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Indian Rancherie on Dry Creek [Miwok] (12 pages)
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Page: of 12
REPORT . “Indian Rancherie on Dry Creek": An Early 1850s Indian Village on the Sacramento and San Joaquin County Line . Farris 71
Dry Creek and directly south of the old Slater property
(Fig. 4).
Dwight Dutschke, a Northern Sierra Miwok, was
asked in 1994 whether there were traditions related to
this village among the descendants of the Plains Miwok
people. He said at the time that he knew of no stories
that could be clearly related to this incident. More
research is needed to identifv the site of this village.
DISCUSSION
From the multiple accounts and references to the incident
described above, it appears that the Dry Creek Rancheria
was comprised at least in part of former mission Indians
who may well have represented varying tribes drawn from
both the valley and the foothills. They were described
as speaking Spanish, and they were apparently armed
with guns as well as bows and arrows. The fact that the
incident occurred during or soon after a period of major
flooding in the area may have also resulted in more
people gathering in a place on higher ground.
The drawing of the village is particularly interesting
because it portrays a stockade fence, two types of houses
(conical tule houses, typical of the valley, and bark
houses more like those found in the mountains), and an
earth-covered sweat lodge. These all seem further evidence
that this was a composite village of people derived from
several different tribes who had banded together for
survival. The documentary information suggests that the
village was associated with a local rancher, the Reverend
Nelson Slater, who is said to have taken up residence a
year or so before the event. Further research on the Slater
Ranch shows its location to have been adjacent to Dry
Creek and that it covered some 506 acres.
The two known archaeological sites identified in the
vicinity are SAC-191 and SJO-24, which were adjacent
to one another on either side of Dry Creek. They were
mentioned by Schenck and Dawson (1929:320-321,
324), and both sites were said to have been destroyed.
SAC-191 (also known as the McGilvary site, after the
landowner in the 1920s, and initially given the number
C25) was said to have been 40 feet in diameter (Schenck