Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 127-137 (1981).

Traders and Raiders: Aspects of Trans-Basin and California-Plateau Commerce, 1800-1830

THOMAS N. LAYTON

OLLOWING introduction of the horse predatory bands of horse nomads between Finto the northern Rockies in the late 1800 and 1830. It is argued that concurrent seventeenth century, Indians there became settlement shifts occurred during this period mobile middlemen linking the Pacific-Plateau as pedestrian Indians moved to more pro­ and Middle-Missouri trade systems (Wood tected, less vulnerable locations away from 1972). By the end of the eighteenth century, the major trade routes frequented by Cahforniahad become integrated into this net­ mounted traders and raiders. work by a northern and an eastern route. The northern slave route hnked with The Dalles THE KLAMATH SLAVE TRADE on the Columbia River and incorporated an intermediate node at Yainax Butte near the In 1826, Peter Skene Ogden, an employee California-Oregon border. The eastern trans- of the Hudson's Bay Company and the leader Great Basin route linked California with the of a brigade of fur trappers, became the first Rockies via the Humboldt River and incor­ European to visit and describe the Klamath; porated an intermediate node at the Hum­ he counted one horse. But the Klamath were boldt Sink. Cahfornia horses and manufac­ already practicing a frankly defensive hfestyle tured goods may have been the major because of predation by mounted raiders commodities on this route. The documen­ from the north. Ogden (Elhott 1910:210) tation for long-distance commerce by horse­ recorded a hidden village in the Klamath men in Cahfornia and the Great Basin is Marsh less than 30 miles from the California- scattered, fragmentary, and of mixed quality. Oregon border as follows: However, when the pieces are juxtaposed, a It was composed of 20 tents built on the definite pattern can be discerned. water approachable only by canoes, the This paper examines the emergence of tents built of large logs shaped Uke block horse-facihtated commerce and the develop­ houses, the foundation stone or gravel made sohd by piles sunk 6 ft. deep. Their tents are ment of trade centers and of composite constantly guarded. They regretted we had opened a communication from the moun­ Thomas N. Layton, Dept. of Anthropology, San Jose tains. They said "The Nez Perces have made State Univ., San Jose, CA 951 92. different attempts to reach our village but

[127] 128 JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY

could not succeed. Even last summer we ... the objectives of their trading expedi­ discovered a war party of Cayuse and Nez tions were Warm Springs as well as The Perces in search of us; but they did not find Dalles. Slaves, Pit River bows and beads, and us. Now they will have yr. road to foUow. lily seed were taken there to exchange for We have no fire arms. StiU we fear them horses, blankets, buffalo skins, parfleches, not." beads (probably dentalium shells), dried salmon, and lamprey eels. Occasionally they If Ogden saw one Klamath horse in 1826 stayed the winter on the Columbia, some­ there were probably others well hidden. The times for a number of years. sophisticated defensive architecture and set­ tlement placement he described were hardly Of this commerce, slaves stand out as the new either, for the Klamath had become primary commodity. Sapir (1930:43) noted indirectly articulated into the Pacific-Plateau that slaves seem to have been numerous and trading system before 1800. Evidence of slaving expeditions frequent. Slaves, horses, travel south through Klamath country to and beads (in that order) were the most Califomia by Columbia River Indians for the highly rated forms of wealth in Klamath purpose of trading and horse stealing may be values. Perhaps the most detailed account of traced back to the beginning of the nine­ the Klamath slave trade is that of Gatschet teenth century. Heizer (1942) described a (1890:ix-x) who described annual slave raids well-documented trading expedition of forty against the Pit Rivers: Nez Perce, Cayuse, and Walla Walla Indians under the leadership of Yellow Serpent, who In April and May the Klamath Lakes and the traveled from the Columbia River to Sutter's Modocs would surround the camps, Idll the Fort in California's Sacramento Valley in men, and abduct the women and children to 1844, but intermittent visits by Columbia their homes, or sell them into slavery at the international bartering place at The Dalles. River peoples to California for trade and . . . Some of the eastern Pit Rivers seem to securing horses probably occurred much have lived on friendly terms with the earlier. The same scholar cited evidence that Modocs; but the banks farther south, especi­ Yellow Serpent himself may have witnessed ally the Hot Springs and the Big VaUey California horse raids organized by his father Indians, were the principal sufferers of these as early as 1800. These long-distance expedi­ incursions. In a raid of 1857 fifty-six of their women and children were enslaved and sold tions by Columbia River Indians passed south on the Columbia River for Cayuse ponies, through Oregon and undoubtedly impacted one squaw being rated at five or six horses the Klamath long before Ogden's 1826 and a boy, one horse. description. We may speculate that the Klamath were at first preyed upon by mounted parties from THE TRADE FAIR AT YAINAX BUTTE the north, but that they, in turn, learned to prey upon their Cahfornia neighbors to the The Pacific-Plateau trade system was char­ south. Possibly by 1800 the Klamath were acterized by major trade centers and a scatter­ already becoming middlemen passing Cahfor­ ing of less important nodes. There is strong nia goods in ever increasing amounts north to evidence that the Klamath middlemen may The Dalles, the international trading center on have controlled at least one such node within the Columbia River. Summarizing early nine­ their own territory at Yainax Butte, 30 miles teenth century long-distance Klamath com­ east of Klamath Lake. The evidence for this merce, Sapir (1909:104) reported that: trade center is entirely from one source: TRADERS AND RAIDERS 129

Samuel A. Clarke, a pioneer Oregon news­ on a slave hunting raid. The Yahooskin or paperman and historian. In 1873, Clarke Summer Lake Snakes did not hesitate to covered the Modoc War as a New York Times take part in these gatherings, for, though neutral as to their fellow Snakes, they liked correspondent. At the cessation of hostihties to take a hand in the games, make good he was invited to visit the Yainax Indian trades, and swap horses—when they could do Agency. Clarke was later to publish three so to advantage. There was pleasure and colorful accounts of this trip (Clarke 1873, honor, as well as plenty of business, here at 1879, 1905) from which I have excerpted the Yainax on those gala days in October [Clarke 1905:1920]. following description of the Yainax Butte trade fair. Although in popular magazine articles Within sight of that butte I have held long Clarke did engage in Victorian romantic talks with Modoc and Klamath chieftains, hyperbole, frankly imagining the sounds, the who have woven the tradition of their tribes odors, and the excitement of the Yainax trade into form for my satisfaction [Clarke fair, I am inclined to beheve that the account 1879)... To this mountain's base came the above is accurate in its essentials. In his Columbia River Indians to exchange fleet cayuse coursers for slaves, to barter the authoratative, two-volume Pioneer Days of blankets and nicknacks furnished by the Fur Oregon History, Clarke (1905:115-118) cited Company traders for the furs gathered by and quoted extensively from Alexander Modocs and KJamaths, and the bows and Ross's account of the Yakima Trade Fair in arrows so deftly made and so skillfully 1814 and acknowledged a discussion with fashioned by the Pit Rivers. Yainax was a William McKay (1869) who published a des­ great slave mart in the long ago, for Kla- maths and Modocs, being first cousins, and cription of the Dalles trade fair. Clarke seems as kind and unkind as near relatives are apt to have done his homework. to be, made war indiscriminately on weaker If, as seems likely, Clarke interviewed men tribes and took captives to swell the impor­ approaching 65 years of age in 1873, they tance of the Yainax fairs. Woe to Snakes and Pit Rivers, Shastas and Rogue Rivers, when would have given him eyewitness descriptions Klamaths took the war-path, more hungry of Yainax Trade Fairs of their early adult for captives than for scalps. [Clarke years circa 1820-30. Clarke's informant testi­ 1873:550] . . . Yainax was a convenient mony of mounted Great Basin "Snakes" in meeting place for tribes within hundred of attendance at Yainax finds strong indirect miles in all directions. .. . Klamaths, support in the 1827 journal of Ogden. On Modocs, Summer Lake Snakes, to the east; Warm Springs people, from the north; May 27th of that year, Ogden recorded a Shastas and Pitt Rivers, from Northern band of mounted horsemen living a scant 70 CaUfomia; all those fraternized, and each miles due east of Yainax Butte near the north October, when the earth had yielded its end of Warner Valley. Here he had to send fruits at command of the summer sun, they thirteen men in pursuit of Indians (probably met here in grand conclave, with the Nez Northern Paiutes) who had stolen fifty-six of Perces and Cayuses, and others of the Columbia River tribes. All came, from the his horses. The Indians escaped after a long Cascades to the Rockies; from Cahfornia to pursuit in which they abandoned all but two the Columbia River. Here, also, was the great of the animals. Ogden's men, however, discov­ slave mart of the mid-mountain region. ered their hidden abandoned camp which he (Davies 1961:121-122) described as ". . . con­ The Warm Springs braves invaded the sisting of 14 Tents but all abandoned and country of their enemies, the Snakes, secreted in the mountains, from the number beyond Goose Lake, and the Klamaths were their allies to assist; they joined forces when of Bones and Skins it is evident that these 130 JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY villians support themselves entirely on Horse have not been done in Pit River territory, Flesh ..." This and subsequent groups were there is strong evidence for settlement shifts probably regular attendees at the Yainax immediately to the east in nearby Surprise Trade Fair. Warner Vahey was to remain the Valley. residence of mounted predatory bands for the Surprise Valley has been the location of next 37 years (Layton 1977:245-47). In extensive, well-executed site surveys and exca­ August, 1849, they raided emigrants south vations (Brown 1964; O'Connell 1971, 1975). along the Lassen Cutoff wagon road and a Moreover, amateur collectors have amassed month later ambushed a U. S. Army patrol huge collections of projectile points from this inside Warner Valley (Layton 1978:252). lush area. All evidence suggests that a heavy Whether Warner Valley's predator band was prehistoric occupation of the valley was fol­ an estabhshed kin group made mobile by the lowed by a virtual abandonment in the early horse or a composite band comprised of nineteenth century. This interpretation of several groups is not discernable. However, in sparse early-nineteenth-century settlement in 1864, a predator band again surfaces in Surprise Valley is supported by evidence Warner Valley and its composition is better gleaned from emigrant diaries. During the late documented. It was apparently led by Paulini, 1840's the heavily traveled Lassen/Applegate a Paviotso from the Silver Lake (Oregon) area wagon road, after departing from the Hum­ (Nash 1955:386). Col. C. S. Drew's 1864 boldt River, passed through the heart of description of one of Paulini's abandoned northwestern Nevada's rugged High Rock camps in Warner Valley is more than a little country (Layton 1970:14), thence north reminiscent of Ogden's 1827 description of through Surprise Valley before crossing west­ "horse flesh eaters" from the same area. Drew ward over the Warner Mountains via Fan­ (1865) wrote that when he reached the north dango Pass. Nineteen emigrant journals pass up Warner's Mountain he: recording passage over this route between ... found about sixty new and deserted 1847 and 1849 (Layton 1978) provide num­ lodges, evidently left not more than three erous first-person descriptions of interaction days before, and in and around them frag­ with Indians in the High Rock country, but ments of beeves that their occupants had practically none for Surprise Valley. Appar­ feasted upon. The tracks of American ently Paiutes lived elsewhere than Surprise horses, ponies, mules and cattle, all coming in from the northward, and passing up into Valley during the 1840's. the mountain, were numerous and but I would argue that by 1820 pedestrian recently made. Paiute occupation in Surprise Valley had become impossible because Warner Valley, One can imagine the cumulative effect of only 20 miles to the north was by then the mercenary slave hunters and mobile, mounted home of the mounted predatory band des­ predator bands on the lifestyles of pedestrian cribed above by Ogden. By 1820, Surprise groups. Ogden's 1826 description of the Valley had become a well-traveled section of a Klamath documents distinct architecture, vil­ major North-South highway passing along the lage placement and voiced concerns about east face of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada Nez Perces raiders which are all dramatically Ranges. This highway was heavily traversed defensive. One would predict that the hapless by emergent predatory bands of horsemen. Pit River people likewise sought out inacces­ Semisedentary occupation of lush and acces­ sible protected locations for their vihages. sible Surprise Valley by pedestrian Paiutes Although protohistoric settlement studies ended because of the vulnerability to raids. TRADERS AND RAIDERS 131

Our major source of evidence for While the Great Basin was bemg en­ nineteenth-century Paiute occupation in Sur­ croached upon by Shoshone from the east, prise Valley has traditionally been Kelly's mounted California Indians were penetrating (1932) "Ethnography of the Surprise Valley from the west. It is appropriate here to review Paiute"; however, it is now recognized (Voe- briefly the development of the horse market gelin 1956:4) that Kelly unknowingly des­ in California. Horses were introduced into cribed post-1860 emigrants into the valley California with the establishment of the mis­ from Oregon and not the aboriginal inhabit­ sion system. By 1800, their numbers had ants of the area. All evidence points to the multiplied and many ran wild in the Sacra­ fact that during the nineteenth century there mento and San Joaquin valleys. Indians living were few Paiute in Surprise Valley until after east of the mission strip, their numbers and the establishment of Fort Bidwell in the sophistication bolstered by Christian run­ 1860's. aways, rapidly learned to eat and ride horses. It would seem necessary to reevaluate the Predation on mission herds became a serious ethnographic record of the greater California- problem quite early. In 1815, Jose Dolores Oregon-Nevada border triangle to account for Pico, traveling from San Juan Bautista into other major undocumented dislocations and the San Joaquin Valley, recorded the remains readaptations of populations living there dur­ of more than 500 butchered horses at the ing the protohistoric period. Indian camps he visited (Cook 1960:271). Bancroft (1886:365) excerpted an 1819 letter from President Mariano Payeras, head of the CALIFORNIA HORSES Catholic Church in Cahfornia to his padres to the effect: Although there is an obvious need for . . . that all the best horses are being stolen; revisionist ethnography in the California- that in the Tulares all ride, even the women; Oregon-Nevada border triangle, nowhere is and that regular fairs for the sale of horses this kind of reevaluation more needed than to are held there. the south in the central Nevada portion of the Great Basin and the adjacent California foot­ It was this easy availability of horses and hills of the Sierra Nevadas. Two major proces­ the added lure of manufactured goods from ses brought horse nomads into the central the missions that attracted expeditions of Great Basin. These were the westward expan­ Columbia River Indians to Cahfornia by sion of Idaho Shoshone and the concurrent 1800. Swann (1857:313-314) described this eastward displacement of Indians from commerce: Central Cahfornia. That the northern tribes, or those of Oregon By 1750, the Great Plains had become and Washington, have been accustomed to crowded with horse nomads. The earliest long journeys south, is a fact which is easily Rocky Mountain groups to acquire the horse shown. When Fremont first commenced had expanded eastward onto the plains to hostilities in California, a large body of Walla Walla Indians from the Columbia were creat­ pursue the buffalo. Those living further to the ing disturbances in the region of Sacra­ west like the Shoshone of the Snake River mento. These Indians formerly made regular Plain, who acquired horses somewhat later, excursions to the south every year, on found access into the plains blocked. As a horseback, for the purpose of trade and consequence, they incorporated the Great plunder. Basin into their expanded seasonal round. The wife of Mr. Ducheney, the agent of 132 JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY

Chinook for the Hudson Bay Company, who the interior valleys might have driven the is a very intelligent woman, informed me increasingly ineffective and weakened that, her father was [a] Frenchman, and Spanish-Mexican colonists from California. her mother a Walla Walla Indian, and that, when she was quite a child, she recollected Although the evidence for commerce in going with her mother and a party of her the Great Basin by California, Nevada, and tribe to the south for a number of months; Idaho horsemen is fragmentary, there is that they took horses with them, and Indian enough to suggest regular and frequent con­ trinkets, which they exchanged for Vermil­ tacts by the 1820's. lion and Mexican blankets: and that on their return her mother died and was buried where the city of Sacramento now stands THE TRADE FAIR AT HUMBOLDT SINK . . . She was too young to remember how far into Mexico they went, but I judged that the In 1827, Jedediah Strong Smith became Vermillion she mentioned was obtained from the mountains of Almaden near San Jose, the first Caucasian to cross the Great Basin. California. His crossing was from west to east, and his recently discovered and pubhshed journal California came to supply a far-flung provides incontrovertible evidence that horse horse market very early. Broadbent (1974) nomadism was already fully developed. On discussed the growth of long-distance horse June 21, 1827, Smith camped at the south raiding against Monterey. She singled out the end of Walker Lake near where several Indian Plains and Sierra Miwok as likely culprits. As families were encamped for fishing. He had punitive raids by the colonial authorities already twice noticed horse signs as he became more common and more effective, approached the west shore of the lake. The horse-raiding Cahfornia Indians retreated into following is excerpted from Smith's account the Sierra foothills. The establishment of the (Brooks 1977:174-176): horse-nomad pattern in east central Califomia About ten 0 Clock at night I was awakened and western Nevada was a major and signifi­ by the sound of horses feet. 1 started up and cant readaptive shift. James Downs 20 or 30 horsemen rode by at full speed to (1971:305) stated: where the fishermen were encamped. 1 awak­ ened the men we collected our things There are suggestions that the eastern slope together and made of them as good a brest of the Sierra from 1769 through 1849 was work as we could and prepared ourselves for seeing the development of . . . mounted extremities. Presently 2 Indians came as if to composite raiding bands. In the upper San see if we were asleep. But finding we were Joaquin a number of groups appear to have awake they came close and sit down. 1 developed into horse-raiding and eating offered them some Tabacco but they would societies, living in large part by raiding not take it. They returned to their compan­ Spanish livestock and fleeing into the inter­ ions and soon all came and surrounded us ior beyond the reach of colonial ven­ with the Bows strung and their arrows in geance. . . Although details are lacking, there their hands. They sat down and consulted is every reason to believe that for a few with each other talking loud and harsh and decades at least totally horse-oriented pas­ frequently changing places some times all toral societies, subsisting largely on the meat being on one side and then on the other. To of horse herds that were constantly replaced the one that seemed to be the principal by raiding, existed in the swampy plains of character 1 offered some presents but he the central basin. Robert Heizer (personal would take nothing turning from me with communication) has conjectured that had disdain. . . After about two hours they the development not been interrupted, the became peaceable and made a fire. 1 then reorganized tribes of the western slope and offered them some tobacco they took it TRADERS AND RAIDERS 133

smoked and remained all night. It will be commerce along the river: readily conjectured that I kept a verry close watch during the remainder of the night. 1 ... 1 fell on a long Indian track and not long do not know how to account for the singular since a number of horses have travelled in conduct of the Indians. They did not appear this quarter, probably not less than four unanimous for the massacre and perhaps saw hundred, and if 1 may judge from appear­ our intention of making our scalps bear a ances in one of their camps there could not good price we should not have fallen with­ have been less than three hundred Indians. out some of them in company. . . In the In the afternoon eight paid us a visit. An morning they appeared friendly and told me elderly man of the party who -understands that there was water to the East in the the lower Snake language, informed me that direction I wished to travel. 1 observed these the distance was great to the sources [of the Indians had some Buffalo Robes knives and Humboldt River], not less than ten days Spanish Blankets from which it appears they march—there we shall find five forks, on have some communication with the Indians three of these beaver, that the river dis­ on Lewis's River and with the Spanish charges in a large lake, and that salmon does Indians. 1 moved on East about 20 miles and not ascend this stream and consequently has was obliged to encamp without water. The no communication with the waters of the Indians no doubt well knew there was no ocean. water and intended to deceive me and send me where I might perish for the want of it. Two weeks later on November 28, still on the Humboldt and approximately six miles The passage suggests that these horsemen east of present-day Dunphy, Nevada, Ogden either were themselves Walker Lake Paiute or (Davies 1961:110) noted that: "Three Snake were on good terms with the Paiute fishing Indians with their horses arrived and informed there. That the horsemen carried both buffalo us they were from the Main Falls of the Snake robes and Spanish blankets is evidence of a River. . . ." commerce fully spanning the Great Basin It would seem that in the fall of 1828, the from California to Idaho. Two weeks later as Humboldt River was well traveled by Idaho Smith passed through the Monitor Valley near Indians returning home to the Snake River for the geographical center of Nevada he encoun­ the winter. Ogden was himself traveling tered three Indians who had a piece of a towards a winter rendezvous of fur traders buffalo robe and who sold Smith a beaver and Indians northeast of the Great Salt Lake. skin, a good indication that even this remote In the spring of 1829 Ogden returned to area had become influenced by the fur trade. Nevada to trap the Humboldt and its tribu­ We must stress here that the scheming Walker taries. On May 2nd, due north of present-day Lake horsemen had dehberately directed Dunphy, Nevada, he fortuitously recovered a Smith far away from the beaten commercial horse 225 miles west of the Malad River path across Nevada. Had Smith traveled the winter camp where Indians had stolen it from Humboldt River route as did Peter Ogden the him (Layton 1978:244). This western dis­ following year, he would have witnessed far placement is additional evidence of a pattern more commercial activity. of Indians wintering in the Rockies and Our first written record of the Humboldt returning to Nevada in the spring. River is by Peter Ogden. On November 16, It is notable that as Ogden traveled the 1828, while following the Humboldt River Humboldt River he saw httle evidence of local and about 16 miles upstream from present- Indians, only a few abandoned huts hidden in day Golconda, Nevada, Ogden (Davies the willows. Mary Rusco (personal communi­ 1961:108-109) recorded striking evidence of cation), who is completing a major study of 134 JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY the Humboldt, points out that there is archae­ about five hundred yards from our camp 1 ological evidence for large populations having desired them to be seated, this order was lived along most of the Humboldt during the obeyed. . . Their language was different from late prehistoric. The protohistoric retreat of any 1 have yet heard, but one of them understanding a few words of Snake we the local pedestrian Indians from settlement received the following information. This along the banks of the Humboldt is probably river discharges in the lake which has no a direct consequence of the Humboldt becom­ outlet, in eight days' march there is a large ing a trans-basin highway for predatory horse­ river but no beaver, salmon most abundant, men. As discussed above, the abandonment of a convincing proof they traded two, which were still tolerably fresh. To the northward Surprise Valley was likewise at least partially of us there is also another river which from the result of its similar vulnerabihty to raids the description he gives must be Pit River. by horsemen in transit. On examining these Indians we saw pieces of On May 28, 1829, Ogden finally reached rifles, ammunition, arms and other articles. the Humboldt Sink, a vast marshy area 70 This 1 am of opinion must be some of the plunder of Smith's party of ten men who miles east of the California state line where were murdered in the fall and from native to the Humboldt River discharges into a land­ native has reached this. They would not locked basin. Here he (Davies 1961:153-154) inform me from whom they had received encountered and described mounted hostile these articles from, this looks suspicious, on Indians in terms analogous to those used by enquiring the cause of their visit the chief answered to make peace which was soon Jedediah Smith at Walker Lake two years effected. earlier. Who were these horsemen, and what were . . . the man who had gone towards the lake they doing at the Humboldt Sink? The fact [Humboldt Sink] arrived and gave the alarm that neither Ogden nor his men, who were of enemies. By his account he had a most well acquainted with the languages of the narrow escape, to the fleetness of his horse has his life been preserved. He reports as Basin, the Plateau, and the Pacific Northwest, follows. When rounding a point nearly had ever heard the language spoken by the within sight of the lake, twenty men on leaders of the visitors suggests that they were horseback came in sight and on seeing him from California. Moreover, their possession of gave the war cry. He lost no time in two "tolerably fresh salmon" from a river retreating; one of the Indians had nearly overtaken him, and would had he not they described as eight days' march west of discharged his gun at him. He also informed the Humboldt Sink strongly suggests that us that the hills were covered with Indians. they had acquired the fish from any of the Strongly suspecting from their conduct on several eastern tributaries of the Sacramento the 26th instant, added to this day, 1 gave or San Joaquin Rivers. For example, Califor­ orders to secure the horses and having made all as secure as possible and the place would nia salmon are easily available on the Stanis­ admit of, ten men, two thirds of my forces, laus River which at 125 miles is an easy 8-day started in advance to ascertain what the ride from the Humboldt Sink. Ogden sus­ Indians were doing, and not to risk a battle pected the "pieces of rifles, ammunition, arms with them as we are already too weak. An and other articles" to be the plunder from hour after they arrived and reported the Indians, upwards of two hundred, were Jedediah Smith's party which was ambushed coming to the camp and were within a short on the Umpqua River near the Oregon Coast distance and it was not their opinion they in the summer of 1828. This seems to be a were well inclined towards us. Shortly after wild guess on Ogden's part; however, the they arrived having selected a spot for them Indians' knowledge of what Ogden thought to TRADERS AND RAIDERS 135 be the Pit River probably places them in a probably horses and manufactured goods central or northern Cahfornia homeland. from California. Horses were abundant in Their route to the Humboldt Sink must have California and in high demand everywhere carried them eastward through one of the else. We must suspect that the horse-trading Sierra passes and then on to the Humboldt Tulares described by Payeras and the horse- Sink. thief Miwoks described by Broadbent drove What were mounted Indians from Cahfor­ their trading stock across Sierra passes to the nia and Idaho doing at the Humboldt Sink in Humboldt Sink to meet potential buyers, 1829? It is unlikely that they were engaged in including the mounted predatory bands resi­ commerce with the pedestrian Indians who dent in the western Basin and the transient lived there. The local Indians were irrelevant Indians from Idaho described in Ogden's because the Humboldt Sink offered no joumal. resource valuable enough to sustain trade. What the Humboldt Sink did offer was its CONCLUSION location as a central place on a river highway linking Califomia with the Rockies. It was the Most of the information presented here only location with enough water and grass to has been available for a long time. The support large numbers of horses. The Hum­ argument, however, is revisionist because of boldt Sink was thus a site that could support, the way the data have been structured. Some in conclave, the emerging predatory bands of of the evidence is, at best, circumstantial. But the western Great Basin, such as the Wamer rather than a frozen ethnographic present, the Valley and Walker Lake groups, with Califor­ pattern that emerges is one of vitality and nia and Idaho horsemen. change during the protohistoric period, char­ Mary Rusco (1976) in an unpublished acterized by major undocumented disloca­ paper titled "Enemies of the People" docu­ tions and readaptations of peoples on the ments hostile encounters between Indians and northem and eastern peripheries of Califomia. Europeans in the Great Basin during the By the 1820's, the northern Great Basin 1820's and 1830's. She has found that the was heavily occupied by mobile, mounted vast majority of encounters were friendly predatory bands. The encounters with these with the notable exception of those occurring groups, fortuitously recorded in the journals near the Humboldt Sink and those northeast of Peter Ogden and Jedediah Smith, may be of the Great Salt Lake. She attributes the the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Given this latter to the tense atmosphere of trading and emerging picture of dislocation, readaptation, raiding associated with the Shoshone Rendez­ and the development of trade centers, a vous. More recently she has come to interpret number of topics demand reexamination. For the repeated hostilities at the Humboldt Sink example, might the abandonment of the as indirect evidence of yet another trading Honey Lake basin by Maidu, allowing its center (Mary Rusco, personal communi­ subsequent occupation by Paiutes, be related cation). to the activities of predatory bands during the The evidence presented here, though frag­ 1820-1830 period? And perhaps it is time to mentary and circumstantial, suggests that the reexamine our one-dimensional stereotype of Humboldt Sink, like Yainax in Oregon, was California Indians of the western slope of the already an established trade center well before Sierras as horse eaters. The Sierra Miwok did the arrival of the first white travelers. The not have to raid the coastal mission strip for major commodities at the Humboldt were meat when the great interior valley supported 136 JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY

herds of horses gone wild (Driver and Massey 1905 Pioneer Days of Oregon History, Vol. 1. 1957:286), but tame, broken horses could be Portland: J. K. Gill Company. driven through Sierra passes to meet a ready Cook, S. F. market at the Humboldt Sink. We will have to 1960 Colonial Expeditions to the Interior of tread uncertain ground beyond accepted eth­ California: Central Valley, 1800-1820. Uni­ nographic canon if we are to achieve a more versity of California Anthropological Records 16(6);239-292. accurate picture of the protohistoric period on the outer fringes of California. Davies, K. G. 1961 Peter Skene Ogden's Snake Country Journal: 1827-29. London: The Hudson's Bay ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Record Society, Vol. 23. Downs, James F. This paper has benefited from suggestions 1971 California. In: North American Indians in and information supplied by the following Historical Perspective, Eleanor Leacock and colleagues: Martin A. Baumhoff, James Ben- Nancy Lurie, eds., pp. 289-316. New York: nyhoff, Richard Hughes, Linda King, Karen Random House. Nissen, James O'Connell, Francis Riddell, Drew, Lieut. Colonel C. S. Mary Rusco, David Hurst Thomas, and 1865 Official Report of the Owyhee Reconnais­ Donald Tuohy. Nadine WiUey and Barbara sance: Jacksonville. Oregon Sentinel Printing True provided clerical services. Office. Driver, Harold, and William C. Massey 1957 Comparative Studies of North American Indians. Philadelphia: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society (New Series) REFERENCES 27(Pt. 2). Elliott, T.C. Bancroft, Hubert H. 1910 The Peter Skene Ogden Journals. Oregon 1886 History of California, Vol. 2, 1801-1824. Historical Society Quartedy 11:201-222. San Francisco: The History Company, Publishers. Gatschet, Albert Samuel Broadbent, Sylvia M. 1890 The Klamath Indians of Southwestern Ore­ 1974 Conflict at Monterey: Indian Horse Raiding, gon. Contributions to North American Eth­ 1820-1850. Journal of California Anthro­ nology 2 (Pt. 2). U. S. Geographical and pology 1(1):86-101. Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region. Brooks, George R. Heizer, Robert F. 1977 The Southwest Expedition of Jedediah S. 1942 Walla Walla Indian Expeditions to the Sacra­ Smith: His Personal Account of the Journey mento Valley, 1844-1847. California Histori­ to California 1826-1827. Glendale: Arthur cal Society Quarteriy 21(l):l-7. H. Clark Company. Kelly, Isabel T. Brown, Walter R. 1932 Ethnography of the Surprise Valley Paiute. 1964 The Prehistory of Surprise Valley. M.A. University of California Publications in thesis, Department of Anthropology, Univer­ American Archaeology and Ethnology sity of California, Davis. 31(3):67-210. Clarke, Samuel A. Layton, Thomas N. 1873 Klamath Land. The Overland Monthly 1970 High Rock Archaeology: An Interpretation 11:548-54. of the Prehistory of the Northwestern Great 1879 A Century Ago. The West Shore: A News Basin. Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Magazine (Portland, Oregon) 5(46). Anthropology, Harvard University. TRADERS AND RAIDERS 137

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