Chronicles of Camp Wright, Part I [pp. 24-32]

1887.3 Chronicles of Cam~ Wright. 25
between these two points was regarded very Storms acting under instructions from
much in the light of a terra incognita, and Colonel Thomas J. Henley, then superinthe party under Mr. Kelsey's orders may tendent, of Indian affairs for California, locaproperly be called explorers. Looking ted an Indian fam~ in the Northwest part of
down on Round Valley from one of the the Valley. This fttrm, or station, was known
neighboring mountains, these explorers judg- as the Nome-cult Indian farm, and was a
ing from the numerous camp fires dotting dependency or branch of the Nome-Lackee
it in every direction, estimated its Indian Indian Reservation, in the foothills of Sacpopulation, together with that of the ad- ramento Valley, in Tehama County.
jacent smaller valleys and~surrnunding moun- Storms had lived a long time among the
tains, at twenty thousand. Subsequent es- Nevada Indians, and had acquired great
timates made by the settlers who came with influence among them; and when they were
Mr. White's party, reduce this number to brought from Nevada to the Nome-Lackee
five and even as low as three thousand. Reservation, he came with the tribe.
The Yuka, in common with nearly all the When the location of the Round Valley
Indian tribes of Northern California, in farm was deten~ined upon, he came as
erecting his abode or wigwam, first excaXat- agent, or supervisor, of the new established a suffic~ent space to a depth varying from ment, with some forty Nevadas as a nucleus;
three to five feet, making with the displaced in the course of time, nearly all the remainearth a circular wall or tumulus, upon ing Vukas were prevailed upon to come and
which he erected a structure of poles, cov- live thereon, and in the spring of 1859, the
ered with bark or hides. Unlike the In- Con-C?on tribe was transferred to this farm
dians of the plains, the Vukas were not mi- from the Mendocino reservation.
gratory in their habits, and having once es- During the - summer and fall of i856,
tablished a village or rancheria, it was of a more whites arrived, and engaged in farmpermanent nature. The wigwam and its in- ing and stock raising; and Round Valley behabitants have disappeared; the tumuli still gan to assume the appearance and characremain-and from this evidence, and from teristics of all white settlements in the
that obtained by patient inquiry among the Indian country in their early days.
most intelligent of the remaining Indians, I Up to this time the Yukas had lived conapproximated the Indian population of tented and happy. Their manner of living
Round Valley, and of its immediate vicinity, was very primitive-sufficient for the da
at the date of the first white settlement, at was the good thereof; they owned no horses
twelve thousand. Of this number hardly or live stock of any kind, and the use of
four hundred remained in i8~~ and in my fire-am~s was to them unknown. Practicing
endeavors to ascertain from the settlers what none of the arts of civilization, they were
became of the rest, I invanably received also exempt from its vices. They do not
the answer that it was hard to tell. appear to have placed any impediments in
A careful reading of the succeeding pages the way of the establishment of a white setmay possibly render the solution of the prob- tlement in the midst of their native country.
lem self-evident. They regarded the white man as a superior
The first white settlement in the valley being, endowed with many of the attributes
dates from June i856, when a party com- of their Great Spirit, and they retained that
posed of Mr. George E. White and others, opinion until the white~, by their own acts,
came across the mountains from Sacramen- made it impossible, even to the most absoto Valley and established a perinanent loca- lute credulity, to retain it any longer; for
tion. At about the same time man named the time was coming fast when, hunted like