The Aboriginal Population of the San Joaquin Valley, California

ANTHROPROI(iCAL RECO)RDS i2t -- .16: THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION OF THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, CALIFORNIA BY S. F. COOK UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES 1955 THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION OF THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, CALIFORNIA BY S. F. COOK ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS Vol. i6, No.2 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS Editors (Berkeley): R. L. Olson, R. F. Heizer, T. D. McCown, J. H. Rowe Volume 16, No. 2, pp. 31-80 6 maps Submitted by editors October 8, 1954 Issued July 11, 1955 Price, 75 cents University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles California Cambridge University Press London, England Manufactured in the United States of America CONTENTS Page Introduction . ................................................................ 31 The population of the San Joaquin Valley in approximately 1850 ................. 33 Contemporary estimates and counts for the entire region ................... 33 Analysis based upon restricted areas ................................. .....34 Stanislaus and Tuolumne rivers .................................... 34 Merced River, Mariposa Creek, and Chowchilla River................ 35 The Cosumnes, Mokelumne,. and Calaveras rivers .................... 36 The Fresno and the upper San Joaquin rivers ........................ 36 The Kings and Kaweah rivers ....................................... 38 The Tulare Lake basin ..................................... ........40 The Tule River, the Kern River, and the Buenavista Basin ............ 40 The aboriginal population .......... ....................... .............. .....42 The Tulare Lake basin .............................................. ......42 The Kaweah River ............. ....... .......... 45 The Merced River ....... ............ 48 The Kings River .... ......... .......... 49 The Upper San Joaquin, Fresno, and Chowchilla rivers and Mariposa Creek.. 50 The Southern San Joaquin Valley .................................... 54 The Northern San Joaquin Valley .................................... 56 The Miwok Foothill Area .................................... 68 Summary and conclusions .................................... 70 Appendix ....... ... ...............7.......1 Bibliography ............................ B............. 72 MAPS 1. The San Joaquin Valley from.the Cosumnes River to the Tehachapi ....... ............................... facing page 74 2. Habitat areas 1A-2: the southern Yokuts and peripheral tribes ............. 75 3. Habitat areas 3A-4C: the basins of the Kaweah and Kings rivers ............ 76 4. Habitat areas 5A-6B: the Yokuts, a part of the Mono, and the southern Miwok ................................................... 76 5. Habitat areas 7A-14: the northern Yokuts, central and northern Miwok ...... 77 6. The Lower San Joaquin River and Delta areas ............................. 78 [iii] THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION OF THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, CALIFORNIA BY S. F. COOK INTRODUCTION Ecologically the great central valley of California affected in a uniform manner throughout and a sufficiently forms a single unit. Nevertheless it is convenient for clear line can be drawn between aboriginal and postcon- the purposes of this paper to divide the entire area into tact conditions. In the central valley the white influence two portions, north and south. The vast expanse from was very gradual, beginning at or near the year 1770 Red Bluff to the Tehachapi is too extensive to cover with the entrance of the Spanish missionaries along the demographically in a single exposition. Moreover, the coast and the infiltration of a very few foreigners into northern tribes, the Wintun and Maidu, are physio- the valley. The volume of invasion increased slowly graphically clearly segregated from the southern by over the next three decades, but the effect was intensi- the northern extension of San Francisco Bay and the fied by the escape of numerous mission neophytes into delta of the rivers. Hence we shall consider here only the valley. The years after 1800 saw repeated incursions those peoples south of the Sacramento and American by the coastal whites who overran the floor of the valley River watersheds. from the Sacramento River to Buena Vista Lake. Mean- The area possesses definite natural limits but its while the foothill and mountain tribes were permitted to exact boundaries must be to some extent arbitrary. On remain fairly intact. With discovery of gold, however, the north the line has already been indicated: the south tnese groups lost trieir inirnuiiity atid were rapidly de- bank of the upper Bay and the Sacramento River as far stroyed. Therefore, even though we oversimplify, we upstream as a point five miles below the city of Sacra- may say that the aboriginal population persisted in the mento and thence easterly along the El Dorado-Amador valley proper up to 1770, in the lower foothills up to County line into the high mountains. This follows Kroe- roughly 1810, and in the higher foothills and more re- ber's tribal boundary between the Maidu and the Sierra mote canyons of the Sierra Nevada up to 1850. Miwok. On the west the line starts northeast of Mt. Our sources of information cover only the period Diablo and follows the western edge of the San Joaquin during which the demographic status of the natives was Valley to the Tehachapi Mountains. On the east we in- undergoing change. No written record exists that de- clude the Sierra Nevada as far as was reached by per- scribes conditions as they might have been found prior manent habitation on the west slope. The southern ex- to 1770. The only possible substitute would be an exami- tremity is represented by the crest of the Tehachapi. nation of the habitation sites left from prehistoric times, The region designated embraces the territory of the but archaeological research in the area has not yet pro- Plains and Sierra Miwok, the Yokuts, the Western gressed to the point where an adequate quantitative esti- Mono, the Tubatulabal, and the Kawaiisu. From the mate of population is available. There are three primary standpoint of habitat the area is diversified since it ex- bodies of data to which we have access, all falling within tends from the swampy valley floor through the oak the historical period between 1770 and 1860. country of the lower foothills into the transition life- The first of these derives from the serious effort on zone of the middle altitudes. Perhaps an ecological the part of the Americans, who between 1848 and 1852 segregation would be desirable. Such a procedure, how- were entering the region in large numbers, to determine ever, would cut across tribal boundaries and make an the quantity of natives surviving in the central valley. accurate evaluation of population difficult. On the ac- This task was performed by such men as Sutter, Bidwell, companying maps, areas are delineated, and numbered, and Savage, together with several Indian commissioners, primarily for convenience of reference. At the same and army officers sent out by the government. To their time they conform as closely as is feasible with the reports may be added the statements contained in the natural subdivisions of the territory marked out by local county histories published in the era of 1880 to river valleys, lakes, plains, and mountains. It should 1890, as well as in many pioneer reminiscences. be stressed that they do not necessarily coincide pre- A second major source of information consists of the cisely with the areas occupied by specific tribes or ethnographic studies made within the past fifty years, groups of tribes. among which should be mentioned the works of Kroeber, The demography of the central valley is rendered Merriam, Schenck, Gayton, and Gifford. These investi- still more complex by the fact that the contact with the gators depended principally upon informants who were white race took place in a series of steps rather than elderly people in the decades from 1900 to 1940. Their by a single overwhelming invasion. In central Mexico, memories, together with their recollection of what had or to a somewhat lesser degree in northwestern Cali- been told them by their parents, carry back, on the fornia, aboriginal life continued relatively untouched average, to the period of the American invasion or just until there occurred a rapid and catastrophic occupation before it. Hence their knowledge of truly aboriginal pop- of the entire territory. As a result, the population was ulation would be valid for the hill tribes only; yet data [31] 32 ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS derived from them for that region is probably more population of the San Joaquin Valley can be determined accurate than can be obtained from the general esti- with some degree of accuracy at two stages in the mates made by contemporary white men. These two history of the region. The later period is at the point types of information, contemporary American accounts of intense occupancy by the Americans, at or near the and modern ethnographic material, can thus be used to year 1850, for here may be brought to a focus the data supplement and check each other for the era of 1850. from both contemporary counts and the research of For conditions in the valley before 1840 we have to modern ethnographers. The earlier is for the epoch depend almost exclusively upon the historical records just preceding the entrance of the Spanish into California, left by the Spanish and Mexicans. These consist of a or just before 1770. To assess the population at this series of diaries, reports, and letters, by both laymen period it is necessary

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