Chapter V
INDIAN—PIONEER CONFLICT AND THE STORY OF ISHI
Conflict—prolonged, tragic, and violent—flared during the period when Europeans wrested control of North America from the native Indian. In viewing the struggle between Indian and white man, feelings run high even today.
What was it when Custer’s contingent was wiped out?—when the Modocs inflicted such heavy losses on the American troops?—when the Navajo, Sioux, and others made their devastating raids on wagon trains and pioneer settlers? These were just as much a part of the war as were the exploits of Rogers’ Rangers, the indiscriminate slaying of Indian men, women, and children in the Yahi caves on Mill Creek, and the annihilation of large segments of Atsugewi and Yana tribes cornered at points northwest of the present Lassen Volcanic National Park area. War is never a pretty thing. Was the hit and run killing of white people by Indians any less defensible morally than white man’s atrocities against the Indians, or, for that matter, than commando raids and atomic bombings of today? Our viewpoint on such matters in the past has all too often been that might makes right, since we have always been on the winning side. Until very recently we have followed the biased opinion of the colonists and pioneers of these United States: whenever we won, it was a glorious and righteous victory, but if the Indian emerged victorious, it was regarded as a dastardly massacre. It is a viewpoint readily understandable where a person’s loved ones are involved—but not justifiable.
Our veterans of recent wars will vouch for the fact that white man’s wars can be primitive and violent when life and limb are at stake. We are hardly in a position to criticize the “cruel and sneaking” fighting methods of the Indians. Was it not use of Indian fighting methods which was so valuable to us in defeating the British in the colonial war for independence?
Indians fought in the only way they knew—and a disheartening losing fight it was for them with bows and arrows against rifles. For each gain in weapons and technical know-how the Indians made, the whites made many. True, it cost Americans much in the way of lives, anguish, and money, but how small were these losses in comparison to those of the Indians. American Indians, the undisputed owners of this continent for thousands of years, were not only nearly exterminated, but in the end we took virtually all of their land by force and with it took away the means of self support as well without “due process of law”. We denied the Indian the right of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”—the very things for which we as a nation stand. In all fairness, however, it should be stated that in recent years modest monetary retribution has been made by the U.S. Government to some of the surviving descendants.
S. F. Cook has pointed out that Spanish contact with California Indians was a rather passive matter. Spanish penetrated deeply, but did not settle on Indian lands of appreciable size. The Spanish were present in small numbers, a population numbering perhaps 4,000 by 1848. To be sure there was occasional bloodshed, but it was the exception in Spanish California rather than the rule, for the Spanish regarded Indians as an asset, a human resource which provided labor and even some food and materials. The Indians were a respected element in the social and economic structure of Hispanic California, having civic and legal rights. Even under the Spanish, was there a great reduction of the Indian population through limited warfare and displacement, but much more importantly through disease. Nevertheless, by 1845 a more or less satisfactory equilibrium seems to have evolved between the Spanish and the California Indians.
In contrast the hordes of white immigrants who followed considered the Indians entirely useless and there was no place for the latter in the pioneers’ economy of material wealth. All good lands were taken from the Indians arbitrarily and as quickly as possible. However, it must be stated that there were exceptions to both the Spanish and Gringo relations with the California Indians, but, in general, the foregoing statements are accurate.
How the conflict of pioneer versus Indian affected the Atsugewi is summarized for us by Garth as follows:
“The Atsugewi, because of their somewhat secluded mountain habitat, were spared contact with white civilization until the middle of the nineteenth century. Although there were vague reports of contact with Spanish explorers or Mexican bandits, these could not be verified. Peter Skene Ogden may have been the first white man to visit the area (1827-1828). Besides the trappers, Fremont, Greenwood, and other explorers probably skirted Atsugewi country. Peter Lassen passed through Achomawi-Atsugewi country in opening the Pit River Route of 1848. He was soon followed by a stream of white migration from the east which was devastating to the Indians and their culture. Prospectors entered the Lassen region in 1851, and not long afterward came white settlers. By about 1859 the Indians were felt to be a menace to the whites in the area and were rounded up by militia and taken to the Round Valley Indian Reservation. Unsatisfactory conditions at the Reservation caused most of them to leave in 1863 and return to their old haunts along Hat Creek and Dixie Valley.
“Joaquin Miller reports an uprising in 1867 of the Pit River and Modoc Indians, who had made up old differences and were now fighting together. A number of whites were massacred. Miller speaks of an Indian camp being made on Hat Creek in the war that followed. It is not thus improbable that the Atsuge participated in that war. After a year or so of fighting the Indians suffered a final crushing defeat and surrendered. This last engagement may be the one at Six Mile Hill, spoken of by informants, in which a large number of their people were cornered in a cave and massacred by soldiers. After this, many of the Indians were again removed to Round Valley. Those remaining and some who subsequently returned from the Reservation maintained friendly relations with the whites. Today most Atsugewi live on allotments in their old territory, the younger Indians often working for their white neighbors or for the lumber mills. The census of 1910 gives a population of 240 for ‘Hat Creek Indians’. This figure may also have included the Dixie Valley Atsugewi, since they are not mentioned in the census. The present population is probably half that or less.”
The Maidu also were decimated upon contact with white man. However, with only rare exception, Maidu accepted rather passively invasion of their territory with the attendant driving away of game and destruction of fish in the streams by mining operations in gold rush days. However, since the remnants of the Maidu were in the way of white mans’ developments, treaties were made in 1851 by which these Indians gave up all claims to their ancestral lands and were taken to short lived reservations in Amador, Nevada and Butte Counties, also later to the Round Valley Reservations in the Coast Range. A great many Maidu soon returned to their homes. In the late 50’s and 60’s a desultory war was waged on the Maidu by California State troops which further reduced the number of surviving Indians of this tribe.