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The Yokayo Rancheria [Pomo] (4 pages)
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Page: of 4
210 California Historical Society Quarterly
have been John Parker, who drove in a band of cattle in 1850 or 1851.7 This
was the beginning of the end of the ancestral life of the Indians, resulting
ultimately in the creation of the Yokayo rancheria.
The 12,000-odd fertile acres now known as Ukiah Valley were the natural home of the Yokayo Indians within the memory of their four chiefs,
Dick, Lewis, Bill, and Charley. While life was primitive, there were few
real hardships. On the whole, the neighboring tribes were not warlike; the
hills and lowlands teemed with game, deer, grouse, quail, ducks and geese;
the streams abounded in fish, with salmon running up from the sea; the
oaks yielded acorns, and anything lacking was obtained by barter with
tribes to the east or on the seacoast to the west.®
The birthdays of the four Indian leaders are not known, but it is perhaps
fair to assume that they were born about the 1830's. Bill died on August 13,
1901, and Charley on May 8, 1904. Chiefs Dick and Lewis survived them
by a few years. It is regrettable that the social status of their parents within
the tribe remains unknown. One might then have drawn conclusions regarding the inherited qualities that made their sons the spokesmen and
co-chiefs of the tribe.
On March 3, 1851, Congress passed “An Act to Ascertain and Settle the
Private Land Claims in the State of California.” This was followed by general activity among claimants for Mexican grants, among them Juarez, who
filed a petition on September 11, 1852, in which he sought confirmation of
his title to the land called “Yokaya.” Thus began litigation which in this case
continued for twelve years and was concluded in the United States Supreme
Court. The litigation was in accordance with white man’s law, but there is
no record that any rights of the Indians were recognized or claim made
that they were entitled to be heard.
The Board of Land Commissioners rejected the petition of Juarez on
November 7, 1854. However, on April 17, 1863, this decision was reversed
by the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of
California and the claim was confirmed. An appeal was then taken to the
Supreme Court of the United States, but this court dismissed the appeal at
its December term in 1864. The land named “Yokaya” was then surveyed,
and a report and map were filed showing that the grant of Ukiah Valley
contained 35,541.33 acres. On the 8th of March, 1867, a patent was issued
by President Andrew Johnson to Cayetano Juarez, and thereby the lands
of the Yokayo Indians in the Ukiah Valley were lost to them.®
During the litigation the rancho had a succession of owners. On August
16, 1852, Juarez conveyed Yokaya to Mariano G. Vallejo,?® and on February 9, 1867, Vallejo and Mortimer Ryan conveyed it to “John Currey,
S. Clinton Hastings and Horace W. Carpentier.”*t These one-time owners
of the Ukiah Valley were distinguished citizens of California. When the
constitution of 1849 was adopted, Hastings became the first chief justice of
The Yokayo Rancheria 2411
the state Supreme Court, but his name is perhaps chiefly remembered in
connection with the Hastings College of the Law. One of the other owners,
John Currey, became an associate justice of the California Supreme Court
in 1862 and later was chief justice. The third grantee, Horace W. Carpentier, was an early mayor of Oakland.
Appropriation of the Indians’ land did not await confirmation of the grant
or the official survey of its boundarics. In 1856 a declaratory statement to
pre-empt 160 acres was filed by Samucl Lowry." It covered a portion of
the present site of Ukiah and was the occasion for the influx of settlers.
Originally, Mendocino was a part of Sonoma County, but on March 11,
1859, it was organized as a county by act of legislature, Ukiah was chosen
as the county seat, and a brick court house erected.'® The gold rush had
carried the early miners and all who followed in their train in the direction
of the Sierra. The great valley and the coastal regions, from the vicinity
of San Francisco Bay southward, were more than ample to meet the requirements of pioneer ranchers in the matter of acreage, and accessibility to
navigable streams and safe harbors; consequently the white man did not
penetrate the upper Russian River Valley for genuine settlement until a few
years before the Civil War. As was previously noted, it was characterized
in 1859 as “the country inhabited by the unchristianized Indians.” But the
prospect of free land was attractive, and before Juarez’ title to the Yokaya
grant was perfected on March 8, 1867 (thus confirming the HastingsCurrey-Carpentier transaction of the previous month), general settlement
had been made by persons having nothing but possessory rights. The three
owners of the Juarez grant had a survey made of the different claims and
agreed to sell so as to average $2.50 per acre for the entire tract. Thus, for
the second time, Ukiah Valley was lost to the Yokayo Indians.
The divestiture, however, was not confined to the valley itself but extended into the cattle ranges and smaller valleys of the entire watershed. On
May 20, 1862, President Lincoln signed the first Homestead Law, on the
strength of which another influx of settlers arrived, this time invading the
hills, so that these lands, too, became privately owned.
When white settlement began, there were approximately 200 1nembers
in the tribe,"4 but each year they became more limited in their freedom of
action as their lands passed into private ownership. They secured a precarious existence by working for the settlers, supplemented by fish and
game. By 1881 their number had been reduced to 135, according to the
court records at Ukiah. In that year they made their headquarters on the
ranch of J. H. Burke,’® about five miles south of Ukiah, but this was only
by the license of the generous rancher.
It is definitely known from court records (Note 14, above) that at this
time, Dick, Lewis, Bill, and Charley were the chiefs. Sufficient time had
now passed to determine the effect of the coming of the whites upon the