Moreover, the Indians saw that their main sources of food supply were being rapidly destroyed. The oak trees, which produced the acorns—one of their staple articles of food,—were being cut down and burned by miners and others in clearing up land for cultivation, and the deer and other food game were being rapidly killed off or driven from the locality.
Copyrighted Photograph by Boysen.
AN INDIAN DANCER.
Chow-chil-la Indian in full war-dance costume.
In the "early days," before California was admitted as a free State into the Union, it was reported, and was probably true, that some of the immigrants from the slave-holding States took Indians and made slaves of them in working their mining claims. It was no uncommon event for the sanctity of their homes and families to be invaded by some of the "baser sort," and young women taken, willing or not, for servants and wives.
RETALIATION.
In retaliation, and as some compensation for these many grievous outrages upon their natural inalienable rights of domain and property, and their native customs, the Indians stole horses and mules from the white settlers, and killed them for food for their families, who, in many instances, were in a condition of starvation.
Finally the chiefs and leading men of all the tribes involved met in a grand council, and resolved to combine their warrior forces in one great effort to drive all their white enemies from the country, before they became more numerous and formidable.
BEGINNING OF HOSTILITIES.
To prepare for this struggle for existence, they made raids upon some of the principal trading posts in the mining sections, killed those in charge, took all the blankets, clothing and provisions they could carry away, and fled to the mountains, where they were soon pursued by the soldiers and volunteer citizens, and a spirited battle was fought without any decisive advantage to either side.
The breaking out of actual hostilities created great excitement among the whites, and an urgent call was made upon the Governor of the State for a military force to meet the emergency, and protect the settlers—a force strong enough to thoroughly subdue the Indians, and remove all of them to reservations to be selected by the United States Indian Commissioners for that purpose.