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

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Title: Nevada County Historical Society Bulletin (Volume 73, No. 4)(2019) Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection Published: 2019 # of Pages: 6 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

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

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NCHS Bulletin October 2019 appropriated $100,000 for preserving peace with the dispossessed Indians of California until a permanent solution could be devised. Edward Beale, appointed by Whig President Millard Fillmore as California’s first Indian Superintendent, found a solution both the federal and state governments could accept. Five “movable” military reservations, modeled on the California mission system (without the religion) would be established. Congress appropriated $250,000.° The autumn of 1854 was a propitious moment for Gwin and other Democrats to realize the long-sought goal of extinguishing Indians’ legal titles in the mining counties. The Whig Party collapsed and Democrats were in the ascendancy when Democrat Franklin Pierce was elected president. He replaced many Whig administration appointees, including Beale, with loyal Democrats as was customary under the prevailing patronage system. Thomas Henley, a Party stalwart, became Superintendent; he soon endorsed Beale’s plan of concentrating Indians on temporary reserves where they would be taught to be self-supporting farmers as the only feasible political solution. Indians were starving from Trinity to San Joaquin County, and concerned citizens demanded federal action. Henley received the $350,000 appropriation he requested. His budget was amply padded by $10,000 to pay travel expenses for his entourage and for “‘incidental presents to Indians and visitors”. By September, he set up Nome Lackee Reservation and toured the mining districts looking for Indians to populate it. He reported to his superior in Washington that the Indians were starving, but were willing to labor and to relocate. “Indeed nothing but speedy removal will save them from entire annihilation.”’ Thus, Henley’s and Gwin’s agendas conveniently converged. Historian William Secrest says Nome Lackee was “Henley’s model reserve as well as the means to gain larger appropriations, more patronage, higher political office and apparently any personal financial advantage possible.” Not surprisingly, Samuel Norris who had profiteered on government beef contracts for Indians during the treaty-making debacle of 1851-52, was in attendance at the council.® At a meeting with Henley in Sacramento on September 28, the state’s leading Chivalry Democrats decided to hold the portentous Indian council — a mere five EXTRAORDINARY Attraction ONE. THOUSAND INDIANS With their War Implements, Squaws, Papeeses, Ke. WILL ASSEMBLE At Storms’ Rancho, Milnckstowse resd, six mallee Goes Cress Vi andi EA eee evel, on the efirneen ax and eresing of Monday. Ju'y 19, for the purpose of Celebrating their Annual Feasts and Fancy Dances. ‘This will be one of the largest Indian collectons that has ever taken place in California, and Te tess whe Waveho IT ($ WELL WORTH The Ride. CAPT. WEYMEH. Storms’ Rancho, July 1, 1852. Storms’s Rancho Gathering, July 19, 1852, courtesy Peter Shearer family collection. days later! Nevada County was an ideal place for advancing the removal agenda. Simmon Pefia Storms’s public house, the Hermitage, offered fine food and accommodations, comforts to which these “great” men were accustomed. It had a large amphitheater, where Indians and miners regularly met in entertainments such as competitive foot races. Weymeh was a “peaceable” chief, open to negotiation. Storms (hired in September as Indian agent for Nevada, Placer, Yuba, and Sierra Counties) was an able intermediary and a Democrat. Most critically, the Nisenan land rights were the most valuable in the state, and these were the very ones targeted by Gwin and his Democrat allies in 1854. In his September 29 report, Henley justified borrowing $20,000 at this meeting —which later he admitted was $40,000—to make unauthorized expenditures to expedite removal; $15,000 had been borrowed from Gwin, who encouraged Henley to incur this debt. An accompanying letter — signed by Democrats Gwin and Weller, J. W. Denver, M.S. Latham, and P.T. Herbert’— made the case for “immediate action” to remove Indians “by force.”””