History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I, Part 9

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362

USA > California > Fresno County > History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I > Part 9

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

trustworthy, and when confidence is placed in their honesty it is very rarely betrayed."

Large game they hunted with the bow and obsidian arrowheads. They followed the stealthy still hunt, or went on the general hunt, covering a large area and driving the game to a common center for indiscriminate slaugh- ter. Fish was caught with line and bone hook, with single bone tine spear, by weir traps in stream, or scooped out in baskets after polluting the water with soap-root plant juice. Acorns constituted the main staple breadstuff, the nut ground to a meal and the bitter tannin laboriously leached out of the thin gruel poured out in clean sand. The dog was the only domestic animal.

The Indians of the Yosemite region were of religious or superstitious temperament, devout in their beliefs and observances, and easily worked upon by their medicine men. They had elaborate symbolic ceremonies with dancing an important feature. Both sexes took part, but they never danced as a recreation. The ceremonial around a fire was accompanied by drum beat- ing and a monotonous chant, the dancer circling until falling exhausted. The great dance occasions were before going to war and when cremating the dead. They had also tribal festival gatherings.

Polygamy was not uncommon among the Mariposa and other county Indians, with two and three and even more wives. Chiefs and headmen established relations of amity with other tribes by taking wives out of them. The young wife was bought, payment for the chattel constituting a chief part of the marriage ceremonial, and the wife becoming personal property to be sold or gambled away according to the mood. Clark says that in the mar- riage relation the Indian was as a rule strictly faithful. If the woman was found to be unfaithful, the penalty was death. Man whipping or wife beating were unknown, whipping was not resorted to even for disobedience by chil- dren, being considered a more humiliating and disgraceful punishment than death. Disobedience was a fault rare among children.

It is Clark, who is authority for the statement, that after the 1850-51 hostilities and liberation after four years of confinement on the reservations -the Yosemites and other tribes on and north of the San Joaquin placed on the Fresno reservation and those south of the river on the Kings and Tejon reservations-with tribal relations and customs almost broken up, the food supply reduced with the settlement of the country, life was more precarious and many at times were near the starvation point.

"In these straitened and desperate circumstances," recites Clark, in a pub- lication of 1904, "many of their young women were used as commercial prop- erty and peddled out to the mining camps and gambling saloons for money to buy food, clothing or whiskey, this latter article being obtained through some white person in violation of the law."

The universal practice was among the Sierra foothill tribes to burn the bodies of the dead with their effects and votive offerings. This was a semi-religious practice to cheat the evil spirit of his prey in the spirit or soul, the body being burned to set the soul free the sooner to the happier spirit world. In later years the burial custom of the whites was adopted, but the things that were once burned as offerings were cut into fragments before burial, lest some white desecrate the grave by digging them up. These Dig- gers-a name given them in derision because not good fighters and from the practice of digging for tuberous roots of plants for food-held such sacred reverence for the dead that after reservation liberation they impoverished themselves for years by burning their best belongings at the annual mourning festivals. One of their beliefs was that the spirits of the bad served another earth life in the grizzly bear as punishment for misdeeds, wherefor no Indian would knowingly eat bear meat. In certain lines of artistic work, the Diggers excelled all others, notably in basket work and bow and arrows, which were of superior workmanship and fine finish.

A great fund of mythological lore was in their possession, handed down

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

orally from generation to generation, but they were reluctant to tell the whites these often pretty and poetical legends.

The warlike valley tribes were the Tulareans of Tulare Lake, the Yose- mites of the valley of that name, the Monos from the other side of the range, and the Chowchillas of the river valley of that name. At the signing of the Fort Barbour treaty, the second and third named tribes had neither signed, nor surrendered, nor been rounded up. The best known tribes were the Poho- nochees living near the waters of the Poliono or Bridal Veil Creek in summer and on the south fork of the Merced in winter about twelve miles below Wa- wona, the Potoencies on the Merced, Wiltucumnes on the Tuolumne, Noot- choos and Chowchillas in the Chowchilla Valley, the Honaches and Mewoos on the Fresno and vicinity and the Chookchachanees on the San Joaquin and vicinity.

The original name of the Yosemite Valley was Ah-wah-nee, meaning "deep grass valley." The word "yosemite" signifies "a full grown grizzly bear." The valley portion of the Sierra region was inhabited by a peaceful people, who indulged in few controversies and were less belligerent than any on the Pacific coast, usually settling disputes by talk in general council.

The treaty of peace and friendship submitted in council at Fort Barbour, and afterward repudiated by the government by the way, was signed up on April 29, 1851, by chiefs representing sixteen tribes. Of tribal names other than those mentioned, only one has been perpetuated-that of the Pitiaches, whose home was in the vicinity of the site of Fresno city and whose one time existence is recalled by the official designation of Pitiaches Tribe No. 144, I. O. R. M. of Fresno.

The Fresno Indians of today court the seclusion of their foothill or moun- tain rancherias. In the fruit season, they mingle with the whites on the plains to seek employment in orchard or vineyard; otherwise they are not seen save on the days of the visiting circus or for the Fourth of July parades and celebrations. Such a moving appeal was made to the supervisors of the county in March, 1917, that they authorized H. G. Brendel as superintendent of Indian missions to provide medical service for the poor Indians and Dr. Charles L. Trout of Clovis to attend the sick in the mountains and present bills to the county for payment. It was the first step the county has ever taken to render a service to the Indians, but the relief was like the locking of the stable door after the horse was stolen.

The missionaries school them and give them religious instruction, afford them medical attention according to the means provided them, and prevail on them when they have lived in the marital state according to loose tribal cus- toms and have borne children to accompany them to the county seat and for the sake of the children take out license and be wedded according to the law of the land. The Indians have had intercourse long enough with the whites to have lost faith in their medicine men, though one of these charlatans was haled into court about a year ago for manslaughter in the killing of a tribes- man in giving the blood sucking treatment to a patient resulting in death. The charge was in the end dismissed. The missionaries have done all they can in the medical line until the demands on them became too great without money for medicine and mileage for the physician. Measles, pulmonary and bronchial troubles are the principal ailments, especially among the children.

"I have watched men, women and children die because of no medical service," said Superintendent Brendel in his appeal to the supervisors. "It is a long way back into the hills and an Indian will ordinarily not earn enough or more than to provide the merest necessary food to keep up life. Why during winter they almost starve and when sickness comes they gen- erally die. Once there were many Indians back in the hills, but now we have only 687, a slight increase over last year. The diseases they are subject to eat up the population fast. I often wonder how it is that we have any left,

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

for the government has neglected to give them the aid that reservation Indians are entitled to."

Back in earlier days, the government's agents signed treaties with the Indians providing that they gave up the valley lands for reservations in other prosperous sections of the country. Congress never ratified these treaties, the white man seized the valley lands and the Indians were left to content themselves with the barren foothill or mountain sections in which to build their homes in. The government as the only thing that it does for them gives two days of school sessions weekly. The state of California does noth- ing for them. Patents are granted by the general government for mountainous land-none other being available-to Indians that have severed the tribal relations, but the title is paternally held as a protection to the Indian in trust for twenty years.

The Indians are said to be good laborers, reliable, better than the Japan- ese, willing and docile but the squaw must hold the purse string, because strong drink is an allurement that the buck cannot resist. The county provi- sion out of the public fund, small as it is, was made on the theory that the Indians are indigents to be aided as are the other poor of the county, and thus on a small scale a work as a mission charity effort was initiated for fees that little more than defray automobile mileage charges, while improving the general health and living conditions of the Indians. The surviving aborigines in the county are assembled on rancherias on Sycamore Creek, at Indian Mis- sion, Table Mountain and in the foothill sections near and about Auberry. .

The Indian population of California in 1915 was returned at 15,034. Indians are located in fifty-five of the fifty-eight counties of the state. In dealing with the California tribes, the government did not follow the policy pursued with the wild tribes of the plains in making treaties or giving them remuneration for lands acquired by whites. Allotments number 2.592 of 82,- 162 acres with 430,136 unallotted. The California Indians are of at least four- teen different linguistic stocks. They are located on twenty-six reservations, twenty-two of these mission reservations. Most of the mission tribes of dif- ferent tribes are located on scattered small reservations over Riverside and San Diego Counties. The Tule River reservation of seventy-six square miles in Tulare County shelters the survivors of the one-time warlike Tulares that. were once monarchs over all they surveyed on the San Joaquin plains.

The last and most remarkable and also the most formidable uprising in California was the 1872-73 Modoc war. That tribe defied and resisted gov- ernment troops for months from their lava beds near the Oregon state line and treacherously assassinated at a peace council on April 11, 1873, Gen. E. R. S. Canby and Rev. Eleazor Thomas of Petaluma, Cal., one of the commis- sioners. The tribe was finally subjugated, four of the ringleaders in the mur- ders hanged on October 3, 1873, two sentenced to life imprisonment at Alca- traz Island and the others-thirty-nine men, fifty-four women and sixty chil- dren-deported to Quapaw agency in Indian Territory.

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

CHAPTER X

INDIANS GIVE MUCH TROUBLE IN 1850. SQUAW DISCLOSES GENERAL TRIBAL CONSPIRACY. TRADER SAVAGE OUTMARSHALED IN DIPLOMACY AND IS THE PRINCIPAL SUFFERER IN HOSTILITIES. MURDERS AND PLUNDER FORAYS IN RAPID SUCCESSION WITH MUTILATION OF THE VICTIMS. STATE IS APPEALED TO FOR PRO- TECTION. MARIPOSA BATTALION OF RANGERS IS FORMED COM- MANDED BY SAVAGE. HOSTILITIES HALTED FOR RETARDING PALAVERS BY THE INVESTIGATING AND DELIBERATE COMMIS- SIONERS. INDIAN RANCHERIAS SURPRISED.

There was none of the heroic and much of the inhuman on the part of the whites, with some of the pathetic on the side of the redmen in the Mari- posa Indian War, which footed up a bill of $300,000 as the cost of the exter- mination of the valley mountain tribe of the Yosemites (estimated at some 200) with incidental discovery of the famous scenic valley on the Merced River.

During the year 1850, the Indians of Mariposa County, which then in- cluded all the territory south of the Tuolumne and Merced divide within the San Joaquin Valley proper, greatly harassed the miners and few settlers. Their depredations and assaults continued until U. S. commissioners came in 1851 to exercise control over them. Treaties were made in the end with sixteen small local tribes and all were placed on reservations. Among the settlers was James D. Savage, of whom more anon, who in 1849-50 had located in the mountains near the south fork of the Merced, about fifteen miles below the Yosemite Valley. He employed Indians to dig gold for him and early in 1850 the Yosemites, a band of mountain tribe outlaws and fugitives, attacked his trading post and mining camp, claiming the territory and attempting to drive Savage off, though plunder was probably the real object.

The assault was repelled, but the location was no longer deemed a safe one and Savage removed to Mariposa Creek, twenty miles southwest of Aqua Fria, near the site of an old stone fort. He also established a branch post on the Fresno, above what was known later as Leach's old store, where the mining prospects were better with subsidence of the water. Here a pros- perous traffic was built up, the miners and prospectors dealing with him rather than spend the time on the journey to and from Mariposa village, exacting though his prices were. In the midst of prosperity, one of his squaw wives disclosed a conspiracy hatching among the mountain tribes to kill or drive off all the whites and plunder them, the Yosemites leading in the plot. He pretended to disregard the report but gave general warning against a surprise.

Savage gave out that he was going to San Francisco for a stock of goods and ordering strict caution, he started, accompanied by two squaws and an Indian chief, Jose Juarez, really one of the leading plotters, to impress him with the sights at Stockton and San Francisco of the futility of an uprising in view of the superior numbers and resources of the whites. Juarez, being liberally supplied with gold, was stupidly drunk while in San Francisco, and being reproved by Savage retorted in abuse, disclosing the secret of the war. Savage lost his self control and knocked him down. After remaining to witness the celebration on October 20, 1850, of California's admission and arranging for the forwarding of goods as he might order, Savage started back for Mariposa. On arrival at Quartzburg, he learned that the Kaweahs were exacting tribute from immigrants passing through their territory, and that

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

one Moore had been killed not far from his station. Savage "scented danger to himself."

Learning that Indians were numerous at Cassady's Bar on the San Joa- quin and not far from his Fresno River station, he hurried to the latter point, found everything quiet apparently, and the Indians congregated only for barter, among them two chiefs of tribes from which he had taken wives. Pretending indifference, Savage sought to assure himself of the progress of the conspiracy, and calling an impromptu council, passed the pipe of peace and speechified on the damaging results of a war and the advantages of peace- ful intercourse, being familiar with the dialects. He referred to Juarez to confirm his statements.

The cunning Juarez answered, but to the surprise of Savage advocated a united war for their self preservation, the speech evincing "a keenness of observation inconsistent with his apparent drunken stupidity," while at the bay city. His speech met with approval, others joined him, and an appeal to cupidity in a common plot to plunder had its effect. Savage was outgeneraled and withdrew to prepare for the hostilities he felt certain would follow. The miners and settlers ridiculed and belittled his warnings.

Soon settlers at Indian Gulch and at Quartzburg learned that Savage's Fresno post had been looted on Christmas night 1850 and two men killed, and that his squaw wives, who had refused to abandon his interests when importuned, were carried off by their tribespeople. "Long Haired" Brown, the courier, had been warned by a friendly, carried by him across the Fresno and escaped barefooted and in his night clothes, dodged arrows in the pursuit and outdistanced his pursuers, being a man of strength and agility. On the heels of this report came another from the miners' camp at Mariposa Creek that Savage's establishment there had been plundered and burned and all save the trader killed.

Another murderous assault was reported January 15, 1851, by Frank W. Boden, whose arrival at Cassady's post with shattered right arm and on pant- ing horse excited general sympathy. A party at once started for Four Creeks to aid his companions, whom he had left fighting the Kaweahs. Boden's arm was amputated by Dr. Lewis Leach of St. Louis, Mo., who had come in with him. Boden and companions had halted at Four Creeks to rest and graze their horses, and while there Kaweahs demanded tribute, banter followed and all at once there was firing. In the melee Boden was four times arrowed in the arm. He fired his last shot, resting rifle on broken arm, and then with bridle rein in teeth. and carrying broken arm in the other hand sped at top speed for Cassady's. The attack was made near the site of the present Visalia -Dr. Thos. Payne's place. The mangled bodies of Boden's mates were found, one of the four by unmistakable signs having been flayed alive.

Cassady & Lane kept in January, 1851, a trading post several miles below Rootville (Millerton), and were engaged above the fort site in mining at Cassady's Bar, employing about thirty men. The camp was protected by a stone fence, the post by ditches. Indian hostilities hereabout included the murder of two teamsters at Fine Gold Gulch and the driving off of stock. and by two other man killings below Millerton. Cassady's post was visited bv Indians on the 20th of the month, Savage being there on a warning call. The employes had maintained vigilant night guard and dug ditches and em- bankments, but Cassady ridiculed these preparations. No guards were put on that night. Savage sleeping in a covered wagon within the enclosure. In the morning an arrow was found in the canvas of the main tent, arrows in several of the horses and mules, and fresh moccasin tracks along the river bank. Cassady, who was "a very Georgia Major," foolhardy and a swaggerer, would not heed warning, but persisted there was no real danger. Next day Savage and Leach rode to Mariposa to be at the organization of the battalion, and in a day or so Cassady paid the penalty for his foolhardiness. A detach- ment of thirty men under Kuykendall, with Leach a private, came to seek the

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

remains and found them on the river bank below the post, with legs cut off, tongue cut out and pinned with arrow over the heart and the body otherwise mutilated. It was buried near where found.

Reports of these and other raids and murders were forwarded to Gov. John McDougal by Sheriff Burney and other officials, urging immediate meas- ures by the state for the protection of the people. It being in the air that the Indians were rallying for concerted operations, a volunteer force made rapid and toilsome march among the wooded mountains in pursuit and came up with the retreating Indians high up on the Fresno. A skirmish followed, with one man killed, and other casualties. Unorganized and with no supplies, the pursuers were worsted, the pursued elated and the volunteers returned to the settlements for reorganization under John J. Kuykendall.

About 100 took up the war-path and pursued the Indians to near the north fork of the San Joaquin, encamped at an old rancheria on a round, rugged mountain, oak and brush covered. Protected by trees and rocks, they taunted the whites and called upon Savage to come out and be killed. He was kept in safe reserve as his knowledge of the country and of the Indians and their dialect could not well be spared. The leaders of the hostiles were Juarez and Jose Rey, the special pleaders at Savage's council. Eight tribes were represented, chief among them the Chowchillas, Kaweahs and Yose- mites-some 500 against not to exceed 100 whites, the latter under Boling and Kuykendall, Doss and Chandler.

The plan was for a daylight attack, setting fire to the village before the surprise assault. The camp was routed, Rey was among the first shot down and the Indians took flight. All was done so quickly that there was nothing left for the reserve under Boling and Savage. The village fire spread so fast as to endanger the camp supplies. The Indians escaped in the smoke, twenty- three killed, no prisoners taken, number of wounded never learned. The whites had only minor hurts. Further pursuit was useless.

A general uprising being evident, the state authorities were aroused to action with the result of the Mariposa Battalion of 200 men being mustered in on January 24, 1851, the settler's organization forming the nucleus of the volunteer force with Savage riding on to Cassady's Bar to make up the com- plement. The volunteers provided horses and equipments, the state camp sup- plies and baggage trains, and maintenance was expected at the expense of the United States under the direction of the commissioners. Major Ben Mc- Cullough was offered the command in the hope of drawing the Texas Rangers in the county, but he declined, having a lucrative position as collector of the foreign miner's tax. The officers as commissioned on muster in were:

Major-James D. Savage.

Company A, seventy men-Captain, John J. Kuykendall; Lieutenants, John I. Scott, T. T. Rodgers and Elisha M. Smith.

Company B, seventy-two men-Captain, John Boling ; Lieutenants, Reu- ben T. Chandler, T. J. Gilbert and T. J. Hancock.

Company C, fifty-five men-Captain, William Dill; Lieutenants, H. W. Farrell, F. W. Russell and Fletcher Crawford.

Adjutant-M. B. Lewis. Surgeon-Dr. A. Bronson, succeeded by Leach on resignation. Assistants-Drs. Pfeiffer and Black. Field and staff, seven ; company officers and men, 197; total. 204.

Incidentally, it may be noted that there is not in the state office any official record of the battalion, nor of this "war."

The particular duty assigned to the battalion was to subdue the Indians on the east side of the San Joaquin and Tulare Valleys from the Tuolumne to Tejon Pass. Ready to start, an order came to halt hostilities and the battalion was visited by WVm. Neely Johnson, the governor's aid and himself governor later, and the United States commissioners-George W. Barbour for whom the temporary fort was named ; Redick McKee afterward Indian agent, and "the genial and scholarly" Dr. O. M. Wozencraft, who was a member of

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

the constitutional convention, the party escorted by a detachment of United States dragoons.

The commission proceeded first to investigate the cause of the war and condition of affairs. Mission Indians were secured to notify as couriers all tribes to come in and surrender, presents were distributed, powwows held, and promises made of food, clothing and useful things, and while awaiting answer horses and mules were stolen from the vicinity of the camp and in the field. A reservation was selected on the Fresno near the foothills, a few miles above the present Madera, eighteen or twenty miles from camp, and headquarters established.

No active operations were undertaken, aside from scouting parties, so deliberate were the commissioners. But the mountain would not come to Mohammed, and so Mohammed went to the mountain. The mountain tribes would not come in, and so it was resolved to go after them, Major Savage and Boling's and Dill's companies to scour the region of the San Joaquin and Merced, and Kuykendall to operate on the Kings and Kaweah. A Noot- choo rancheria on the south fork of the Merced was the first to be surprised, Bishop's Camp or fort was established and the Indians transferred to the Fresno. Runners were sent to the mountains, a small band of Pohonochees from the Merced divide came in, and next Tenieya, chief of the Yosemites, in response to a special envoy. Surrender? Perish the thought! Forward, March! to the village to bring them in, even to follow them to their lurking places in "the deep canyon."

CHAPTER XI

MARIPOSA INDIAN WAR CAMPAIGN OF STARVATION AND VILLAGE BURNINGS. CHIEF TENIEYA OBSTRUCTS ENTRY INTO THE VAL- LEY. CHOWCHILLAS AND YOSEMITES REMAIN OBDURATE. DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT VALLEY. FAVORITE SON KILLED AND TENIEYA HELD CAPTIVE AT THE END OF A ROPE. END OF THE WAR. YOSEMITES EXTERMINATED BY THE MONOS FOR ILL- REQUITED HOSPITALITY. THEIR CHIEF IS STONED TO DEATH. RESERVATION SYSTEM UNPOPULAR.

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History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I, Part 9

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858- Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company Number of Pages: 1362

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362