The Washoe managed to avoid extensive contact with non-Indians until the California gold rush beginning in 1849. The California Trail, which branched off from the Oregon Trail at Soda Springs in present-day southeastern Idaho, passed through their homelands, and trading posts and settlements were established on their foraging lands. Moreover, in 1857, the discovery of silver and gold in the region—the Comstock Lode—brought an estimated 20,000 new settlers to the region, leading to the founding of Virginia City in 1859. During the mining period, which lasted into the 1880s, the Washoe traditional pattern of life was destroyed. Settlers cut down the pine nut forests for lumber. Ranchers arrived in the region as well, and their cattle grazed on the seed-bearing grasses. Washoe families were attacked. Disease, passed to the Washoe by non-Indians, took lives. The PAIUTE, competing for land themselves, drove the Washoe out of former ancestral territory. In 1865, the Office of Indian Affairs (now known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs) assigned two parcels of land as reservations in the Carson and Washoe Valleys, but, as it turned out, these lands already had farms and ranches on them, and the plan was dropped. By the 1870s, commercial fishermen worked Lake Tahoe. As the 20th century approached, the tribe was close to extinction. Several small parcels of land were purchased by the Washoe or given to them, and surviving tribal members began rebuilding their lives around them. Some kept working in ancient crafts.
World History
