispossession and federal Indian
policy erupted between 1860-1872. The first was a series of Indian wars
in Northwestern California. Here Yurok, Karok, Hupa and other tribes
fought the increasingly paranoid and aggressive Americans who routinely
murdered them, stole their children and burned their villages. Jack
Norton, a Hupa historian characterized the situation as a "deranged
frontier". Attempts to disarm Indians and continued kidnapping for
sexual slavery quickly led to violent resistance. In 1858, the militia
established a fort in the Hupa Valley to make war on the Wilkut and
Chilula tribes. Many members of those tribes had been captured and
deported to the Mendocino Reservation.
Frustrated by the stiff resistance of interior groups, the militia found
it easier to murder nearby inoffensive peaceful and non-hostile Indians.
The notorious Indian Island massacre in Humbolt Bay was the bitter fruit
of that race hatred. Eventually some Hupa Indians agreed to assist the
soldiers in hunting their hostile neighbors. Despite this defection,
several bands of Hupa joined the hostiles and effectively resisted until
1864 when they surrendered. This led to the establishment of the Hupa
Valley Reservation in August of 1864.
Because both state and federal authorities seriously underestimated the
number of surviving California Indians, plans to remove all Indians to
the handful of reservations already established, proved impractical.
Several attempts to place multiple tribes on single reservations
frequently resulted in violence, mass murder and war. The Modoc war of
1872 was caused by such a policy that insisted the Modocs be deported
out of California to the Klamath Reservation in Oregon. Driven twice
from that reserve, a third attempt to deport the Modocs back to Klamath
resulted in a stunning war in 1872.
The Indian service removed the Konkow Indians of Chico and the Atsugewi
of Shasta County to the Round Valley Reservation in 1862. Squatters
overrunning the Reservation descended upon these unfortunate tribesmen
and murdered 45 of them. The mob justified its actions by claiming the
Indians might steal food from the squatters. Survivors fled in terror
back to Chico, only to be again removed to Round Valley sometime
afterwards.
The BIA showed little interest in assisting such tribes. Those lucky
enough to have reservations established in the aboriginal territories
were understandably reluctant to share the scant advantages they enjoyed
with newly arrived émigré tribes. Also true was the fact that no tribes
desired to be relocated outside of their aboriginal territories. After
all, each tribeÕs creation story emphasized the sacred nature of its own
particular landscape. Tradition emphasized territorially and to stray
from it required one to steal food resources from neighboring tribes.
Non-Indians could not fathom the intensity and depth of the Indians
spiritual attachment to their territories.
A steady population decline accompanied by widespread reports of
destitution and hunger haunted those tribes without reserved lands.
Despite hardship encountered, survival demanded innovation and
adaptation. Being driven to the edge of extinction, Indians demonstrated
again and again a strong will to survive. That determination not
withstanding, the widespread kidnapping, slavery and violence took a
frightful toll on tribesmen and their cultures. Leadership lineage's
became scattered and displaced. Many ceremonies could no longer be held
because access to sacred places was now denied. Cultural mandates to
feed ceremonial guests could no longer be achieved by those who
otherwise were able to hold public rituals. Finally, Christian
missionaries gained control at many reservations under President Grant's
Peace Policy of 1869. These folks were determined to destroy Indian
culture and aboriginal belief systems that undergirded it.
The California superintendency attracted a succession of special
investigators caused by constant reports of corruption that reached
Washington. Special reports conducted in 1858, 1867 and 1883 clearly and
thoroughly document the corruption and inefficiency plaguing government
programs for Indians. President Grant's Peace Policy of 1869 inaugurated
an era of acculturation under duress. Policy makers in the government
declared the only path of salvation for surviving Indians would be
Christianization, along with the adaptation of private ownership of'
property.
Once these twin goals were realized Indians would be rewarded with
citizenship and take their place among the lower classes with other
non-whites in American society. Reservation agents insisted their
residents join churches and cease practicing the old ways. The General
Allotment Act of 1887 forcibly divided reservation tribal lands, doling
out small parcels to individual Indians and their families. If the
allotee built a house, engaged in farming or ranching, sent his children
to government Indian schools and renounced his tribal allegiance and
otherwise pleased the agent, he would (after 25 years) receive title to
his land and citizenship. Unlike tribal lands, these parcels would
become taxable. The program was inaugurated in California in 1893.
By 1930 approximately 2,300 allotments had been carved out of the tiny
communal tribal reservation lands. Traditional Indians opposed the
detribalizing goals of allotment. The uneven and unequal distribution of
allotments was used by Indian agents to keep tribal populations divided
and politically impotent.
Nevertheless, considerable tribal resistance and pan-tribal organizing
developed in opposition to allotment. The program ground to a halt in
1930 due to Indian opposition and failure of BIA to complete the
necessary paperwork. The law was repealed in 1934. Thousands of acres of
California
Indian lands and millions of acres nationally were lost to this
destructive and ill-conceived policy.
PAN-INDIAN GROUPS, LANDLESS INDIANS, AND RANCHERIAS
Several hundred individual land allotments were distributed to
California Indians from public lands found principally in northern
California. Often times these were isolated havens from hostile
neighbors. Many were assigned to clusters of individuals who were
related by kinship and are likely core tribal members who otherwise hand
no lands. The tribal communities often held traditional ceremonies and
participated in those of their more fortunate reservation Indians.
Southern California Indians were finally provided with recognition when
several parcels of their former tribal domains were set aside by
executive order beginning in 1873 with the establishment of the Tule
River Indian Reservation. Fourteen Southern California Indian
Reservations were set aside by executive orders beginning in 1891 and
amended in 1898. Unfortunately Indians in both Orange and Los Angeles
counties were excluded from land distributions due in part to the value
of coastal real estate. Nevertheless small tribes from this area
participated in pan Indian organizations.Reduced to severe destitution
the majority of Indians struggled to support their families as landless
laborers.
Only 6,536 Indians were recognized and living on reservations about the
turn of the century. Every Indian who survived to see the dawn of the
20th century had witnessed great suffering and the irreplaceable loss of
numerous grandparents, mothers, fathers and children. Some lineage's
disappeared altogether. The nadir had been reached. Demographer S.F,
Cook determined the California Indian population declined to fewer than
16,000 individuals in 1900. This figure represents a gut wrenching
descent from over 300,000 into a vortex of massive death in just 131
years of colonization! These staggering losses prompted non-Indians of
good will to assist Indian tribes in efforts to secure lands for the
still numerous landless Indians.
Several Indian reform groups blossomed before and after the turn of the
century. One of their earliest successes was a long legal effort to
prevent the Cupa Indians from being dispossessed of their ancestral
village of Warners Hot Springs. While losing the legal case, Cupa
Indians and their allies managed to secure lands on the nearby Pala
Indian Reservation in San Diego County. More important for the majority
of landless Indians were the efforts of the Northern California Indian
Association that goaded the BIA into enumerating landless Indians in
1905.

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The result of the survey and political pressure from Indians and their
friends resulted in federal actions creating 36 new reservations and
Rancherias in 16 Northern California counties. Rancherias were very
small parcels of land aimed at provided homesites only for small bands
of landless Indians. They are all located in Northern California.
Unfortunately the BIA's investigator failed to visit 12 other counties,
thus ignoring the luckless Indians in those areas. Between 1933 and 1941
Congress authorized the enlargement of several Southern California
reservations by 6492 acres. No rancherias or homesites were made
available for landless Southern California Indians.
Important developments occurred as a result of political activism on the
part of both tribes and pan-Indian organizations from 1921 to the
present. Beginning with the early efforts of the Indian Board of
Cooperation, numerous California Indians self-help organizations and
tribes pushed for a lawsuit over the failure of the United States to
compensate the Indians of California for the loss of their aboriginal
lands. Congress relented and passed the Jurisdictional Act of 1928. This
legislation allowed the Indians to sue the federal government and use
the state Attorney general's office to represent them.
Lacking control of their legal representative a controversial settlement
was finally achieved in 1944. $17,053,941.98 was offered for the failure
of the government to deliver the 18 reservations promised in treaty
negotiations of 1851-2. Incredibly, the government decided to deduct all
of its "costs" of providing reservations, supplies and even the salaries
of corrupt and do nothing Indians agents native peoples had endured for
nearly a century.
After another long battle, little more than 5 million dollars were
finally distributed on a per-capita basis to 36,095 California Indians
in 1951. A paltry $150. was distributed to surviving Indians. This
parsimonious and unfair settlement prompted California Indians to seek
further legal redress.
The efforts of California Indians to sue the federal government under
the Jurisdictional Act of 1928 resulted in the creation of the federal
Indian Claims Commission in 1946. This federal body allowed Indian
groups to press for compensation to tribes over the theft of their lands
in the 19th century. By August of 1951, twenty-three separate petitions
had been filed by attorneys on behalf of tribes in California. After 20
years of tortuous maneuvering all separate claims were consolidated into
a single case.
A compromise settlement of $29,100,000 was offered for 64,425,000 acres
of acres of tribal territory. After deduction of attorney's fees
($12,609,000) and the addition of interest and about half a million left
over from the first settlement the payment worked out to an offer of 47
cents per acre! The purchase of public domain lands in California in
1850 was never less than $1.50 per acre.
This outrageous offer offended many Indians who had pinned their hopes
on a settlement that would provide seed money for desperately needed
economic development. Despite bitter opposition by many of the original
claimants, the federal government prepared a census of eligible Indians
in preparation for an anticipated judgment. The BIA organized a series
of meetings to convince the litigants to accept the settlement.
Eventually a majority of the groups agreed, except the Pit River tribe.

They offered strong, vociferous and persistent opposition. However,
through questionable balloting, the government declared they had
accepted the offer in 1964. Nearly 65,000 California Indians were deemed
eligible to share in the settlement. Payments of little more than $600
per person was distributed in 1968. What is of great significance here
is the fact that the entire claims activities were conducted outside of
normal court proceedings protected by the constitution. Thus Indians are
the only class of citizens in the United States who are denied
constitutional protection of their lands by extra-constitutional means.
TERMINATION
During the divisive and controversial land claims battle the BIA began
to submit plans to end all services to California Indians and transfer
all authority over federal Indian reservations to the State. This new
policy, called Termination, was put into motion in 1951. Special agents
were sent to prepare for the end of federal jurisdiction over tribal
lands. At first the state was enthusiastic over the prospect of
increasing its tax base with the anticipation of the privatization of
federal trust properties. Termination became law in California under
authority of the Rancheria Act of 1958. This statute allowed tribes to
vote on a plan to divide communal tribal property into parcels to be
distributed to its members. Distributees would receive title to their
lands and be free to sell it and be obliged to pay property tax from
that time forward. The BIA targeted the smallest, least organized and
most isolated tribes to persuade them to accept this plan for cultural
and tribal suicide.
Government personnel promised acceptance would result in freedom and
economic independence. They further made elaborate promises to upgrade
squalid housing, pave roads, build bridges, construct water projects and
even provide college scholarships in return for a vote to terminate.
Between 1958 and 1970 twenty-three rancherias and reservations were
terminated. Chronically high unemployment rates, low educational
achievement and sometimes emergency medical needs soon forced many to
make loans on, or sell their lands. Worse still, many BIA services like
health, education were abruptly ended for all Indians in the state.
Like the earlier allotment policy, the implementation of termination set
in motion a series of events that ultimately divested small tribes of
10,037 acres of land, disrupted tribal institutions and traditions and
ultimately left these tribes more desperate, and impoverished than ever.
Termination failed miserably to improve the socioeconomic or political
power of the California Indians.
The occupation of Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, by nearly
100 American Indian College students in the fall of 1969 ushered in a
new era of Indian affairs. A new generation of young, energetic and
highly educated California Indians emerged during this period. Highly
skeptical of the government they were committed to protecting tribal
sovereignty.
More important still, they found great value in tribal traditions. They
encouraged traditional ceremonies, language retention and sought to
remove impediments to the exercise of tribal religious practices. These
developments paralleled a new generation of tribal leaders who would
dynamically defend tribal rights. These activities made three things
apparent; many California Indians were still landless, terminated tribes
had been swindled, and some tribes had never been recognized by the
federal government. However reservation, landless and unrecognized
tribesmen all shared lives of desperate poverty and little hope for
employment or economic development.
In recognition of the growing sophistication of California Indians, the
state legislature created the, Native American Heritage Commission in
1978. This all-Indian commission works as a liaison between state,
federal and tribal governments. It has been successful in protecting
Indian burials, sacred places and providing access to government lands
to harvest native plants for ceremonial practices and basketmaking.
To date 17 rancherias and reservations have reversed the disastrous
termination process. Other tribes are currently pursuing legal avenues
to reverse their termination status. Unrecognized tribes have vigorously
pursued acknowledgment processes whose requirements are so impossibly
demanding that many large tribes in Arizona and New Mexico could not
today meet such standards of cultural continuity. Nevertheless, the
Acagchemem of San Juan Capistrano the Muwekma of the San Francisco Bay
area, and the Coast Miwok of Marin County are close to federal
recognition and acquiring a trust land base.
Government developed economic development plans have a history of nearly
a century of total failure. Currently more than thirty reservations and
rancherias have established gaming businesses on their lands. Some are
highly successful while other are not. Some public opposition to these
activities seems to center around the fear that Indians may be cheated
by their business partners. Such fears smack of paternalism and ignore
the reality that few if any valuable resources can be found on Indian
lands. Few private investors have come forward to work with Indian
tribes outside of the gaming industry. With few choices, wise
reservation leadership view gaming as an interim step toward greater
economic independence. The Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians are the best
example of how that dream can be achieved.
The amazing adaptive capabilities of California Indians have
demonstrated the resiliency and genius of these much misunderstood and
hard working tribes can achieve under the most unfavorable of
circumstances. We know, and our friends and counter parts in local and
national governmental agencies must understand that only through the
exercise of our tribal sovereignty can we successfully take our rightful
place in our prosperous and free nation. We enter the next century
filled with optimism.