The Wintu are Native Americans who live in what is now Northern California. They are part of a loose association of peoples known collectively as the Wintun. There are four major groups that make up the Wintu people. There northern Wintun (Wintu) and the Central Wintun (Namlaki) are most common. Others are the Nomlaki and the Patwin. The Wintu language is part of the Penutian language family but there are different dialects. Before the European colonization, different Wintun communities interacted with each other but were more inclined to communicate with others tribes to the east and west.
The Wappo are an indigenous people of northern California. Their traditional homelands are in Napa Valley, the south shore of Clear Lake, Alexander Valley, and Russian River valley. They are distantly related to the Yuki people, from which they seem to have diverged at least 500 years ago. Their language, Wappo, has been influenced by the neighboring Pomo, who use the term A'shochamai or A'shotenchawi, meaning "northerners", to refer to the Wappo.
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 Mattole, including the Bear River Indians, are a group of Native Americans in California. Their traditional lands are along the Mattole and Bear Rivers near Cape Mendocino in Humboldt County, California. A notable difference between the Mattole and other indigenous peoples of California is that the men traditionally had facial tattoos, while other local groups traditionally restricted facial tattooing to women.
The Mendocino War was a conflict between the Yuki and white settlers in Mendocino County, California between July 1859 and January 18, 1860. It was caused by settler intrusion and slave raids on native lands and subsequent native retaliation, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Yuki.
The Nomlaki are a Wintun people native to the area of the Sacramento Valley, extending westward to the Coast Range in Northern California. Today some Nomlaki people are enrolled in the federally recognized tribes: Round Valley Indian Tribes, Grindstone Indian Rancheria or the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians. The Nomlaki were bordered by the Wintu (Wintun) in the north, the Yana in the northeast and east, the Konkow (Maiduan) in the east, the Patwin (Wintun) in the south, and the Yuki in the west.
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.
The Round Valley Indian Reservation is a federally recognized Indian reservation lying primarily in northern Mendocino County, California, United States. A small part of it extends northward into southern Trinity County. The total land area, including off-reservation trust land, is 93.939 km2. More than two-thirds of this area is off-reservation trust land, including about 405 acres (1.64 km2) in the community of Covelo. The total resident population as of the 2000 census was 300 persons, of whom 99 lived in Covelo.
The Eel River Athapaskans include the Wailaki, Lassik, Nongatl, and Sinkyone (Sinkine) groups of Native Americans that traditionally live in present-day Mendocino, Trinity, and Humboldt counties on or near the Eel River and Van Duzen River of northwestern California.
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.
Yuki, also known as Ukomno'm, is an extinct language of California, formerly spoken by the Yuki people. The Yuki are the original inhabitants of the Eel River area and the Round Valley Reservation of northern California. Yuki ceased to be used as an everyday language in the early 20th century and its last speaker, Arthur Anderson, died in 1983. Yuki is generally thought to be distantly related to the Wappo language.
The Tataviam are a Native American group in Southern California. The ancestral land of the Tataviam people includes northwest present-day Los Angeles County and southern Ventura County, primarily in the upper basin of the Santa Clara River, the Santa Susana Mountains, and the Sierra Pelona Mountains. They are distinct from the Kitanemuk and the Gabrielino-Tongva peoples.
The Lake Miwok are a branch of the Miwok, a Native American people of Northern California. The Lake Miwok lived in the Clear Lake basin of what is now called Lake County. While they did not have an overarching name for themselves, the Lake Miwok word for people, Hotsa-ho, 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 Yana are a group of Native Americans indigenous to Northern California in the central Sierra Nevada, on the western side of the range. Their lands, prior to encroachment by white settlers, bordered the Pit and Feather rivers. They were nearly destroyed during the California genocide in the latter half of the 19th century. The Central and Southern Yana continue to live in California as members of Redding Rancheria.
The population of Native California refers to the population of Indigenous peoples of California. Estimates prior to and after European contact have varied substantially. Pre-contact estimates range from 133,000 to 705,000 with some recent scholars concluding that these estimates are low.
The Round Valley War was an 1887 conflict between American Colonists and Yuki Indians on the Round Valley Indian Tribes of the Round Valley Reservation in California. The conflict started as colonists were beginning to encroach on reservation lands, making the already difficult circumstances for the Yuki people who had been placed there following the Mendocino War even more unfavourable. The Federal Office of Indian Affairs moved to have the trespassing settlers evicted. The settlers turned to local authorities and the Sheriff of Mendocino arrested the federal officer who had filed the accusations against the settlers.
The California genocide was a series of systematized killings of thousands of Indigenous peoples of California by United States government agents and private citizens in the 19th century. It began following the American Conquest of California from Mexico, and the influx of settlers due to the California Gold Rush, which accelerated the decline of the Indigenous population of California. Between 1846 and 1873, it is estimated that non-Natives killed between 9,492 and 16,094 California Natives. Hundreds to thousands were additionally starved or worked to death. Acts of enslavement, kidnapping, rape, child separation and forced displacement were widespread. These acts were encouraged, tolerated, and carried out by state authorities and militias.
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 Round Valley Settler Massacres of 1856–1859 were a series of massacres committed by early white settlers of California with cooperation and funding from the government of California and the support of prominent Californians against the Yuki people of Round Valley, Mendocino County, California. More than 1,000 Yuki are estimated to have been killed; many others were enslaved and only 300 survived. The intent of the massacres was to exterminate the Yuki and gain control of the land they inhabited. U.S. Army soldiers deployed to the valley stopped most of the killings and in 1862 the California legislature revoked a law which permitted the kidnapping and enslavement of Native Americans in the state.
United States (
California)
