Angered by repeated Apache raids on Mexican settlements, 400 Mexican troops led by Jose Carrasco attack a group of Apache camping near Janos, a town in Chihuahua. When the Mexicans set on the camp, nearly all of the Apache men are away on a trading expedition. The troops kill 19 women and children, taking captive 62 more to be sold as slaves. Among the slain are the mother, wife, and three small children of Geronimo, an influential young warrior. Later one of the Apaches’ greatest military leaders, Geronimo will spend his life trying to exact revenge against Mexicans for the murder of his family.
The Mariposa Indian War breaks out.
The Miwok and Yokuts of California’s San Joaquin Valley rise up against miners flooding into their lands. Led by Chief Tenaya, warriors attack prospectors and destroy trading posts operated by James D. Savage. To subdue the Indians, Savage organizes the Mariposa Battalion, a force of state militia. The battalion fights minor clashes with the Indians throughout the next year before the Indian rebellion dies down.
The U. S. Army attacks a Pomo Indian encampment.
A group of Pomo in northern California kill two white ranchers—Andrew Kelsey and Charles Stone—who have been abusing them. Through whippings, Kelsey and Stone forced the Indians to dig for gold. The ranchers then used the gold to buy a herd of cattle that in turn drove off the native animals the Pomo depended on for their survival.
To avenge the murders, a force of regular army troops and civilian volunteers attack a Pomo camp on Clear Lake. There, they kill approximately 60
People. At a nearby village on Russian River, the soldiers slaughter another 75 Pomo.
California legalizes Indian indenture.
The legislature of California passes the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. Despite its benevolent name, the law allows whites to declare any Indian a vagrant; the vagrant must then perform up to four months of unpaid labor for whatever party offers the highest bid at a public auction. The act also states that parents can legally bind Indian children to work for whites for food only for a period of several years. Non-Indians in California soon take advantage of this law to obtain free Indian labor. Routinely, groups of Indians are rounded up, forced to work for whites throughout the summer, then released, physically broken and starving, at the onset of winter. The kidnapping and sale of Indian children, particularly older girls, also becomes widespread. Before the act is repealed in 1863, about 10,000 California Indians will have been indentured or sold into slavery.
Dreamer Religion leader Smohalla is forced from his village.
A Wanapam shaman named Smohalla (“Dreamer”) attracts followers among Plateau Indians with a message of passive resistance to white encroachment and influence. He opposes land sales and counsels his followers to practice traditional ways while awaiting a future day when the Creator will drive all the non-Indians from their lands. His teachings anger Homily, another leader in his village, who welcomes whites and their goods. In a confrontation between the two men, Homily declares, “Look at you, you are a poor man. . . . You always talk of the old customs while. . . others accept the new ways and they grow rich.” Driven from the village by Homily’s followers, Smohalla and his people form a new village near what is now Vernita, Washington, on lands that will be ceded to the United States only five years later (see entry for MAY 24 TO JUNE 11, 1855). Among future adherents to Smohalla’s Dreamer Religion will be Chief Joseph (Heinmot Tooyalaket) of the Nez Perce (see entry for JUNE 15, 1877).
“You ask me to plow the ground. Shall I take a knife and tear my mother's breast? Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest.
You ask me to dig for stone. Shall I dig under her skin for her bones? Then when I die I cannot enter her body to be born again.
You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it and be rich like white men. But how dare I cut off my mother's hair?”
—Wanapam prophet Smohalla, rejecting whites' demands that Indians take up farming
Five Cayuse are executed for the Whitman mission murders.
Since Cayuse warriors murdered missionary Marcus Whitman and 11 other whites (see entry for NO VEMBER 29, 1847), the Oregon Territory militia has been attacking any Cayuse, whether involved in the killings or not. Exhausted by continual skirmishes with white soldiers, the tribe turns in five of the attackers to the authorities. With little understanding of the white legal system, the men stand trial, defended by a lawyer provided by the Oregon territorial government. The accused are found guilty, sentenced to death, and hanged.
Congress passes the Donation Land Act.
A year after Oregon is organized as a territory, the United States offers American settlers flooding into areas on the Oregon Trail an opportunity to claim free land. Through the Donation Land Act, each male settler is entitled to 320 acres. Soon more than 2 million acres of fertile farmland in western Oregon Territory will be granted to these homesteaders.
None of this land, however, has been ceded to the U. S. government by the Indian peoples who occupy it. As the settlers move onto their territory, they will force the Indians to leave, often through violence. Tribes such as the Tillamook and Lucki-amute will be left both landless and impoverished.
World History
