Klamath County was a county of California from 1851 to 1874. During its existence, the county seat moved twice and ultimately portions of the territory it once had were carved up and added to nearby counties. It was formed from the northwestern portion of Trinity County, and originally included all of the northwestern part of the state, from the Mad River in the south to Oregon in the north, from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the middle of what is now Siskiyou County in the east. It is the only county in California to be disestablished.
The Klamath River flows 257 miles (414 km) through Oregon and northern California in the United States, emptying into the Pacific Ocean. By average discharge, the Klamath is the second largest river in California after the Sacramento River. Its nearly 16,000-square-mile (41,000 km2) watershed stretches from the high desert of south-central Oregon to the temperate rainforest of the North Coast. Unlike most rivers, the Klamath begins in a desert region and flows through the rugged Cascade Range and Klamath Mountains before reaching the ocean; National Geographic magazine has called the Klamath "a river upside down".
Weitchpec is an unincorporated community within the Yurok reservation in Humboldt County, California, United States. It is located 35 miles (56 km) northeast of Eureka, at an elevation of 361 feet. The ZIP Code is 95546.
Hupa are a Native American people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group in northwestern California. Their endonym is Natinixwe, also spelled Natinook-wa, meaning "People of the Place Where the Trails Return". The Karuk name was Kishákeevar / Kishakeevra. The majority of the tribe is enrolled in the federally recognized Hoopa Valley Tribe.
The Karuk people are an indigenous people of California, and the Karuk Tribe is one of the largest tribes in California. Karuks are also enrolled in two other federally recognized tribes, the Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad Rancheria and the Quartz Valley Indian Community.
The Shastan peoples are a group of linguistically related Indigenous peoples from the Klamath Mountains. They traditionally inhabited portions of several regional waterways, including the Klamath, Salmon, Sacramento and McCloud rivers. Shastan lands presently form portions of the Siskiyou, Klamath and Jackson counties. Scholars have generally divided the Shastan peoples into four languages, although arguments in favor of more or fewer existing have been made. Speakers of Shasta proper-Kahosadi, Konomihu, Okwanuchu, and Tlohomtah’hello "New River" Shasta resided in settlements typically near a water source. Their villages often had only either one or two families. Larger villages had more families and additional buildings used by the community.
The Wiyot are an indigenous people of California living near Humboldt Bay, California and a small surrounding area. They are culturally similar to the Yurok people. They called themselves simply Ku'wil, meaning "the People". Today, there are approximately 450 Wiyot people. They are enrolled in several federally recognized tribes, such as the Wiyot Tribe, Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria, Blue Lake Rancheria, and the Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad Rancheria.
The Rogue River Wars were an armed conflict in 1855–1856 between the U.S. Army, local militias and volunteers, and the Native American tribes commonly grouped under the designation of Rogue River Indians, in the Rogue River Valley area of what today is southern Oregon. The conflict designation usually includes only the hostilities that took place during 1855–1856, but there had been numerous previous skirmishes, as early as the 1830s, between European American settlers and the Native Americans, over territory and resources.
The Tolowa people or Taa-laa-wa Dee-ni’ are a Native American people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethno-linguistic group. Two rancherías still reside in their traditional territory in northwestern California. Those removed to the Siletz Reservation in Oregon are located there.
The Yurok Indian Reservation is a Native American reservation for the Yurok people located in parts of Del Norte and Humboldt counties, California, on a 44-mile (71 km) stretch of the Klamath River. It is one of a very few tribes who have never been removed from their ancestral lands in California.
The Yurok are an Indigenous peoples of California from along the Klamath River and Pacific coast, whose homelands stretch from Trinidad in the south to Crescent City in the north.
Klamath River is an unincorporated community in Siskiyou County, California, United States, situated on the Klamath River. It is located on State Route 96, near the Oregon border. The name "Klamath" was derived from an Indian word Tlamatl which means "they of the (Klamath) river," from /-matl/ "river." in Chinook. The community of Klamath River is about 11 miles (18 km) long and includes both sides of the river from Gottville to Kohl Creek. The population is 190. In 2022, a forest fire destroyed most of the structures in the town.
Che-na-wah Weitch-ah-wah (1856-1932), commonly known by her English name Lucy Thompson, was a Yurok author, best known for her book To the American Indian: Reminiscences of a Yurok Woman. Written in 1916, the book is intended to preserve her people's stories. The book received the American Book Award decades later in 1992. Thompson was born in the Klamath River village of Pecwan. Outside the book she is known to have come from "Yurok aristocracy" and to be married to a Euro-American man named Milton "Jim" Thompson. She intended to tell the stories of her people that were not being told by others, and to make others better understand her people and perspective, although she also criticized whites for practices like overfishing. Thompson expressed that violence towards indigenous Californians were deliberate acts of genocide and she expressed concern for the continued stewardship of Klamath River salmon.
Klamath Glen is an unincorporated community in Del Norte County, California. It is located on the Klamath River 5 miles (8 km) from its mouth, at an elevation of 46 feet.
Rekwoi is a former Yurok settlement in Del Norte County, California, 1 mi (1.6 km) upstream from Requa. It lies at an elevation of 10 feet. When occupied, it comprised roughly 25 houses and 15 sweathouses and in 1852, the population was reported to be 116 people. As a result of the Klamath River Wars, many members of the Yurok tribe were massacred and the remaining were sent to Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation
The Achulet Massacre refers to the 1854 massacre of an estimated 65-150 Tolowa Indians at the hands of European-American settlers. The incident occurred at the village of Achulet, near Lake Earl in [what is now Del Norte County Del Norte County), California. During the same time, the Tolowa people were forcibly relocated to what they refer to as the “Klamath Concentration Camp”, only to later be relocated to Indian reservations in Oregon in 1860 after the Rogue River Wars. The village of Achulet was developed into a huge shipping and trade center. Its development can be attributed to the extensive migration of Europeans into California from 1845 to 1855, most of whom were prompted to travel there by the California gold rush. However, the arrival of these Easterners resulted in a visible decline of the Tolowa population. In addition to genocide, the decline in Tolowa population can also be attributed to contracting diseases that were introduced by the European-American settlers.
The California Indian Wars were a series of wars, battles, and massacres between the United States Army, and the Indigenous peoples of California. The wars lasted from 1850, immediately after Alta California, acquired during the Mexican–American War, became the state of California, to 1880 when the last minor military operation on the Colorado River ended the Calloway Affair of 1880.
The Asbill massacre refers to the murder of 40 Yuki people in Round Valley in 1854 by a band of six White explorers from Missouri.
The Klamath Lake massacre refers to the murder of at least fourteen Klamath people on the shores of Klamath Lake in modern-day Oregon, United States, on 12 May 1846 by a group led by John C. Frémont and Kit Carson.
Between 1851 and 1852, the United States Army forced California's tribes to sign 18 treaties that relinquished each tribe's rights to their traditional lands in exchange for reservations. Due to pressure from California representatives, the Senate repudiated the treaties and ordered them to remain secret. In 1896 the Bureau of American Ethnology report on major native American Indian interactions with the United States Government was the first time the treaties were made public. The report, Indian Land Cessions in the United States (book), compiled by Charles C. Royce, includes the 18 lost treaties between the state's tribes and a map of the reservations. Below is the California segment of the report listing the treaties. The full report covered all 48 states' tribal interactions nationwide with the U.S. government.
