Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: Notes & Summary of Indian Wars Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection # of Pages: 5 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

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Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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collusion with the Indians”. Thank you very much, but no thanks, says the feds. We will send in treaty commissioners to make peace and establish boundaries and we won’t need to pay your California volunteers anything. The treaty commissioners arrive in the southern mines to resolve the war with a 100, man escort of federal troops. Mederal troops are warned not to act in conjunction with the Mariposa Battalion. Indians (hostiles and friendlies) are reluctant to leave the mountains, but finally agree to relocate to reservations down in the San Joaquin valley (out of the way of mining activity) where they can become self-supporting as herdsmen. 100 head of cattle are given them along with 100 barrels of flour. The California Battalion busies itself rounding up Indians and bringing them more or less willingly to treaty parleys. , ‘The treaty commission purchased herds of cows to give to the 18 separate groups of Indians convened (in hundreds) as payments for relinguished land, to feed the hungry, and head off wars of desperation. All tolled, the 3 spent $787,000 in supplies on credit: overbudget. McKee was a elvionnanuireen teaeseetpae Indians, killed for sport, but the bottom line was Economy. “Gt is, in the end, cheaper to feed the whole flock for ++ a year than to fight them for a week.” (Michael Sievers, “Malfeasance or Indirction? Administration of the California Indian Superintendency’s Business Affairs,” Historical Society of Southern California LVI, no. 3 (Fall 1974), p. 274) George McDougall of SF who furnished 2500 head of cattle to treaty comm. In 1851; committed suicide in_1872, “when worn and weary with long waiting and in despair”. McDugals claim of $81,250 approved. Congress refused to pay as they thought graftwas involved, esp. as wasted effort after treaties not ratified; Congress simply didn’t understand zee the complexity or dire urgency of the California Indian situation. Only 1/3 paid. On the one Mel hand Congress did not want to be stuck with graft, but it had to honor its debts and good name with creditors who negotiated in good faith. assing the buck) Ironically, miners on the public domain mining for free and not paying much in taxes. The city people are prospering from mining, but are equally unwilling to pay taxes. Cost of maintaining peace on frontiers was put in the fed’s lap after 1) illegally forming a state constitutional convention in 1849 (in violation of federal law) and 2) after lampooning the 1851-52 treaties. ie As one would expect, things were in a state of confusion. The state in 1852 officially or unofficially adopted a posture of open hostility to the Indian inhabitants of the state which it maintained more or less continuously for the next decades. Indians were a nuisance, an expense, an Obstacle,a threat, and should be removed outside state boundaries if possible. Gov John Bigler said the races were incompatible and federal forces must evacuate or destroy the Indians. Not suprisingly the Indians were angry, disillusioned, and hungry and desperate and stole and killed up and down the state. Edward Beale estimated that 15,000 Indians died of hunger in 1851-52 and said the U.S. must do something to protect and preserve them. Federal troops were unwilling or ineffective. Beale was the architect of the California Indian reservation system. He went to Washington in Oct. 1852 to propose a plan for military reservations in different locations in the state to which Indians could be concentrated. Beale’s plan was the only alternative to the feds giving the Indians up to extirmination, so they consented to the plan. ‘The reservations were poorly funded and proved only a temporary and incomplete solution. Beale sincere and humanitarian efforts to mitigate Indian suffering—to the extent that they had any success—were due to his lavish spending for food. He contracted huge debts for the feds. Beale’s outstanding accounts: $351,666.98 at close of superintendency. Ss