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

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Title: Inter Pocala & History of California (Various Pages) Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection Author: H.H. Bancroft # of Pages: 33 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-08-30 14:55:53 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:21:14 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 03:21:14

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

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28 EN ASE Rian RR ARE, eI hae OS oe ah 442 SOME INDIAN EPISODES. a few weeks we became crowded, and it would no more pay, as my people made too many acquaintances, I broke up the camp and started on the march further south, and located my next camp on Sutter creek, and thought that I should there be alone. The work was going on well for awhile, until three or four travelling grog-shops surrounded me, at from one and a half to two miles distance from the camp; then of course, the gold was taken to these places, for drinking, gambling, etc., and then the following day they were sick and unable to work, and became deeper and more indebted to me, and particularly the Kanakas. I found that it was high time to quit this kind of business,'and lose no more time and money. I therefore broke up the camp and returned to the fort, where I disbanded nearly all the people who had . worked for me in the mountains digging gold.. This whole expedition proved to be a heavy loss to me.” One Sunday in August 1850, in the town of Sonora, © a person called Cave in conversation with a gambler named Mason, pointing to an Indian who was lounging about the street, offered to lay a wager that he could induce the native to rob or kill him. . Mason accepted the offer. Cave then drew the native aside, told him that Mason had a large sum of money hidden; told him where he should find it, and that if he would rob or kill Mason he should have half of it and no harm should befall him. Placing an unloaded pistol in his hand Cave urged him on to the consummation of the deed. Irresolute, bewildered, worked upon more by the exhortations of Cave than any desire to do wrong, the native hesitatingly entered Mason’s house, looked around and came out without touching a thing. Mason was watching for him and as soon as he was fairly on the street again shot him dead. For specimens of Indian warfare we must go north. The natives of California valley were a mild race, and when the miners shot them. down the survivors . SULLIX THE SHASTA. 443 seldom retaliated. In the vicinity of the Oregonborder, however, on both sides of the line, it was quite different. The inhabitants were a bolder, braver people, who would not tamely submit to every indignity. During the year 1852 there were several new mining fields discovered in northern California and southern Oregon, and the natives thereabout being highspirited and strong, and the miners overbearing, it is no wonder there were many outrages on both sides. Conspicuous among the savages was a Shasta, called by the white men Scarface, and another named Bill, and Sullix the bad-tempered, who in cunning, treachery, and cruelty, were equal to any of the white men invading their domains—only the latter were the stronger. E. Steele, of Yreka, was a favorite of the Shastas, who named him Jo Lane’s Brother. Among the Rogue river chiefs, some of whose people belonged to the Shasta nation, were Tolo and John, Sam and Jo; then at the foot of the Siskiyou mountains, was Tipsey, or the Hairy, second to none in war and diplomacy. White men imposed upon the Shastas, and from time to time these chiefs had killed white men. Sometimes Steele played successfully the part of peacemaker; oftener there was fighting. On one occasion, while a ‘surveying party was at work in his vicinity, Scarface said to them, “ You white men who are so good and so great, why do you come into our country and kill our men, ravish our women, and go around with a compass and chain crying ‘stick, stuck,’ set up a few stakes and call the land your own when you have not paid a cent for it?” ‘Cardwell, an old Indian-fighter of that vicinity, tells many stories of this aboriginal. ‘This same old Sullix sat upon one of the sills of my mill,” he says, “while I was at work boring and mortising on it, watching the road alive with men coming into the valley after the discovery of the