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A Case Study of a Northern California Indian Tribe - Cultural Change to 1860 (1977) (109 pages)
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Page: of 109
cost $20.00 per yard, blankets $100.00 each, and a colored handkerchief, two ounces
of gold. Beads and worn blankets were sold to Indians for their weight in goid/9
The relationship between Indian and immigrant merchant is described by a forty-niner.
They (Indians)....make their purchases by coming up to the
dealer, pointing first to the gold dust and then to the store
goods which was understood to be an offer. If the storekeeper
shakes his head, the Indians returned with a little more dust
until the storekeeper says they have enough. The Indians used
this procedure because the poor creatures were frequently
plundered and were afraid to trust themselves alone with a
white man with much gold upon their person, 80
By the spring of 1849, Nisenan-immigrant clashes became frequent. Sutter
discussed the nature of these conflicts.
Recent immigrants in search of gold have started a war of extermination upon them (Nisenan) shooting them down like wolves, men,
women and children, wherever they could find them....generally the
: whites are the aggressors....and Indians retaliate whenever opportunities occur. The profitable trade with them in exchange for
their gold dust is at an end. Their labor once indispensable
....has"béén sacrificed by this extensive system of indiscriminate revenge 81
Hubert H. Bancroft, a western historian, expanded on the immigrants' "war
of extermination" Indian policy in the gold district.
The California valley cannot grace her annals with a single
Indian war bordering on respectability. It can boast, however,
a hundred or two of as brutal butcherings, on the part of our
honest miners and brace pioneers.... The poor natives of’
California had neither the strength nor the intelligence to
unite in any formidable numbers; hence when they retaliated
for outrages constantly being performed by whites upon them,
sufficient excuse was given to the miners and settlers to
band and shoot down any Indians they met, old or young,
innocent or guilty, friendly or hostile, until their appetite
for blood was appeased.
Nisenan-immigrant conflicts were reported in the Sacramento city area and
several Indians (probably Nisenan) were slaughtered "on the spot without justification"
on the Cosumnes River. 83 Five miners were killed on the Middle Fork of the American
River and a volunteer militia from Coloma tracked the "enemy" to a foothill Nisenan
village on Weber Creek. The militia attacked the village. The chief fought until
hit the third time, rising each time to his knees and discharging his arrows against
the bullets of the militia. Twenty Nisenan were killed in this battle, thirty were
15