Category: California Natives

Archival Development, assimilation, California Natives, colonization, General HistoryLeave a comment

California Native History Contexts

David G. Lewis, PhD

In recent months I have been delving into records of the California Superintendency. I have studied several California tribes in the past, namely the Tolowa and Shasta tribes, and my master’s paper was about the Tolowa Fish Camp at Indian beach. I have not taken the time previously for much more reading about California Natives because I know its a big state with a complex history. I have had my hand full with the 60 tribes of western Oregon. But going through federal microfilm for the California Superintendency, from the beginnings of United States Indian affairs is quite instructive. The … Continue reading California Native History Contexts

California Natives, General HistoryLeave a comment

General Wool in California

David G. Lewis, PhD

The following is a series of statements by General John E. Wool and his underlings in the 1850s, from their administrative moorings in Benecia, California, the offices of the Department of the Pacific. General Wool was in this time pacifying California for settlers, working on arrangements with Mexico following the Spanish-America War, and also dealing with the new territories on the west coast, Oregon, and Washington and Utah. In this territory there were innumerable tribes of Native peoples, and a huge number of American immigrants who flooded the territories in the tens of thousands causing numerous conflicts with the tribes. … Continue reading General Wool in California

California Natives, colonization, General History, Oregon Coast, Oregon indians, Rogue Valley, treatiesLeave a comment

Causes of the 1853 Rogue River War

David G. Lewis, PhD

The first Rogue River War was a series of skirmishes and battles between mainly gold miners and the tribes. The miners had no regard for the tribes and tended to treat them badly. Some miners, the worst of the bunch, would murder native men on sight and take native women to rape them. It’s very hard to find the ultimate beginning of the conflicts, but it likely resides in the treatment of the tribes, and the histories from the 1840s of white encroachment into the region seeking gold riches. Other white men established settlements on the coast in both California … Continue reading Causes of the 1853 Rogue River War

California Natives, General History, Grand Ronde Reservation, Native Issues, Oregon indians, Siletz Reservation3 Comments

Ka’hosadi Shasta Peoples of Oregon and California

David G. Lewis, PhD

Chief John, Tecumtum, was the leader of the Rogue River Confederacy for over a year in southwestern Oregon. The Confederacy formed when tribal bands on the Table Rock Reservation were attacked by Americans seeking to punish and exact retribution on the Indian there for previous battles, skirmishes, and petty thefts in the region. The region of southwestern Oregon and northern California was a conflict zone for about eight years by 1856 with settlement and gold mining causing numerous territorial conflicts in the region. Gold miners, in particular, were apt to make a try at gold mining for a year or … Continue reading Ka’hosadi Shasta Peoples of Oregon and California

California Natives, General History, Grand Ronde Reservation, Oregon indians, Rogue Valley, Siletz Reservation4 Comments

Treaty with the Chasta, Negotiated November 18, 1854, Ratified March 3, 1855

David G. Lewis, PhD

The Treaty with the Chasta was signed on November 18, 1854, ceding a good portion of the Illinois and Rogue River areas, west of the Rogue Valley, to the United States. The Chasta, or Chasta Costa, were athabaskan speakers, like the Tututni, Upper Umpqua, and Tolowa Deeni peoples of the region. The Athapaskans are theorized to have been one of the more recent migrations into the area, perhaps 1200 years previously. Tolowa Deeni oral history suggests they migrated with canoes from the frozen north, landed at Yontocket (Burnt Ranch) a village site just south of the Smith River in Northern … Continue reading Treaty with the Chasta, Negotiated November 18, 1854, Ratified March 3, 1855