I.

During the summer of 1874, acting under instructions from my military superiors, I was engaged, among other duties, in scouting in Mendocino and Trinity Counties. The results of these scouts were embodied in a map of Round Valley and its vicinity, and in a report upon the peculiarities and resources of the country, its early history and probable future. From the material accumulated for this report have grown the following papers, upon the history and legends of the Round Valley Indians.

This valley, elliptical in form, lies one hundred and ninety-three miles due north from San Francisco, about midway between the northern extremity of Sacramento Valley and the Pacific Ocean, and hidden among the spurs of the Coast Range at an altitude of eighteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. Its length, north and south, varies from seven to eight miles, and its width, east and west, from four to five; with an estimated area of twenty-five thousand acres. The erratic course of Eel river and its numerous" forks" or branches girdles the mountain boundaries of the valley with a curious cordon of streams, unbroken at all points save one, where the narrow Black Butte rises between the North and Northeast Fork of Eel River. At the time of my acquaintance with it, Round Valley in the summer season was a charming sight to the wayfarer, wearied with an unbroken succession of mountains and cañons. Its surface was dotted with groves of magnificent oaks, intermixed with leafy dells and sheltered glens. The effect in winter was somewhat different-all the

lower parts of the valley were then little better than swamps and quagmires, and numerous small creeks coursing through it on their way to Eel River, through the Big Slough, which in summer were dry, became from the almost constant rain, nearly unfordable. The valley is evidently the bed of an ancient lake, whose waters finally cut their way to the broad bed of Eel River, and descended this to the Pacific Ocean, slowly emptying the valley. Where the lake bed was lowest, in the northern part of the valley, the last remnant of the old lake lingered until it disappeared by evaporation, leaving a superb loam deposit; but in the higher portions, the rapid outflow of the confined waters has washed away the deposits, leaving a surface of shale and gravel.

Round Valley must have been, in times not very remote, densely populated with aborigines. Here the Yukas, (of whom a remnant still exists on the Reservation,) a tribe once powerful in numbers, who claimed the vast territory included between the South and North Forks of Eel River, and subsisted upon the acorns, wild oats, and clover of the valleys, and the abundant game roaming in the mountain fastnesses, lived in comfort and prosperity until the white man came-bringing with him a story of aggression, retaliation, and blood.

From the most reliable data I can get, it appears that in the beginning of the year 1854, the merchants of Petaluma, with a view of increasing their commercial facilities, conceived the project of locating a trail to connect Petaluma with Weaverville, Trinity County, and Mr. Samuel Kelsey, with an efficient party, was charged with its execution. At that date the immense territory

between these two points was regarded very much in the light of a terra incognita, and the party under Mr. Kelsey's orders may properly be called explorers. Looking down on Round Valley from one of the neighboring mountains, these explorers judging from the numerous camp fires dotting it in every direction, estimated its Indian population, together with that of the adjacent smaller valleys and surrounding mountains, at twenty thousand. Subsequent estimates made by the settlers who came with Mr. White's party, reduce this number to five and even as low as three thousand. The Yuka, in common with nearly all the Indian tribes of Northern California, in erecting his abode or wigwam, first excavated a sufficient space to a depth varying from three to five feet, making with the displaced earth a circular wall or tumulus, upon which he erected a structure of poles, covered with bark or hides. Unlike the Indians of the plains, the Yukas were not migratory in their habits, and having once established a village or rancheria, it was of a permanent nature. The wigwam and its inhabitants have disappeared; the tumuli still remain and from this evidence, and from that obtained by patient inquiry among the most intelligent of the remaining Indians, I approximated the Indian population of Round Valley, and of its immediate vicinity, at the date of the first white settlement, at twelve thousand. Of this number hardly four hundred remained in 1874; and in my endeavors to ascertain from the settlers what became of the rest, I invariably received the answer that it was hard to tell.

A careful reading of the succeeding pages may possibly render the solution of the problem self-evident.

The first white settlement in the valley dates from June 1856, when a party composed of Mr. George E. White and others, came across the mountains from Sacramento Valley and established a permanent location. At about the same time man named

Storms acting Colonel Thomas J. Henley, then superintendent, of Indian affairs for California, located an Indian farm in the Northwest part of the Valley. This farm, or station, was known as the Nome-cult Indian farm, and was a dependency or branch of the Nome-Lackee Indian Reservation, in the foothills of Sacramento Valley, in Tehama County.

under instructions from

Storms had lived a long time among the Nevada Indians, and had acquired great influence among them; and when they were brought from Nevada to the Nome-Lackee Reservation, he came with the tribe. When the location of the Round Valley farm was determined upon, he came as agent, or supervisor, of the new establishment, with some forty Nevadas as a nucleus; in the course of time, nearly all the remaining Yukas were prevailed upon to come and live thereon, and in the spring of 1859, the Con-Con tribe was transferred to this farm from the Mendocino reservation.

During the summer and fall of 1856, more whites arrived, and engaged in farming and stock raising; and Round Valley began to assume the appearance and characteristics of all white settlements in the Indian country in their early days.

Up to this time the Yukas had lived contented and happy. Their manner of living was very primitive-sufficient for the da was the good thereof; they owned no horses or live stock of any kind, and the use of fire-arms was to them unknown. Practicing none of the arts of civilization, they were also exempt from its vices. They do not appear to have placed any impediments in the way of the establishment of a white settlement in the midst of their native country. They regarded the white man as a superior being, endowed with many of the attributes of their Great Spirit, and they retained that opinion until the whites, by their own acts, made it impossible, even to the most absolute credulity, to retain it any longer; for the time was coming fast when, hunted like

a wild beast among his native hills, starvation and death staring him in the face whichever way he turned, the poor Indian would come to the army officer, his only friend, and, as far as his power extended, his only protector, and pointing to his wounds would say, "You ask us to come on the Reservation, and tell us that we will not be molested. We have been there, and our brothers, our wives, and our children have been killed. We do not know in whom to believe; we have lost faith in everything but death."

During the first and second year of the settlement, the number of white inhabitants was increased at different times by the arrival of a certain class of white men known in the vernacular of the country as "floaters"-- men without fixed occupation or abodes, who came, some as hunters, and others as stock-herders. Having no interest at stake, these men were not over scrupulous in their conduct toward the Indians, and their bad example appears to have contaminated some of the real settlers. From this time dates the beginning of aggression and outrages on the part of the whites, and of Indian retaliation in killing stock, and sometimes whites, culminating at last in a war of extermination waged by the whites upon the Indians.

The first murders charged to the Indians were those of two white men. If what is related of one of these is true, the provocation certainly justified the deed. His favorite amusement is said to have been shooting at the Indians at long range, and he usually brought down his game. Goaded to desperation the Indians killed him. The shedding of the first white blood, however, gave an additional impetus to the already fast growing animosity of the whites; and matters began to assume a decidedly bad look for the poor Yukas.

This state of half hostility speedily grew from bad to worse, and in the latter part of the year 1868, in answer to an urgent request made by the settlers, a company of

the Sixth United States Infantry was ordered from Benicia Barracks to Round Valley. The inclemency of the season, however, prevented the officer in command, Major Johnson, from reaching his destination, and he was compelled to halt and go into winter quarters at a place known later as Fort Weller, some fifty miles below the valley; whence he dispatched an officer with a detachment of seventeen enlisted men to Round Valley, with orders to take post at or near the Nome-cult Indian reservation or farm. Lieutenant Dillon, the officer in command of the detachment was instructed to afford all the aid in his power to the agent and employés on the reservation; to induce as many Indians as he could to come from the mountains; to prevent the Indians from molesting the whites by killing their stock or otherwise, and to protect the Indians from the whites. In view of the small force at his disposal, which he was compelled to weaken still more by stationing small detachments from it at points in the vicinity, it must be admitted that these instructions were, to say the least, somewhat hard to follow. From a military point of view, they were equivalent to his being ordered to front, at one and the same time, in three different directions; to sustain a combined assault on his front and rear, and to repulse an attack on his flank. The result of this complication was that in his conscientious efforts to obey the dictates of humanity toward the Indians he unfortunately incurred the enmity of many of the whites. Despite these untoward circumstances, his manifold duties were discharged, on the whole, in a satisfactory and conscientious manner, but the relations between the two races do not appear to have become more amicable. The conflicting interests, or rather prerogatives, of the civil, military, and Indian authorities, added to the white and Indian complications, were difficult to harmonize or conciliate, and his endeavors to compel a certain class of white men to discontinue their outrages

upon the Indians were openly, and in one or two instances, successfully resisted.

Early in the year 1859, a memorial, signed by a number of the white inhabitants of Round Valley and the surrounding country, praying for protection against the Indians, was addressed to Governor Weller, and referred by him to the commanding general of the department; who, in turn, referred it to Major Johnson, commanding at Fort Weller. Major Johnson returned it under date of May 1, 1859, with an emphatic report denying the assertions of the memorial.

"The Yukas have not been," says the report, "for the last two years, nor are they now, at open war with the whites; but the whites have waged a relentless war of extermination against the Yukas, making no distinction between the innocent and the guilty. They have ruthlessly massacred men, women, and children. That the Indians in a few instances have retaliated by killing some stock is true; but so far from killing twenty whites at least,' as falsely represented, they have never, since the first settlement of the country, killed but two." The report here states the circumstances of their death, as given above, and goes on: "These were killed some two years ago, and not a man has been killed since. It

is difficult to say how many Indians were killed by the whites within the time specified, but it is asserted and believed that some six hundred have been killed within the last year. The statement that the Indians have, within two years, killed forty thousand dollars worth of stock in Round Valley is believed to be a gross exaggeration. One of the largest stock owners in the valley has within the last few days denied the statement, and says that he does not believe the Indians have ever killed a tenth part of the amount stated. Several other citizens of Round Valley have denied the statement and scouted it as ridiculous.

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The Indians have destroyed some of H-'s stock in Eden Valley. All the stock that is lost is charged to the Indians. His stock is not herded. The Indians have killed some, it is true, and the manner of killing has indicated plainly that it was done in retaliation for the gross outrages practiced on them.... Some of the stock which the Indians were accused of having killed, has since been found. Persons traveling through the Indian country are not attacked sight.' I have repeatedly sent single expressmen through the country who have encamped in the Indian country without molestation. Men go alone almost daily over and through the country, looking for stock and hunting, and I have not yet heard of one having been attacked. No man travels through this country without arms. of some sort, but whether armed or unarmed, it is false that any men have been attacked by these Indians. As to the statement that the citizens, having exhausted all means of defense against the depredations of the Indians, entertained the idea of abandoning the country unless speedily assisted by the State authorities, it is regarded by all as simply ridiculous. The object of the statement is palpable. The memorialists wish a company of volunteers called into the service for the purpose of exterminating the Indians. This work has been going on since the first settlement of the country, but not fast enough to suit the views of certain unscrupulous speculators and stock-owners, who would gladly see the last Indian sacrificed to their insatiable avarice and cupidity. The inhabitants are fully able to protect themselves without the aid of volunteers. The Indians, and not the whites, need protection. If the Indians were let alone, we should not hear so much of Indian depredations. If they were allowed, in common with the brutes, to eat the acorns, roots, and clover of the valley, instead of being killed and driven to the fast

nesses of the mountain, and thus compelled to starve or steal, we should hear of no depredations at all.

"I shall now proceed to mention some of the acts of the whites toward the Indians by way of showing clearly the ability of the former to protect themselves, and as constituting part of the history of the present condition of military affairs in this district.

"The Yukas are now a miserable tribe of naked, starved, Digger Indians, inhabiting the country between the North and South Eel Rivers. They live upon and cultivate the reservation in Round Valley, and almost every farmer in the valley has a number of them, whom he employs as servants, and who have either been brought from the mountains or from the reservation. These Indians are worked and packed, and but scantily, if at all, clothed and fed...... Many of them at the reservation have been officially reported to me as almost in a starving condition, and hardly able to get out to procure roots and clover, their usual diet."

The report goes on to narrate in full a case in which whites attacked an unarmed and unsuspecting settlement of Yukas, on the mere suspicion that they had taken some missing stock, and massacred some forty of them. Again, on the previous New Year's, certain whites "armed with rifles and revolvers, went to the several farms upon which Yuka Indians were employed as servants, and in cold blood killed some forty or fifty of them. They directed the ranch owners to select such Indians as they did not wish killed, and they would kill the rest...... I have not heard that any reason was assigned for the massacre, but have understood that it was a sort of New Year's frolic." In another case some twenty Indians on the Reservation were shot upon suspicion of having killed stock. "The precaution had been taken in this last massacre to disarm the Indians and burn their bows and arrows." "The agent informed me that the citizens of Round

Valley had threatened to wipe out the Indians on the Reservation; that they had come there armed for the purpose, and that he had been compelled to call in the employés to protect the Indians, and had serious notions of arming the Indians in their own defense." In still another case, an armed party looking for lost stock in the mountains, "attacked every village of Indians they came upon and massacred some two hundred or more," men, women and children.

Several more massacres and personal atrocities practiced upon Indians, are related; and Major Johnson's report closes as follows:

"I have endeavored to put a stop to the aggressions of the whites against the Indians, but without effect. They seem bent upon their extermination, and so long as they continue their indiscriminate slaughter, the Indians will occasionally retaliate by killing some stock. Large numbers of the Indians have died. The combined effects of hard work, disease, starvation and the attacks of the whites, will soon cause them to disappear entirely, without the aid of a volunteer company, to expedite the work of destruction."

"I also enclose two counter-memorials, numerously signed by persons known to be among the most reliable residents of Round Valley."

Colonel Henley, Superintendent of Indian affairs for California, took exception to this and to a subsequent report, made by Major Johnson, and published a refutal in the columns of the San Francisco National under date of February 5th, 1860. Colonel Henley having made, in his letter, certain aspersions on Major Johnson's courage and veracity and others to the same effect to the discredit of Lieutenant Dillon, they were answered, in the absence of these two officers, by Lieutenant W. P. Carlin, 6th United States Infantry, commanding at Fort Weller, who having first submitted his re