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

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Title: Jarboe's War [Round Valley] Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection # of Pages: 7 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-09-03 13:14:12 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:21:41 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 03:21:41

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

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PAGE 16 THECALIFORNIANS NOV./DEC.19¢ Jarboe’s War “i suppose the human race is doing the best it can but ells bells thats only an explanation its not an excuse.” — don marquis’s cockroach archy, in archy & mehitabel By William B. Secrest ound Valley was discovered by a Re: looking for a stray horse: Frank Asbill topped a hill one spring day in 1854 and suddenly the Valley lay spread out before him: 20,000 acres of lush grasslands, sprinkled with groves of oak trees, in northeastern Mendocino County. Later that summer Samuel Kelsey, locating a trail berween Petaluma and Weaverville, camped on a hill overlooking Round Valley. Judging by the number of Indian campfires in every direction, he estimated there were roughly 20,000 Indians in the area, though later settlers put the figure somewhat lower. Only a few months later, George White and a small party came into Round Valley. Others followed, and by 1857 about 19 white settlers lived there, grazing their cattle, hogs and sheep in the meadows and foothills. A different breed came too — drifters, loafers and fugitives, itinerant horse herders, hunters and men who lived off the land, working only when they fele like it. “The term ‘buckskin gentry’,” wrote an army officer of the time, “. .. embraces all who hunt fora living —all who have a few ideas about agriculture and grazing and herding of stock, but who hunt at intervals; all who are brought into contact with Indians, toeLWe hawe Lost eae ~ as nae: . , Dvd BRR e OO in everything but deat VWiey came io find their fortune, but many early California ‘2 If Sthot real treasures weren't wo be found digging for gold.” r aduensueresonie pushed still further, looking for gold and locating néw'tanges for stock animals. * Mendocino County, some 90 miles north of Sari Francisco, bega sin the’ “early 1850s.It was'a wild, mountainous area of rigged beauty and turbulent creeks and p rivers." The tree-shrouded hills and mountains were int ed here that the settlers buile their crude cabins and began grazing their stock. ‘And all around : them the puzzled Indians gazed in wonder at these noisy and powerful mrruders. “Why do » Why .-.-:?” But there was no ansiver and the setters kept coming: “30% orale. 2 oY the extent of employing and forcibly obws “ps CR CE TD ae ee h, Re oe : tne a : dey di 1: began attracting settlers in the’ taining Indian servants, and cohabitin with squaws, and all who, leading the lif of an Indian, wander from place to plac with no definite object. Such a life... i anything but refining.” The white settler themselves were, for the most part, women less; there was little in the way of civilizin; influences to restrain them. The Indian reservation system had beer inaugurated in California in 1853, and b. 1856 five locations were in operation Shrewd Thomas Henley, Superintenden: of Indian Affairs, set up in addition to the reservations a system of “farms” (small res. ervations). In 1856 Henley sent his sub. agent Simmon Pefia Storms to set up the Nome Cult Indian farm, to occupy 5,00C acres of Round Valley’s northern portion leaving the remaining 15,000 acres open tc white settlement. Storms was in charge of a more or less floating population of several hundred Indians on the farm. The natives were kept busy raising crops but were poorly fed; those not working received no food at all. Storms established a ranch and hotel] and saw nothing wrong with appropriating reservation fencing for his own use. He also obtained workers from among the Indians in his charge and gave his rancher friends access to the labor pool. There was trouble almost from the start. As the Yukis, largest of the local tribes, watched helplessly, settlers came in and usurped more and more of the Valley land. Game was scared away and the settlers’ cattle and hogs fed on the acoms and grass-