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

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Title: Petition to Congress on Behalf of the Yosemite Indians (1978) Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection # of Pages: 6 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-09-03 15:05:53 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 05:50:06 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 05:50:06

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

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274 THE JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA ANTHROPOLOGY the war indemnity which our fathers were forced to pay—their all and their lives besides— is in monstrous disproportion to the damage they inflicted, however just they may have deemed the provocation. 2d. The action of the Mariposa Battalion towards our chief at that time, Tenaya, and his tribe was wantonly unjust and outrageous. Our only quarrel with the whites then was owing to our determination not to go upona reservation being established on the Fresno, and give up to the whites this magnificent valley, which was to us reservation and all that we desired and that for a few paltry blankets, gewgaws and indifferent supplies of rations, that might be furnished us or not, at the discretion of any appointed Indian Agent. Our fathers had the sorrow to see their tribe conquered, their dignified and honored chief Tenaya led out by a halter, like a beast, into a green field to eat grass, amid the wonder and laughter of our pursuers; and his youngest son shot dead for no other reason than that he had tried to escape the unjust thraldom of our persecutors. For proof of these statements, you are referred to Dr. Bunnell’s History of the Discovery of the Yosemite. He was himself attached to this battalion, and was an eye witness to all the facts related. Those who were left of our fathers were taken with their chief, however, to the reservation on the Fresno, from which place hunger and destitution finally forced them to run away; after which, we have been informed, the reservation was broken up, having shed disgrace upon all connected with its management. 3d. From that time up to the present the remnants of the various bands formerly in possession of the valley have earned a scanty livelihood by hunting, fishing, etc. There has never been a cause of complaint against the descendants of the old Yo Semites, neither have they broken the peace or indulged in warfares of any kind; they have silently been witness to the usurpation of their lands and valley; they have never been provided for in any way by the Government of either the State or the United States. The wisdom of their action in quietly escaping from the Fresno reservation was justified by the bad management of that reservation, which finally led to its being abolished by the United States Government. Now we, the last remnant of the once great Yosemite tribe, and also those from the Mono and Piutes tribes who have claims here, see that the time is fast approaching when we must all abandon this, our valley, together, for the following reasons. White men have come into this valley to make money only. They have continually disobeyed the laws which were made for the government of this valley by the Washington Government. Those laws declared that this valley should be kept as a reservation and park for the white people forever but the head men appointed to govern this valley by the State Government do not obey those laws; instead, they have given control of the lands of the entire valley into the hands ot a few whites, who only wish to make money here, and care neither for the laws nor the Indians. Those white men have fenced the valley all up with wire fences, with sharp barbs all along the wire, close together; it is divided off into fields, many of which are ploughed up by the white men to raise grain and hay to feed their own horses upon, and the Indians are forbidden to walk across their own fields by reason of this farming; the other fields are filled with the horses and cattle of these white men, as many as 125 horses, and sometimes 40 head or more of cattle being at large in these fields; all of the tender roots, berries and the few nuts that formed the sustenance of the Indians are trampled down and torn up by the roots, or eaten and broken off in this way by these few white men’s horses and cattle. If the Indians have two or three horses they must starve, for there are no fields left for them to run in, neither can the strange whites, who came in wagons to look at the great rocks in the valley,