Cooper says that in 1834 there were "in his neighborhood" 2,000 Canimares. Since the Molino ranch embraced the region north of Sebastopol and west of Santa Rosa, his "neighborhood" may be considered as including the Sebastopol and Santa Rosa groups of the Southern Pomo, leaving the Healdsburg, Cloverdale, and Dry Creek groups beyond his horizon. The estimates cited by Taylor refer rather ambiguously to the period between 1827 and 1834, let us say roughly 1830. The earliest Pomo conversions which are recognizable from the mission records were at San Rafael in 1820. These Pomo had therefore been subjected to intense missionization for at least ten years prior to Cooper's appearance. The population consequently must have been seriously depleted when he first saw the Santa Rosa Valley.
If we disregard entirely the factor of depletion and accept Cooper's 1834 estimate of 2,000 Canimares around Santa Rosa and Sebastopol, we may allow an equivalent population for the other three Southern Pomo provinces. This yields a total of 5,000. If we attempt to make any correction for depletion, we very quickly reach the figure already arrived at by other methods, viz., 6,000.
That a comprehensive population reduction was in progress throughout the era of 1820 to 1850 and later is attested by the report of Major Heintzelman. His figure for the Northern Pomo, it will be recollected, was definitely within the range of the population determined from ethnographic data. His value for the Central Pomo was only one-third of that computed by other methods, and the discrepancy was accounted for on the basis of the decline in numbers from the first white contact to 1855, the year of Heintzelman's trip. At the end of his report he makes the statement that "south of the Cañon of the Russian River there are about eight hundred indians." In other words, the Southern Pomo (which all lie south of the canyon) had dwindled to no more than 800. The converse may also be maintained. Since Heintzelman had a very good check on the population of the well-settled south and since, according to all known testimony, the attrition among the Indians of this area had been appalling during the preceding 30 to 40 years, it follows that the original population must have been very much greater than that conceded by Heintzelman. Hence a level of several thousand may be accepted.
Southern Pomo ... 6,000
NORTHEASTERN POMO
This little tribe, living on the border of the Sacramento Valley, has never been investigated thoroughly. Barrett (1908) listed 13 rancherias but Merriam's informants (manuscript entitled "Sho-te-ah or Northeastern Pomo Tribe and Villages") allowed only 7. At 50 persons per village this would indicate a population of about 350.
Northeastern Pomo ... 350
SUMMARY