Members of the Round Valley Indian Tribe retrace the 1863 route of the Nome Cult walk, a forced relocation of Indians from Chico to Covelo.” – U.S. Forest Service
The Nome Cult Trail also known as the Concow (or Koncow) Trail of Tears refers to the state-sanctioned forced removal of the Northern Californian Concow Maidu people during the 1860s to Round Valley Reservation. This historic trail is located in present-day Mendocino National Forest which follows Round Valley Road, through Rocky Ridge and the Sacramento Valley. On August 28, 1863, the KonkowMaidu were ordered by the California state militia to report to the Bidwell Ranch in Chico to be removed to the Round Valley Reservation at Covelo in Mendocino County. Any Native Americans remaining in the area were to be shot. 461 Concow Maidu were forced to march under guard west out of the Sacramento Valley and through to the Coastal Range. Only 277 reached Round Valley reservation on September 18, 1862 as 150 were too ill and malnourished to finish the march, 32 died en route, and 2 escaped.[2]
Today, there are close to 2,000 Maidu people who currently belong to the Federally Recognized Native Tribes of Berry Creek, Enterprise, and Mooretown Rancherias in Northern California[3]. The Maidu people continue to make contributions to their Nation, their communities, and the world, especially through establishing strong administrative and financial systems at the rancherias aiming to improve tribal health. [3][4] The current residents of the Round Valley Reservation host an annual walk on the Nome Cult Trail to commemorate the 1863 Removal of their Concow Maidu ancestors. [3][5]
Historical Context and California State Legislature
The California Gold Rush of 1849 led to an influx of miners and ranchers who settled in the Sierra Nevada and Northern California goldfield regions. The mining of gold disrupted indigenous California communities through the degradation of the environment on which they depended, violent attacks on Native California villages by white settlers, and the implementation of a state-sanctioned system of unfree labor[6].
In 1850, the California state legislature passed the Act for the Government and Protection of the Indians which established vagrancy clauses for Native Californians.[6] Under these vagrancy clauses, Native Americans were hired out to white ranchers and farmers in a system of coerced labor.[6] The Act also allowed white settlers to post bail for Native Californians accused of misdemeanors and compel them to work to pay off their bond.[6] The law also permitted white settlers to hold Indigenous children as indentured servants with parental consent.[6]
The establishment of a state-sanctioned bounty system in 1851-1852 in Northern California further perpetuated violence against Indigenous communities. By 1856, the governor issued a bounty of $0.25 per Native American scalp which was included to $5.00 by 1860. Bounty hunters were reimbursed for the ammunition and other supplies required to murder and scalp Native Northern Californians in addition to collecting the bounty award for the scalps. [7] Citizen of the Round Valley Reservation and historian William Bauer states in his book We Were All Like Migrant Workers Here, “[a]t its worst, this law created a system of Indian slavery in California.”[6]
Establishment of the Nome Cult Farm
In June 1856, under the orders of Simmon Storms, an immigrant rancher and worker at the Nome Lackee Reservation near modern-day Red Bluff, and Weimer, a Grass Valley Nisenan leader, traveled from the Nome Lackee Reservation to Red Valley, California.[6][8] Storms named Round Valley “Nome Cult” as a mispronunciation of the Nomlaki phrase nome kechl meaning “western tribe” or “western language.”[6] Storms and his party established the Nome Cult Farm in the homeland of the Yuki Native Californians.
Storms’ report to Thomas J. Henley, California’s Superintendent of Indian Affairs describes his impressions Round Valley and his intention to establish a reservation in the area:
“On the 14th we got an early start and arrived at the Valley a little after sun rise – this day as well as the 15th, 16th, & 17th we spent in exploring the Valley, and getting all the Information I could in regard to the Indians, their Numbers, habits, xxxx &c. On the first day of my arrival I was satisfied in my own Mind, that of all the places I have ever seen, this was the place for an Indian Reservation. And accordingly I laid claim to the Valley in the name of the Government for that purpose. In the afternoon I called my party around me and christened it ‘Nome Cult’ Valley.”[8]
The Yuki, Nisenan, and Atsugewis performed the manual labor necessary to provision the farm and build its infrastructure. Once established, these groups performed most of the agricultural work including planting and harvesting crops and tending to livestock. [6] As Native labor was necessary for the operation of the Nome Cult Farm, government officials established a system of unfree labor in which Round Valley Native Americans did not have a choice of where or when they worked.[6] Under this system, white wageworkers held the right to quit their job and had protection against corporal punishment in the workplace. In contrast, unfree workers of color could neither quit their job nor were offered protection against violent reprimand, most commonly in the form of whipping.[6]
The Nome Cult Farm was under-resourced, with food shortages and lack of clothing leading to increased spread of illness and high death rates.[6][8] As the Nome Cult Farm was not established by a treaty, the Nome Cult workers depended solely on U.S. government allocations, rather than treaty annuities which typically provide a higher degree of protection against resource shortages.[6] Government agents failed to protect Indigenous women and children from kidnapping by white settlers who sold these individuals into slavery.[6][8] Violence between white squatters and indigenous workers was also common at the farm and there were many instances of indigenous workers being murdered by white squatters who suffered no repercussions. By late 1858-1859, many Yukis and Nisenans had fled from the Nome Cult farm in an act of resistance, leading to a labor shortage.[6][8]
Civil War Era Removals to Round Valley Reservation
The beginning of the Civil War in 1861 exacerbated labor conditions in Round Valley and diverted the military to the war front which made Native Americans increasingly vulnerable to kidnappings and enslavement.[6] California also amended the Act for the Government and Protection of the Indians (1850) which expanded the permitted length of indentured servitude, revoked the requirement for parental consent, and permitted the indenture of “orphaned” children.[6] During this time, the Nome Cult Farm was renamed Round Valley Reservation.
Many Indigenous families fled to the Round Valley Reservation in search of protection from the state militia and many others were forced onto the reservation involuntarily.[6] The California state militia led removal campaigns against the Pit Rivers, Concows, and other northern Californian groups to the reservation.[6][9] The relocated Concows fled the reservation in mid-1862, as an act of resistance against the violence they faced at Round Valley, returning to their homeland near what is today known as Chico, California. In the summer of 1863, General George Wright ordered Captain Augustus Starr to forcibly remove the Concows from John Bidwell’s ranch to Round Valley reservation.[6]
1863 Forced Removal of the Concow Maidu
Starting at Camp Bidwell, the Concow Maidu were forced to march ten miles and camped at Colby's Ferry on the Sacramento River to rest, where there was food and water available. While the cavalry rode horses, those unable to travel by foot were brought via wagon along with additional supplies.[2]
On 5 September,[10] the group ferried across the Sacramento River and marched another ten miles to Stoney Creek, where the water was too salty to drink. The cavalry forced the weary and tired group to march another five miles before finally resting at Kirkpatrick Ranch. During the hot late summer night, nine Native Americans died from exhaustion and thirst.[2] The mourners were given nearly no time to grieve and were forced by the cavalry to march another twelve miles from Kirkpatrick Ranch to James Ranch.[2] During that night more perished from malnutrition and illness.
On 8 September the Native Americans were forced to hike six miles to Lacock Ranch on Thomas Creek. The wagons which had been transporting elders, children, and those too sick to walk, were returned to Chico at this point, and the group waited for four days along Thomas Creek for a mulepack train from Round Valley.[10]
On the fifth day, Captain Starr marched the group of Native Americans to Mountain Home camp, moving three miles on foot. The party stayed at Mountain Home between 12 and 14 September. When the mule pack train arrived on 14 September, the group set out again, the majority of them on foot; those who were sick but well enough to travel rode muleback; one wagon carried the children. They left behind 150 Maidu who were too ill from malnourishment and the hardship of the journey, with only enough food supplies for a month.[10] The weary group then traveled to camp at Cedar Springs, on a seven-mile march high into the Coast Range. The next day the group marched another six miles onward into the mountains, camping at Log Springs.
On 16 September their only wagon was abandoned at Log Springs. The group continued on foot and many struggled to continue the trip during the ten mile ascent into the mountains to Log Cabin, now known as "Government Camp" camping area.[2] Continuing on, the Maidu were forced to climb the final three mile hike up to elevations beyond 6,000ft (1,800m), spending their last night on the journey at the junction of the South and Middle Forks of the Eel River, before their final descent into Round Valley.[2] During the last difficult days of the journey, some mothers reportedly tried to kill their babies fearing their children would be abandoned if they were to die.
When news of the abandonment at Mountain House reached Fort Wright, the commandant Captain Douglas sent Superintendent James Short to bring food to those dying along the trail and several wagon teams to bring them back to the fort. After 13 days, Short was able to save only "a portion of them". According to a later report, Short described the horrific scene:
... about 150 sick Indians were scattered along the trail for 50 miles ... dying at the rate of 2 or 3 a day. They had nothing to eat ... and the wild hogs were eating them up either before or after they were dead.[8]
Only slightly more than half of the original 461 members survived the march. Along with the 150 left behind at Mountain House, 32 others died en route, and 2 others escaped before the remaining 277 Maidu eventually arrived at the reservation on 18 September. Left there by the cavalrymen, they had too few supplies for the winter.[11] Tribal members and their descendants tell stories of impatient soldiers using whips on the marchers, shooting anyone trying to escape, and beating the children against rocks and trees.[10]
Tom-ya-yem, a Concow Maidu man forced on this march recounted the experience in a letter to Lieutenant Tassin:
The Indians continued their journey onward until reaching their destination. So I went with my people and camped in a meadow some five miles from Chico, and my brave and my mi-hi-nas [women] went out and worked for the Ad-sals for a whole year. But many of them became very sick with chills [probably malaria as well as the flu] and when the time came for us to go back to Nome- Cult they were so weak that they could scarcely walk, and many died on the trail, lying down sick and dying all the way from Chico to this place [Nome Cult Reservation’.
And when we got here there was nothing for us to eat, and my people began to fall as thick as the acorns in the fall of the year .. and there was no one here to do anything for us – the White Chief Doughlas [Capt. Doughlas, commander of the Army troops at Fort Wrigh], who sent his medicine man to take care of my sick, and Ad-sals and mules all the way to Chico to bring my people left dying on the trail – and here have remained ever since.
Are we happy here? No my brother [Lieutenant Tassin], no we have not been happy since we left our home.”[8]
Historical context
The removal of the Concow Maidu along the Nome Cult Trail follows from a long history of settler colonialism and colonial resource extraction. As Bauer states in We Were All Like Migrant Workers Here:
“After the discovery of gold, white miners and ranchers poured into northern California. They found lush valleys that were amenable to raising livestock, rivers that promised to yield easy mineral wealth, and wild life teeming in the mountains. In order to reap the bounty, ranchers and farmers demanded access to Indian workers.” [6]
Professor Jesse Dizard, Chair (2018) CSU Chico Department of Anthropology gives the following context:
The Concow Trail of Tears was not an isolated event. Tension between white settlers and Native American communities had been growing for years. The Gold Rush of 1849 brought hundreds of thousands to California, most of them young men who cared very little for the indigenous population and its way of life, or their claims to traditional lands. Indeed, the concept of human rights either did not exist or was strictly reserved for European-Americans. Native Americans were forced from their lands, had their children kidnapped, were forced into indentured servitude, or quite simply were murdered. Retaliatory action from Native Americans was met with swift and often violent retribution.[2]
Impact and Legacy
Many scholars, including historian Benjamin Madley, have linked indigenous removal to Round Valley Reservation to the broader California genocidal campaign. In his journal article entitled “California’s Yuki Indians: Defining Genocide in Native American History,” Madley argues that six key characteristics that defined the treatment of Yuki at Round Valley Reservation as a holocaust:
“First, vigilantes – rather than state employees – carried out most of the killing, kidnapping, and violence. Second, state and federal decision-makers enabled these acts. Third, the violence was almost entirely one-sided. Fourth, large numbers of Yuki died due to willful neglect under federal custody. Fifth, this catastrophe fits the Genocide Convention definition. Finally, the Yuki case challenges Cook’s long-standing supposition that disease was the leading cause of death among California Indians under United States rule.”[9]
While Madley focuses specifically on the Yukis, the Konkow Maidu were also present at the reservation and experienced the same violence and destruction under the same system as the Yuki at the Round Valley Reservation.[9]
Professors Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn echo Madley’s argument in their book The History and Sociology of Genocide: The authors argue that the violence against the Yuki in Northern California is “a clearer case of genocide” as “the impact of kidnapping, epidemics, starvation, vigilante justice, and state-sanctioned mass killing” contributed to the dramatic population decline of the Yuki people.[12]
Scholars have also argued that the establishment of the Nome Cult Farm / Round Valley reservation set the stage for further labor and land exploitation as Baumgardner explains in his book Killing for Land in Early California:
“In Round Valley, California, as well as in numerous other frontier settlements throughout the West, many Native Americans lived out their lives working to help build Euro-American farms and ranches that were the forerunners of the agribusiness corporate giants of today.”[8]
The removal of indigenous Northern California has also been viewed through the lens of environmental injustice. Land dispossession and natural resource exploitation (through unsustainable agricultural production and cattle ranching) encouraged the exploitation of Indigenous bodies through removal, enslavement, kidnapping, and sexual violence. Through an analysis of newspaper articles published in the Red Bluff Beacon, Dr. Brendan Lindsay argues that:
“Settlers and ranchers, particularly those who had lost animals in stock raid, were tempted by a new, easily accessible source for replacement animals. Worse still, the human resources represented by Native people, especially women and children, made Nome Cult and Nome Lackee popular places to obtain low-cost laborers, slaves, and women to rape.”[13]
An annual 100-mile Nome Cult Trail Walk is hosted annually by members of the Round Valley Reservation to commemorate the trek their ancestors were forced to make from Chico to Round Valley.[6][5] This walk was established in 1996 and as scholars Dr. Damon Akins and Dr. William Bauer state, the walk "has been instrumental in the process by which Round Valley Indians heal historical trauma.”[5]
A small 4-mile (6.4km) section exists and is part of the Nome Cult Mountain House Trail as part of a number of hiking trails in Mendocino National Forest.[14]
Related Research Articles
Concow is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in the Sierra Nevada foothills covering eastern Butte County, California. Due to a decline in employment and repeated wildfires, over the past hundred years the population declined from several thousand to several dozen. On November 8, 2018, a wildfire, the Camp Fire, destroyed most of Concow, as well as the adjacent municipality of Paradise.
A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinguished from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Convention requires that prisoners must be moved away from a danger zone such as an advancing front line, to a place that may be considered more secure. It is not required to evacuate prisoners who are too unwell or injured to move. In times of war, such evacuations can be difficult to carry out.
The Maidu are a Native American people of northern California. They reside in the central Sierra Nevada, in the watershed area of the Feather and American Rivers and in Humbug Valley. In Maiduan languages, maidu means "man".
The Yuki are an indigenous people of California who were traditionally divided into three groups: Ukomno'om, Huchnom, and Ukohtontilka or Ukosontilka. The territory of these three groups included Round Valley and much of northern Mendocino County and Lake County. Today they are enrolled members of the Round Valley Indian Tribes of the Round Valley Reservation. The exonym "Yuki" may derive from the Wintu word meaning "foreigner" or "enemy."
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 Mechoopda are a tribe of Maidu people, an indigenous people of California. They are enrolled in the Mechoopda Indian Tribe of Chico Rancheria, a federally recognized tribe. Historically, the tribe has spoken Konkow, a language related to the Maidu language, and as of 2010, has created digital learning materials from old recordings of Emma Cooper, made during the 1940s as a part of the war effort.
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 history of Chico, California, begins with the original inhabitants, the Mechoopda Maidu.
Browns Valley is an unincorporated community in Yuba County, California. Browns Valley is located 12 miles (19 km) northeast of Marysville and is near Collins Lake.
Fort Wright was an Army post located in the Round Valley of Mendocino County, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) s northwest of the present town of Covelo, California. The principal duty of the garrison was to protect the Round Valley Indian Reservation's native inhabitants from the intrusions, thefts and murderous attacks of explorers, some white settlers and state-sponsored massacres.
Indigenous peoples of California, commonly known as Indigenous Californians or Native Californians, are a diverse group of nations and peoples that are indigenous to the geographic area within the current boundaries of California before and after European colonization. There are currently 109 federally recognized tribes in the state and over forty self-identified tribes or tribal bands that have applied for federal recognition. California has the second-largest Native American population in the United States.
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 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 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. In addition, between several hundred and several thousand California Natives were 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 further killings. In 1862, the California legislature revoked a law which permitted the kidnapping and enslavement of Native Americans in the state.
The Rancheria Tulea massacre was an incident in March 1847 when American slave traders killed five Indians in retaliation for the escape of several enslaved Indians.
The Konkow Maidu slaver massacre refers to an incident in 1847 when several settlers killed 12 to 20 Konkow Maidu in a slave raid near present-day Chico, California.
Round Valley is California Historical Landmark No. 674, in Mendocino County off California State Route 162. Round Valley was discovered on May 15, 1854, by Frank M. Azbil. Azbil was traveling from the City of Eden Valley in Placer County when he found Round Valley. Later in 1854 Charles Kelsey from the City of Clear Lake traveled to Round Valley. George E. White spotted Round Valley while he was at Blue Nose Mountain (7274 ft). A historical marker is at Inspiration Point on California State Route 162, 5 miles south of Covelo, California.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Dizard, Jesse A. (2016). "Nome Cult Trail". ARC-GIS storymap. technical assistance from Dexter Nelson and Cathie Benjamin. Department of Anthropology, California State University, Chico – via Geography and Planning Department at CSU Chico.
1 2 3 Akins, D.B.; Bauer, W.J. (2021). "Returning to the Land: Sovereignty, Self-Determination, and Revitalization since 1985". We Are the Land: A History of Native California. University of California Press. pp.306–326.
↑ Norgaard, Kari Marie; Reed, Ron; Van Horn, Carolina (2011). "A Continuing Legacy: Institutional Racism, Hunger, and Nutritional Justice on the Klamath". In Alkon, Alison Hope (ed.). Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability. MIT. pp.23–45.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Baumgardner, Frank H. (December 1, 2005). Killing for Land in Early California: Indian Blood at Round Valley 1856-1863. Algora Publishing. ISBN978-0875863641.
1 2 3 Madley, Benjamin (Autumn 2008). "California's Yuki Indians: Defining Genocide in Native American History". Western Historical Quarterly. 39 (3): 303–332 – via JSTOR.
1 2 3 4 Hill, Dorothy (1978). The Indians of Chico Rancheria. Parks and Recreation. Sacramento, CA: The State of California Resources Agency.
↑ Moon, Debra (2003). Chico: Life and Times of a City of Fortune. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. p.36. ISBN0-7385-2446-8.
↑ Chalk, F.; Jonassohn, K. (1990). "Indians of the United States in the Nineteenth Century". The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analyses and Case Studies. Yale University Press: 195–203.
↑ Lindsay, B.C. (2012). "Advertising Genocide". Murder State: California's Native American Genocide, 1846-1873. University of Nebraska Press. pp.313–334.
↑ Massey, Peter; Titus, Angela; Wilson, Jeanne (2006). California Trails North Coast Region. Hermosa Beach, CA: Adler Publishing Company, Inc. pp.56–57. ISBN1-930193-22-X.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
