The Suisunes (also called the Suisun and the "People of the West Wind") were a Patwin tribe of Wintun people, originating in the Suisun Bay and Suisun Marsh regions of Solano County in Northern California. Their traditional homelands stretched between what is now Suisun City, Vacaville and Putah Creek around 200 years ago. The Suisunes' main village, Yulyul, is believed to be where Rockville, California is located today. Father Abella, visitor to the tribe in 1811, indicated they resided in the present location of Fairfield, north of the Suisun Bay.[1] One of the Suisunes' primary food sources was acorns. Their diet also included fish as well as miner's lettuce. Their huts (as recorded by the Spaniards in 1817) were conical wikiups made of rushes or tule thatch.
The Suisunes were one tribe of the Patwin Indians, who were the southern branch of the Wintun group, who had lived in the region for up to 4000 years. Few records have been handed down; approximately 2500-5000 Patwins existed in all.
Mission Era
By 1800, Spain had taken control of most of the Bay Area, having erected seven missions in the Ohlone region south and west of the Suisunes' region. The closest mission to the Suisunes was across the San Francisco Bay, Mission San Francisco de Asís. Franciscan missionaries wanted to bring all tribes into the Spanish-controlled missions, pueblos and presidios, however the Spanish had not yet reached north of the present-day Carquinez Strait to the Suisunes. The Suisunes lived sufficiently far away from the first missions to rebel from the incoming Spaniards, and over time they joined with the other Patwin tribes in the central valley region to resist the incursion on their lands and maintain their freedom. They acquired horses from mission runaways and mission outposts.
The Suisunes might have avoided contact for several more decades with the missionaries, however in the early 19th century, Indian runaways from the missions began to seek shelter with the Suisunes. The missions would send Mission Indians to round up "Christian" runaways. The interaction set in motion a chain of Indian battles and growing distrust.
Battles
In 1804, 14 Mission Indians identified as Saclan and Jalquin ventured into the Suisun homeland to recapture mission runaways, and were either killed or died in an unfortunate drowning accident. The facts are unclear. The mission statement of their deaths included this note: "It is not possible to affirm whether they died by drowning or at the hands of the pagans (i.e., the Suisunes)... I am inclined to believe they died by drowning. If the pagans (Suisunes) had killed them, their relatives would have told me about it."[2]
By the year 1807, 62 runaways from the missions lived in the regions of Suisunes. In February 1807, 40 Mission Indians ventured in Suisun territory looking for January runaways, particularly to reclaim one man's wife. The runaways fought for their freedom, the Suisunes defending them. 12 of the attacking Mission Indians died, the rest retreated.
In May 1810, three more traveling Mission Indians were killed by Suisunes. In retribution, the Spaniard Gabriel Moraga led an attack on 125 Suisunes and "a fierce battle took place". 125 Suisun men in this battle were driven into three huts and killed. Two huts of men died in battle, one hut was consumed by fire. The soldiers returned to San Francisco with "6 boys and 6 girls of Suisuns and Chupcans."[3]
Migration
The next year in 1811, perhaps due to the loss of 125 men, a large group of Suisunes gave up the resistance and moved into Mission San Francisco de Asís in present-day San Francisco. A total of 326 Suisunes were baptized at this mission between 1810 and 1816.
In 1817, Jose DeArguello, the commandant of the Presidio of San Francisco sent his lieutenant Jose Sanchez to lead another attack against the Suisun tribe, believed to have taken place in the hills behind Benicia. The Spaniards subsequently gained ground in present-day Fairfield and Suisun City today, reaching the Suisun village of Chief Malica, sachem of the tribe. At this village, probably with imminent defeat of his people, Chief Malica and the majority of the tribe chose to end their lives in a tragic mass suicide. The Spaniards witnessed the village's brushy huts burst into flames. The chief chanting and singing, leapt into the flames, followed by the people of the village, including the women with children and babies. The Spaniards tried to save some while several Indians fled into the hills. The remaining tribe survived in the hills or through assimilation, reemerging under the leadership of Chief Sem-Yeto, also known as Chief Solano.
Sem-Yeto (later known as Chief Solano), born about 1800, emerged as the next in line to be the chief of the next generation of Suisunes. Sem-Yeto was described as tall, 6 feet 7 inches, handsome and brave. Sem-Yeto was baptized in the San Francisco Mission in July 1810 at roughly age 10 with the name "Francisco Solano" and lived there until adulthood. He became known as Chief Solano. His baptism took place 2 months after the tragedy of 1810.[1] Sem-Yeto was possibly captured as a child in Moraga's raid of 1810 or his family brought him within two months of the battle.
In 1823, Sem-Yeto and the Suisun people at Mission San Francisco moved into the new mission in the town of Sonoma, California, the Mission San Francisco de Solano, to help build and populate this final Franciscan mission built north of the San Francisco Bay.
In 1834, General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo of Sonoma, as the comandante of the new pueblo projects in the region, became a very valuable patron and friend to Chief Solano, and formed an alliance with the Suisunes. The mission system was closing down. Chief Solano and the Suisunes led many expeditions with the object of quelling the other tribes of the region, particularly "the Wappo, the Satisyomis (aka Sotoyomes, a Wappo tribe)[4] and the Cainameros (aka the Pomo Indians of Cainama in the region toward Santa Rosa)", who were attempting to throw off Mexican domination. Chief Solano eventually helped to secure peace between the region's Native Americans and the Mexicans. A peace treaty was signed in 1836. With the alliance with General Vallejo, the tribe was relatively powerful.
On a political venture, Vallejo even arranged for and sent Chief Solano and 100 warrior Suisunes to travel down to Monterey, California to impress and seek military support from Juan Bautista Alvarado, governor of Alta California (1836–1837, 1838–1842).[5]
In 1837, a smallpox epidemic decimated the native population of the Sonoma region, as well as from other diseases brought in from the Spaniards as well as the Russians at Fort Ross.[6][7] Chief Solano was one of the few natives to receive a vaccination.
Chief Solano was also one of a handful of natives to receive a land grant in the mission secularization and parcelling out of Mexican-American lands. The Suisunes who survived the epidemic began to earn their livelihoods through farm labor or fishing. Some chose to work as seasonal or year-round ranch labors for Vallejo at the Rancho Petaluma Adobe or other area ranches.[7]
In 1846, at the end of the Bear Flag Revolt when California was ceded to the United States, General Vallejo was taken prisoner by Americans at Sutter's Fort, Sem-Yeto fled north, and the people continued to earn their living on the ranches of California.
Fink, Augusta. Monterey, The Presence of the Past. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1972. ISBN978-87-7010-720-4.
Milliken, Randall. A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1910 Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication, 1995. ISBN0-87919-132-5 (alk. paper)
Silliman, Stephen. Lost Laborers in Colonial California, Native Americans and the Archaeology of Rancho Petaluma. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2004. ISBN0-8165-2381-9.
Mission San Francisco Solano was the 21st, last, and northernmost mission in Alta California. It was named for Saint Francis Solanus. It was the only mission built in Alta California after Mexico gained independence from Spain. The difficulty of its beginning demonstrates the confusion resulting from that change in governance. The California Governor wanted a robust Mexican presence north of the San Francisco Bay to keep the Russians who had established Fort Ross on the Pacific coast from moving further inland. A young Franciscan friar from Mission San Francisco de Asis wanted to move to a location with a better climate and access to a larger number of potential converts.
Fairfield is a city in and the county seat of Solano County, California, United States, in the North Bay sub-region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is generally considered the midpoint between the cities of San Francisco and Sacramento, approximately 40 miles (64 km) from the city center of each city, the same from the city center of Oakland.
Solano County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, its population was 453,491. The county seat is Fairfield.
Sonoma is a city in Sonoma County, California, United States, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Sonoma is one of the principal cities of California's Wine Country and the center of the Sonoma Valley AVA. Sonoma's population was 10,739 as of the 2020 census, while the Sonoma urban area had a population of 32,679. Sonoma is a popular tourist destination, owing to its Californian wineries, noted events like the Sonoma International Film Festival, and its historic center.
Don Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo was a Californio general, statesman, and public figure. He was born a subject of Spain, performed his military duties as an officer of the Republic of Mexico, and shaped the transition of Alta California from a territory of Mexico to the U.S. state of California. He served in the first session of the California State Senate. The city of Vallejo, California, is named after him, and the nearby city of Benicia is named after his wife.
Wine Country is the region of California, in the northern San Francisco Bay Area, known worldwide as a premier wine-growing region. The region is famed for its wineries, its cuisine, Michelin star restaurants, boutique hotels, luxury resorts, historic architecture, and culture. Viticulture and wine-making have been practiced in the region since the Spanish missionaries from Mission San Francisco Solano established the first vineyards in 1812.
Coast Miwok are Indigenous people of California that were the second-largest tribe of the Miwok people. Coast Miwok inhabited the general area of modern Marin County and southern Sonoma County in Northern California, from the Golden Gate north to Duncans Point and eastward to Sonoma Creek. Coast Miwok included the Bodega Bay Miwok, or Olamentko (Olamentke), from authenticated Miwok villages around Bodega Bay, the Marin Miwok, or Hookooeko (Huukuiko), and Southern Sonoma Miwok, or Lekahtewutko (Lekatuit). While they did not have an overarching name for themselves, the Coast Miwok word for people, Micha-ko, was suggested by A. L. Kroeber as a possible endonym, keeping with a common practice among tribal groups and the ethnographers studying them in the early 20th Century and with the term Miwok itself, which is the Central Sierra Miwok word for people.
The Bay Miwok are a cultural and linguistic group of Miwok, a Native American people in Northern California who live in Contra Costa County. They joined the Franciscan mission system during the early nineteenth century, suffered a devastating population decline, and lost their language as they intermarried with other native California ethnic groups and learned the Spanish language.
Suisun Bay is a shallow tidal estuary in Northern California. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River, forming the entrance to the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, an inverted river delta. To the west, Suisun Bay is drained by the Carquinez Strait, which connects to San Pablo Bay, a northern extension of San Francisco Bay. Suisun Marsh, the tidal marsh land to the north, is the largest marsh in California. Grizzly Bay forms a northern extension of Suisun Bay. Suisun Bay is between Contra Costa County to the south and Solano County to the north.
The Wintun are members of several related Native American peoples of Northern California, including the Wintu (northern), Nomlaki (central), and Patwin (southern). Their range is from approximately present-day Lake Shasta to San Francisco Bay, along the western side of the Sacramento River to the Coast Range. Each of these tribes speak one of the Wintuan languages. Linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that the Wintun people probably entered the California area around 500 AD from what is now southern Oregon, introducing bow and arrow technology to the region.
Sonoma Valley is a valley located in southeastern Sonoma County, California, in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Known as the birthplace of the California wine industry, the valley is home to some of the earliest vineyards and wineries in the state, some of which survived the phylloxera epidemic of the 1870s and the impact of prohibition in the early 20th century. Today, the valley's wines are promoted by the U.S. federal government's Sonoma Valley and Carneros AVAs.
The North Bay is a subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area, in California, United States. The largest city is Santa Rosa, which is the fifth-largest city in the Bay Area. It is the location of the Napa and Sonoma wine regions, and is the least populous and least urbanized part of the Bay Area. It consists of Marin, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties.
Wintuan is a family of languages spoken in the Sacramento Valley of central Northern California.
The Patwin are a band of Wintun people in Northern California. The Patwin comprise the southern branch of the Wintun group, native inhabitants of California since approximately 500.
Located in northern California, the Suisun Marsh has been referred to as the largest brackish water marsh on west coast of the United States of America. The marsh land is part of a tidal estuary, and subject to tidal ebb and flood. The marsh is home to many species of birds and other wildlife, and is formed by the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers between Martinez and Suisun City, California and several other smaller, local watersheds. Adjacent to Suisun Bay, the marsh is immediately west of the legally defined Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta as well as part of the San Francisco Bay estuary.
Francisco Solano may refer to:
Sem-Yeto was a leader of the Suisunes, a Patwin people of the Suisun Bay region of northern California. Baptized as Francisco Solano and also known as Chief Solano, he was a notable Native American leader in Alta California because of his alliance, friendship, and eventually the support of his entire tribe to General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo of Sonoma, in military and political excursions around Sonoma County and the San Francisco Bay Area. By allying with Vallejo and assisting him in quelling Native American uprisings north and west of Sonoma between 1836 and 1843, Sem-Yeto is regarded as a controversial historical figure. The California county of Solano is named for him.
Tolay Creek is a 12.5-mile-long (20.1 km) southward-flowing stream in southern Sonoma County, California, United States, which flows through Tolay Lake and ends in north San Pablo Bay.
The Suisun Valley AVA is an American Viticultural Area in Solano County, California, located just east of the Napa Valley wine region in the Coast Range. It was established as a wine appellation on 27 December 1982, making it among the first AVAs of California, Napa Valley being the first.
Rockville is a small unincorporated community in northern-central Solano County, California, southwest of Fairfield and closest to Cordelia.
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