USA > California > Glenn County > History of Colusa and Glenn counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 6
USA > California > Colusa County > History of Colusa and Glenn counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91
Acorns and fish, although the staples of the Indians' diet, did not by any means exhaust the list. Game of all kinds- sometimes caught in most ingenious ways-wild oats, berries, the tender shoots of clover and other early spring plants, succu- lent roots, and even worms and grasshoppers, were used to add variety to their fare. The oat crop, which was generally boun- tiful in the Sacramento Valley, was gathered by swinging baskets against the tops of the oats, thus causing some of the grains to fall into the baskets. The method of harvesting was not partic- ularly economical of grain, but it can be said that the Indian got a good return for the money he had invested in the crop.
42
COLUSA AND GLENN COUNTIES
Grasshoppers and grubs were cooked by building a fire in a hole in the ground, letting it burn down to a bed of coals, scraping out the coals and putting the food in and covering it up for a few minutes, when it came out crisp, brown and delicious.
At its best, the life of the Indians was an alternate feasting and fasting, for he made absolutely no effort to cultivate any plant or domesticate any animal. When a deer, elk, antelope or other large animal fell into the clutches of a village, there was a period of intemperate gorging, followed possibly by a long period of slim fare; and when the acorn or salmon supply for any reason failed, there was destitution, and sometimes actual starvation, in the tribe. Hundreds of years of experience with such conditions, however, failed to impress their lesson; and the white man found the Indians, as I have said above, little more provident than the bears.
Each Indian tribe was governed by a chief, whose authority was absolutely supreme. The chief had the power of life and death over his subjects; and as there was no appeal from his edicts, his subjects were thoroughly, if not wisely, governed. But in the case of the Colus Indians, at least, the government was remarkably wise and just; for their chief, Sioc, was a man of more than ordinary capability. Sioc was over six feet tall, and as straight as the spear he carried; and he dressed exactly as nature garbed him. He was kind and just, both to his own people and to the white man, whose coming, with the consequent degeneration of his people, added such a burden to his life that he died two years after Colusa was founded.
The Indian community was organized much as all savage communities are. The women did the work. It was the squaws who collected the oats, gathered the acorns, cured the fish, cooked the meals, and, when moving, carried the baggage. Sometimes the bucks took a hand at catching fish or trapping game, but ordinarily they lay around and ate. When a young man took a wife, the chief qualification he required of her was that she be able to keep him supplied with plenty of food. It can be said in their favor that each man had only one wife, and stuck to her as long as she was willing and able to keep him supplied with food; but just what was entailed in their marriage vows is hard to determine. The bride was bought from her parents with offerings of shells, food or anything else of value, much as an American business man buys a European "noble" for his daughter; and any breach of fealty to lier husband by the bride was severely punished, even with death. There is no record of such severity toward the husband; and indeed it does not seem
43
COLUSA AND GLENN COUNTIES
to have been necessary, for there was apparently little tendency for husbands to roam, matrimonially. Young folks, when thrown together, were not apt to remain continent; much self-restraint conld hardly be expected of them. But fear of the chief and the inexorable rules laid down for their guidance kept the women remarkably chaste. They married young, and the hardships they endured in providing for their families soon aged them, so that the squaws were not usually attractive in appearance. Occa- sionally one of them lived to a great age, but the average life of the Indian was not great. He was like the rabbit; there were too many things against him.
Religions belief was but feebly developed among the Indians of this county; and consequently religions ceremonies were few. They apparently believed in a hereafter; for they buried the weapons and other personal belongings of the dead in the grave with the body, in order that these things might be on hand for use in the future life. An evil spirit to be propitiated was the central theme of their religion, rather than a good spirit to be pleased or served. As they would not eat the flesh of the grizzly bear because they believed it had once been a person, they must have believed in a sort of transmigration of souls. Just how far they had developed this belief no one seems to have taken the trouble to find ont, if, indeed, it could have been found out. One thing, however, is certain, and that is that religion and religious ceremonies played no great part in the lives of the Colusa In- dians. They lived along, in an indolent, dreamy animal life, with no regrets for the past, little hope or fear for the future, and no great concern for the present. Their regard for the grizzly was not so much a feeling of reverence or worship as it was a wholesome fear of his physical prowess; and all of their super- stitions were of this childishly primitive sort, hardly rising to the dignity of a religion.
Sickness was, as with all savages, attributed to the evil machinations of some enemy, and was, of course, eured by in- cantations principally, although at times the sweat-house and bleeding played some part in the cure. The sweat-house was like the dwellings, only larger, and was the center of the cere- monial life of the village. In taking the sweat-cure, the sweat- house was filled with Indians, and a fire was kept going in it till it was baking hot and the inmates were streaming with perspiration, when they would rush out and plunge into the river till they cooled off, after which the process was repeated. This treatment, while possibly beneficial in some diseases, was sure death in others; but the Indians did not seem to be able to differentiate
44
COLUSA AND GLENN COUNTIES
between one disease and another, and so hundreds of them per- ished every time an epidemic came along.
When an Indian died, a doleful mourning was kept up for a couple of days, especially by the women. The squaws would dance around the grave and wail most mournfully. The body was prepared for burial by doubling it up, with the head between the knees and the ankles up against the thighs, and wrapping it tightly in this shape with cords of bark or fiber. A small child was always buried alive with its mother if she died, because none of the other members of the tribe cared to be burdened with providing for it.
I have mentioned "other structures" of the Indians in addi- tion to their houses. These other structures were not many, nor very complicated. Besides the sweat-house, already men- tioned, and the fish dam across the river, about the only things the Colusa Indians made were a rude bridge across the river, constructed much like the fish dam; crude rafts of brush and tule; bows and arrows and spears, their only weapons; a few rough mats of tule; and the wicker baskets for holding food. The rafts were used for taking food across the river, although any Indian in the tribe, man, woman or child, could swim across with almost as much as he could carry on land. They could all swim as well, almost, as seals, from childhood up. Their weapons were not very effective against large game. When hunger drove an Indian to kill a deer, it is said that he would stalk it till he had approached within very short range, when he would shoot it in the groin and then follow it till the pain caused it to lie down to rest. Then he would again sneak up and shoot an arrow into it, repeating the maneuver till loss of blood gave him the prize. This process oftentimes took all day. It is also said that the bucks were very ingenious in snaring ducks, geese, and other birds, and added much to their larders in this way.
From the beginning the Indians were tolerant of the white man and friendly to him. General Bidwell says that when he first came among the Stony Creek Indians, they hastened to bring him baskets of food and other presents, till he was entirely surrounded with gifts; and at no time was he the object of any violence or ill will. The ignorant natives apparently regarded him as a kind of god come among them, and they treated him with the greatest respect. Their acquaintance with white men did not go much further, however, till they found that the treatment accorded them in return was far from godlike. Enough has been said in a previous chapter to indicate the attitude the newcomers took toward the red men. The great majority of whites regarded the
45
COLUSA AND GLENN COUNTIES
Indians as little better than beasts, to be preyed upon at pleasure. They paid absolutely no attention to the property rights of the guileless savages, and took their land without compunction of conscience or even serious thought. They even commandeered the services of the men, paying them when and what they chose. Bnt worst of all, they dragged the women into a "white slavery" which, historians tell us, soon made a race of syphilities of the entire population. Will S. Green says that his friend, Chief Sioc, died in 1852 of a broken heart, because of the loss of virtne in his people.
Nature was often unkind to the Indian, pelting him with storms and failing to supply him with food. To the unkindness of Nature the Indian added a great burden to himself and his race when he destroyed his own children or attempted to cure his bodily ills with superstitions ceremonies. The additional handicap of the white inan's unkindness was more than the race could bear, and the red men perished like flies after the white man came. In 1880, thirty years after the county was first settled, the ten thousand Indians in Colusa County (including what is now Glenn County) had dwindled to five hundred, or five per cent. of the whole. Nine thousand five hundred of them, or ninety-five per cent., had succumbed. Today, sixty-seven years after the settle- ment of the county, there are less than one hundred Indians with- in its boundaries. The more intelligent Indians saw from the beginning that the white man was destined to inherit the land; but they knew no way to stop it, and submitted stoically. There was no Indian war in Colusa County worthy the name. On two or three occasions, after Indians had committed minor depredations, bands of white men went after them and killed a few of them, a procedure which the victims apparently took as a matter of course. These disturbances invariably took place in the moun- tains or hills, no conflict of any kind with the river Indians being recorded after the brutal and nnjust punishment inflicted upon them by General Sutter in 1843.
Captain Hukely was the snecessor, and a worthy one, of Sioc as chief of the Colus Indians. He was a man of the highest character and standing, not only among his own people, but also among the settlers. It was said of him that his "credit was good at any store in the county." He died on December 2, 1877, after having ruled over his fast-dwindling tribe for twenty-five years.
The more just and considerate settlers realized from the beginning that the Indians were not getting a square deal; and the United States had no sooner got control of the country than steps were taken to give the red man his dues, in part at least. Intelligent Indian agents were sent out by the government to
46
COLUSA AND GLENN COUNTIES
investigate the claims made in behalf of the Indians and arrange that justice he done them. The result was that the following treaty was drawn up with the Colusa Indians, which, accom- panied by strong recommendations from the United States Com- missioner of Indian Affairs and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for California that the treaty be ratified, was sent to President Millard Fillmore, who transmitted it to the United States Senate for ratification :
A treaty of peace and friendship made and concluded at Camp Colus, on the Sacramento River, California, between the United States Indian Agent, O. M. Wozencraft, of one part, and the chiefs, captains and head men of the following tribes or bands, viz .: Colus, Willays, Co-ha-na, Tat-nah, Cha, Doc- Due, Cham-net-co, Toc-de.
Article 1. The several tribes or bands above mentioned do acknowledge the United States to be the sole and absolute sover- eign of all the soil and territory ceded to them by a treaty of peace made between them and the republic of Mexico.
Article 2. The said tribes or bands acknowledge themselves, jointly and severally, under the exclusive jurisdiction, authority and protection of the United States, and hereby bind themselves hereafter to refrain from the commission of all acts of hostility and aggression towards the government or citizens thereof, and to live on terms of peace and friendship among themselves, and all other Indians which are now or may come under the protection of the United States.
Article 3. To promote the settlement and improvement of said tribes or bands, it is hereby stipulated and agreed that the following district of country in the State of California shall be and is hereby set apart forever, for the use and occupancy of the aforesaid tribes or hands, to-wit: Commencing on the east bank of the Sacramento River, at a point where the northern line of Sutter's claim is said to strike said river, running out in said line in an easterly direction three miles; thence in a southeasterly direction fifteen miles to a point within three miles of the Sacra- mento River; from said point in a line due west to the Sacra- mento River; and from said point up said river to the point of beginning. It is furthermore understood and agreed upon by both parties that the tribes or bands of Indians living upon the adja- cent Coast Range, on the Sacramento River, from the month of Stone Creek to the junction of Feather and Sacramento Rivers, and on Feather River to the month of Yuba River, shall be included in the said reservation; and should said bands not come in, then the provisions, etc., as set apart in this treaty, to be reduced in a
47
COLUSA AND GLENN COUNTIES
ratio commensurate with the numbers signing the treaty. Pro- vided, That there is reserved to the United States government the right of way over any portion of said territory, and the right to establish and maintain any military post, public building, schoolhouse, houses for agents, teachers, and such others as they may deem necessary, for their use in the protection of the Indians. The said tribes or bands, and each of them, hereby engage that they will never claim any other land within the boundaries of the United States, nor ever disturb the people of the United States in the free use and enjoyment thereof.
Article 4. To aid the said tribes or bands in their subsist- ence while removing to and making allotments upon the said reservation, the United States, in addition to the few presents made to them at this council, will furnish them, free of charge, with two hundred and fifty (250) head of beef-cattle, to average in weight five hundred (500) pounds, seventy-five (75) sacks flour, one hundred (100) pounds each, within the term of two years from the date of this treaty.
Article 5. As early as convenient after the ratification of this treaty by the President and Senate, in consideration of the premises and with a sincere desire to encourage said tribes in acquiring the arts and habits of civilized life, the United States will also furnish them with the following articles, (to be divided among them by the agent according to their respective numbers and wants,) during each of the two years succeeding the said ratification, viz .: one pair strong pantaloons and one red flannel shirt for each man and boy; one linsey gown for each woman and girl; one thousand yards calico, and two hundred and fifty yards brown sheeting; ten pounds Scotch thread and five hundred needles, three dozen thimbles and one dozen pairs of scissors; one two and a half point Mackinaw blanket for each man and woman over fifteen years of age; five hundred pounds iron and fifty pounds steel; and in like manner, in the first year, for the permanent use of said tribes, and as their joint property, viz. : forty brood mares and three stallions, one hundred and fifty milch cows and eight bulls, two yoke of work cattle with yokes and chains, five work mules or horses, eleven ploughs assorted sizes, forty-five garden or corn hoes, thirteen spades, and two grind- stones. Of the stock enumerated above, and the product thereof, no part or portion shall be killed, exchanged, sold or otherwise parted with, without the consent and direction of the agent.
Article 6. The United States will also supply and settle among said tribes, at or near their towns or settlements, one practical farmer, who shall superintend all agricultural opera- tions, with two assistants, men of practical knowledge and indus-
48
COLUSA AND GLENN COUNTIES
trious habits; one carpenter, one wheelwright, one blacksmith, one principal school teacher and as many assistant teachers as the President may deem proper to instruct said tribes, in reading, writing, etc., and in the domestic arts upon the manual labor sys- tem; all the above named workmen and teachers to be main- tained and paid by the United States for the period of five years, and as long thereafter as the President shall deem advisable. The United States will also erect suitable schoolhouses, shops and dwellings for the accommodation of the schools, teachers and mechanics above mentioned, and for the protection of the public property.
In testimony whereof, the parties have hereunto signed their names and affixed their seals, this ninth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one.
O. M. Wozencraft, United States Indian Agent.
For and in behalf of the Colus: Sci-Oac, his X mark. For and in behalf of the Willays: Ho-Oak, his X mark. For and in behalf of the Co-ha-na: Louis, his X mark. For and in behalf of the Tat-nah: Hoo-Ka-Ta, his X mark.
For and in behalf of the Cha : La-Look, his X mark. For and in behalf of the Doc-Duc: Mi-Ka-La, his X mark.
For and in behalf of the Cham-net-co: Wi-Te-Bus, his X mark.
For and in behalf of the Toc-de : Co-Ne, his X mark.
Signed, sealed and delivered, after being fully explained, in presence of Thomas Wright, Second Lieutenant, 2nd Infantry,
Commanding escort. C. D. Semple.
Polities in the meantime had gotten in its fine work, and this treaty was never ratified. It lay in the secret files of the Senate until 1905, when the injunction of secrecy was removed and the terms of the treaty were made known. This, however, was after all those connected with the treaty had been long in their graves. The Indians of Colusa waited and watched patiently for the ful-
49
COLUSA AND GLENN COUNTIES
fillment of the treaty, and most of them died in the hope that it would some day be fulfilled.
In 1907 the government bought forty acres of land on the west side of the river, four miles north of Colusa, and all the river Indians in the county, about sixty, were moved there. With the aid of private subscriptions they were established in fairly comfortable cabins, and a little later the county supervisors made an appropriation for a school among them. Rev. and Mrs. F. G. Collett, who had been indefatigable in their efforts in behalf of the Indians, were the first teachers; and they have a worthy successor in the person of Dr. H. E. Burbank, who still has a flourishing school at the rancheria.
The population of the rancheria north of town is at present about fifty. They are under the leadership of Captain Thomas Odock, a man of fine character. They raise some fruit and vege- tables, but most of their living is made by laboring on the neigh- boring ranches. The women have not gained any great degree of skill in the arts of civilization, especially the caring for their children; and the tribe seems destined to disappear utterly.
Of the other Indians in the county, about thirty-five live on Cortina Creek, and eight or ten in the neighborhood of Stonyford. These are dying off very rapidly, and in a few years will be gone.
CHAPTER V
THE EARLY SETTLERS
The day of the gold rush to California dawned with only three settlements in what is now called Colusa County, as we have seen. The first of these was made by John S. Williams, who had settled the Larkin's Children's Grant at what is now the W. A. Yerxa place. It is interesting to note that Mr. Williams came from Missouri; and that state has continued to hold her pre- eminence as a source of population for Colusa County. Mr. Williams died in 1849, and never saw the great development which the county experienced in the next year or two. His only son moved back to Missouri to live.
One of the other settlers was William B. Ide, of whom men- tion will be made further on. He was a Massachusetts Yankee, and was probably the most prominent man in the organization of the county. He was stricken with smallpox in December of 1852, while holding the office of county treasurer at Monroe- ville, and died on the twentieth of that month, leaving a wife 3
50
COLUSA AND GLENN COUNTIES
and nine children. His is one of the most stirring and eventful careers among the pioneers of California-and I am moved here to remark that his wife's job was no sinecure, for this daring adventurer had accumulated little property, and what money he had was stolen from the county safe by means of the key taken from under the sick man's pillow by the man who nursed him during his last illness. The women of those early days could probably tell tales of far more interest than anything that will appear in this volume, and it is a pity that they have left such meager records of their privations and sufferings.
The third settler, Watt Anderson, who lived where Sycamore now is, was a bear-hunter, who boasted that he ate no meat but bear meat. He had a wife and family, and apparently preferred their society to that of other white people, for he kept well in advance of the van of civilization. When Colusa was laid ont, he considered the country too crowded, and moved westward into the mountains where there was more room.
Charles B. Sterling, who came up from Monterey to take Jolm S. Williams' place on the Larkin ranch when Mr. Williams went to the mines to dig gold, was a native of Lonisiana who had come to California as purser on a United States war-ship and was secre- tary to Thomas O. Larkin at this time. He proved to be a capable man, and "Sterling's Ranch" become known the length and breadth of the Sacramento Valley. Will S. Green tells us of Sterling that "in the spring of 1849 he wanted to go over to the mines on Feather River, and not liking to bury his money around home for fear of being watched, he put several thousand dollars in a square gin bottle and carried it with him to the bank of a slough, in a direct line from his place to French Crossing on Butte Creek, and there buried it, marking the place by a bunch of weeds he would know again. He stayed over there longer than he expected, and when he came back the weeds had been burned, and he could not find the place; and so that bottle with its treasure lies buried there yet." Young man, there is your opportunity to dig for gold.
All those whose names are mentioned above were pioneers in the truest sense of the word. They came to the great, unknown West because they loved the wideness and the solitude, and be- canse the spirit of adventure was strong within them; and they remained here because they saw the possibilities of this county as an agricultural community and a place for homes. Most of those who came to the county after this period were lured to California by the hope of gold in great abundance, had tried their hands at mining and had been disappointed, and then had turned to farm-
51
COLUSA AND GLENN COUNTIES
ing or to the other pursuits in which they had been engaged in their Eastern homes.
In 1849 the great gold rush to California began. The next year, 1850, the settlement of Colusa County began in earnest. That was the year California was admitted as a state and Colusa County was authorized by the state legislature, neither of which events, however, had any particular influence on the settlement of the county. The time had come when these rich lands were to be sought after ; and their acquisition by settlers would have taken place just when it did, even if the state had not been admitted and no county had been formed by the legislature.
In the year 1847, Robert Semple was a doctor living in Benicia, Cal., to which place he had come from Kentucky. That year he took his horseback trip up the Sacramento Valley, and was so greatly impressed with the beauty and fertility of the lands about the Colus Indian village that he made a note of the matter and kept it for future reference. When, in 1849, his brother, Col. Charles D. Semple, came out from Kentucky to look for a location in California, the doctor told him of the Sacramento Valley loca- tion and advised him to try to obtain some of the land and settle it. Colonel Semple took his brother's advice; and that was the first step in the founding of the town of Colusa, which was the first town in Colusa County as at present bounded.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.