Yosemite National Park is a national park of the United States in California. It is bordered on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers 759,620 acres in four counties – centered in Tuolumne and Mariposa, extending north and east to Mono and south to Madera. Designated a World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, groves of giant sequoia, lakes, mountains, meadows, glaciers, and biological diversity. Almost 95 percent of the park is designated wilderness. Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada.
Yosemite Valley is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in the western Sierra Nevada mountains of Central California, United States. The valley is about 7.5 mi (12.1 km) long and 3,000–3,500 ft (910–1,070 m) deep, surrounded by high granite summits such as Half Dome and El Capitan, and densely forested with pines. The valley is drained by the Merced River, and a multitude of streams and waterfalls flow into it, including Tenaya, Illilouette, Yosemite and Bridalveil Creeks. Yosemite Falls is the highest waterfall in North America and is a big attraction, especially in the spring, when the water flow is at its peak. The valley is renowned for its natural environment and is regarded as the centerpiece of Yosemite National Park.
Mariposa is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in and the county seat of Mariposa County, California, United States. The population was 1,526 at the 2020 census. The community is named after the flocks of monarch butterflies seen overwintering there by early explorers.
The Merced River, in the central part of the U.S. state of California, is a 145-mile (233 km)-long tributary of the San Joaquin River flowing from the Sierra Nevada into the San Joaquin Valley. It is most well known for its swift and steep course through the southern part of Yosemite National Park, where it is the primary watercourse flowing through Yosemite Valley. The river's character changes dramatically once it reaches the plains of the agricultural San Joaquin Valley, where it becomes a slow-moving meandering stream.
The Miwok are members of four linguistically related Native American groups indigenous to what is now Northern California, who traditionally spoke one of the Miwok languages in the Utian family. The word Miwok means people in the Miwok languages.
Human habitation in the Sierra Nevada region of California reaches back 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. Historically attested Native American populations, such as the Sierra Miwok, Mono and Paiute, belong to the Uto-Aztecan and Utian phyla. In the mid-19th century, a band of Native Americans called the Ahwahnechee lived in Yosemite Valley. The California Gold Rush greatly increased the number of non-indigenous people in the region. Tensions between Native Americans and white settlers escalated into the Mariposa War. As part of this conflict, settler James Savage led the Mariposa Battalion into Yosemite Valley in 1851, in pursuit of Ahwaneechees led by Chief Tenaya. The California state military forces burned the tribe's villages, destroyed their food stores, killed the chief's sons, and forced the tribe out of Yosemite. Accounts from the Mariposa Battalion, especially from Dr. Lafayette Bunnell, popularized Yosemite Valley as a scenic wonder.
The Ahwahnechee, Awani, or Awalache were an Indigenous people of California who historically lived in the Yosemite Valley. They were a band of Miwok people, specifically Southern Sierra Miwok.
The Mono are a Native American people who traditionally live in the central Sierra Nevada, the Eastern Sierra, the Mono Basin, and adjacent areas of the Great Basin. They are often grouped under the historical label "Paiute" together with the Northern Paiute and Southern Paiute – but these three groups, although related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, do not form a single, unique, unified group of Great Basin tribes.
Lafayette Houghton Bunnell was an American physician, author, and explorer. He is most well known for his involvement with the Mariposa Battalion, the first non-Indians to enter Yosemite Valley, and his book Discovery of the Yosemite and the Indian War of 1851. Bunnell led the battalion members in a vote to name the valley, and for this reason he is often credited as the person who named Yosemite. He was also a soldier and surgeon in the United States war with Mexico and the Civil War.
The Mariposa War, also known as the Yosemite Indian War, was a conflict between the United States and the indigenous people of California's Sierra Nevada in the 1850s. The war was fought primarily in Mariposa County and surrounding areas, and was sparked by the discovery of gold in the region. As a result of the military expedition, the Mariposa Battalion became the first non-indigenous group to enter Yosemite Valley and the Nelder Grove.
James D. Savage (1823–1852) was a California pioneer. He was a 49er, businessman, American soldier in the Mexican–American War, and commander of the California Militia, Mariposa Battalion in the Mariposa War and the first alleged non-Native American visitor to the Yosemite Valley.
Cassons or Casson is the name of a Yokuts Native American tribe in central eastern California. The Cassons are also called the Gashowu. The Casson Yokuts territory extended from the eastern side of San Joaquin Valley floor eastward to the upper foothills, between the San Joaquin River to the north and Kings River to south. The Cassons signed the Camp Barbour Treaty under Tom-quit, on the San Joaquin River, state of California, April 19, 1851. The treaty was signed by several Yokuts tribes and between Redick McKee, George W. Barbour, and O. M. Wozencraft, commissioners on the part of the United States of America. Casson Yokuts territory included Madera County and parts of Fresno County. The three chiefs who signed for the Cassons were Domingo Perez, Tom-mas and Jose Antonio. Many Native Californians had acquired Spanish names during the Mission Period. The Cassons, like other Yokuts, and central California Native groups, were pushed from their homes in the San Joaquin Valley to reservations after they signed several treaties, including the Camp Barbour Treaty. The Barbour Treaty, Fremont Treaty and other California treaties were never ratified. Several Casson Yokuts families went to work for Yosemite in the early 1900s. Like the surrounding tribes, the Mono Paiutes and the Miwoks, they resided there half year and returned to their tribal areas. Later in the late 1920s, Yosemite National Park built homes for their Native American workers.
The Plains and Sierra Miwok were once the largest group of California Indian Miwok people, Indigenous to California. Their homeland included regions of the Sacramento Valley, San Joaquin Valley, and the Sierra Nevada.
Lucy Parker Telles was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi and Southern Sierra Miwok Native American basket weaver.
Clouds Rest is a mountain in Yosemite National Park, located east-northeast of Yosemite Village, California. Although there are many peaks in the park having far greater elevation, the proximity of Clouds Rest to the valley gives it a very high degree of visual prominence.
The Bridgeport Indian Colony of California, formerly known as the "Bridgeport Paiute Indian Colony of California", is a federally recognized tribe of Northern Paiute Indians in Mono County, California, United States.
The Kucadɨkadɨ are a band of Eastern Mono Northern Paiute people who live near Mono Lake in Mono County, California. They are the southernmost band of Northern Paiute.
Savage Trading Post is California Historical Landmark No. 527 in El Portal, California on California State Route 140 in Mariposa County. James D. Savage was 49er California Gold Rush miner and trader, in 1849 he built a Log cabin. In the Log cabin, he started a general store and trading post along the Merced River. After just one year the Mariposa War started. In the spring of 1850 James (Jim) Savage started trading at Mariposa Creek in the San Joaquin Valley and he had employees run his Trading Post. In December 1850 the war came to Savage Trading Post and it was set on fire. James Savage was the leader of the California Militia's Mariposa Battalion that traveled to the Yosemite Valley in 1851 to hunt down the Ahwaneechees and their leader Chief Tenaya. The Mariposa Battalion won the battle and thus ended the war. The Mariposa Battalion also became the first non-Native American to see the beauty of Yosemite Valley. Lafayette Bunnell wrote about his visit to the Yosemite Valley. A copy of Savage Trading Post was built at the site of the original and is California Historical Landmark No. 527.
