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 expressive of “the wishes of the citizens of the county.” While the committee was out deliberating, Gwin, Weller and General Wool made speeches that endorsed removal. Two-thirds of the audience had left by the time the committee returned with a majority and a minority report, four in favor of removal, and three for letting the Indians alone. The minority report expressed confidence in the harmless and peaceable Indians of the county and enjoined the government to spend the money appropriated for removal locally, that is, to feed and protect the Nisenan and aid them towards self-support within their own homeland. Matters were unresolved due to procedural issues when the meeting was adjourned. One Democratic paper pronounced the council “a grand ‘fizzle,’” Sargent wrote: “Thus ended for the present this grand scheme to find an outlet for the government appropriation. There is considerable division in public sentiment with reference to the matter; the majority however are indifferent as to the result.” Sargent correctly assessed the situation, as the Crenshaw report affirmed in December 1854.'° Many in Nevada County’s settler population were ambivalent about removal as the local Indians were law-abiding and provided a cheap source of labor for ranchers and farmers. In a September 3, 1852 Nevada Northern California Indian Reservations, courtesy David Comstock. appointed or embarrassed by the miserable showing of Indians, which cast the legitimacy of the proceedings in doubt. Nonetheless, the intended goals were achieved. Henley reported to Washington a week later that the council resulted in an agreement reached with the chiefs present to go to Nome Lackee. Three persons from each of the ten divisions would go to stay the winter and plant crops “preparatory to the removal” of all the rest of the Indians. The leaders of the ten divisions had not been in attendance and no longer looked to Weymeh for leadership. This agreement must have been made behind closed doors with ample bribes to Weymeh and others. Presumably, the representative Nisenan who went to Nome Lackee that winter were induced by the distribution of much-needed foodstuffs to their kindred. Henley “uniformly refused” the numerous applications “to furnish temporary subsistence to the Indians in their present locations.”’'’ Only those who removed to Nome Lackee would be fed. And only those who worked hard as farm laborers on the reservations were fed government-issue beef. For the others, Henley said it would be a test to see if they can subsist without beef. At Nome Lackee, Weymeh and the contingent of 70 Nisenan _ Indians (forty having come from Grass Valley voluntarily during the winter of 1854-1855) were Journal editorial, Sargent observed “There has been less trouble in this county with the Indian tribes than in any other in the state where they are so numerous.” Henley admitted his surprise at finding: “At this place ... what I have not encountered anywhere else, some opposition to the removal of the Indians,” but claimed it was strictly partisan.’ While having the appearance of grass roots democracy in action, the Council was a mockery of it, for a determined cadre of Democrats, whose motives were self-serving, had determined the outcome in advance. The “great men” who attended hoped to play stellar roles in a glorious historic event resolving the Indian “problem” in California, but were undoubtedly disgiven better food and treatment, as they were semi-skilled laborers who worked cheerfully. Under Storms’s protection, they lived separately from the reservation employees, who drank and gambled, and from the other Indian groups. Storms made two trips in 1855, rounding up another 210 Nevada and Yuba County Indians. Some hid and others actively resisted as escapees from Nome Lackee returned with negative reports. In early 1856 Weymeh was quoted as saying, “his countrymen were made very comfortable, but he wanted to know when the China Indians were going to be colonized, for they needed the care of the pale faces more than the red man.”!® Later that year, Henley put Storms in charge of Nome Cult Farm in Mendocino County (later Round Valley