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THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION
OF THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY,
CALIFORNIA


BY
S. F. COOK


ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS

Vol. 16, 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                                                            71

Bibliography                                                        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




THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION OF THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, CALIFORNIA

BY

S. F. COOK




INTRODUCTION


Ecologically the great central valley of California forms a single
unit. Nevertheless it is convenient for the purposes of this paper to
divide the entire area into two portions, north and south. The vast
expanse from Red Bluff to the Tehachapi is too extensive to cover
demographically in a single exposition. Moreover, the northern tribes,
the Wintun and Maidu, are physiographically clearly segregated from the
southern by the northern extension of San Francisco Bay and the delta
of the rivers. Hence we shall consider here only those peoples south of
the Sacramento and American River watersheds.

The area possesses definite natural limits but its exact boundaries
must be to some extent arbitrary. On the north the line has already
been indicated: the south bank of the upper Bay and the Sacramento
River as far upstream as a point five miles below the city of
Sacramento and thence easterly along the El Dorado--Amador County line
into the high mountains. This follows Kroeber's tribal boundary between
the Maidu and the Sierra Miwok. On the west the line starts northeast
of Mt. Diablo and follows the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley to
the Tehachapi Mountains. On the east we include the Sierra Nevada as
far as was reached by permanent habitation on the west <DW72>. The
southern extremity is represented by the crest of the Tehachapi.

The region designated embraces the territory of the Plains and Sierra
Miwok, the Yokuts, the Western Mono, the Tubatulabal, and the Kawaiisu.
From the standpoint of habitat the area is diversified since it extends
from the swampy valley floor through the oak country of the lower
foothills into the transition life-zone of the middle altitudes.
Perhaps an ecological segregation would be desirable. Such a procedure,
however, would cut across tribal boundaries and make an accurate
evaluation of population difficult. On the accompanying maps, areas are
delineated, and numbered, primarily for convenience of reference. At
the same time they conform as closely as is feasible with the natural
subdivisions of the territory marked out by river valleys, lakes,
plains, and mountains. It should be stressed that they do not
necessarily coincide precisely with the areas occupied by specific
tribes or groups of tribes.

The demography of the central valley is rendered still more complex by
the fact that the contact with the white race took place in a series of
steps rather than by a single overwhelming invasion. In central Mexico,
or to a somewhat lesser degree in northwestern California, aboriginal
life continued relatively untouched until there occurred a rapid and
catastrophic occupation of the entire territory. As a result, the
population was affected in a uniform manner throughout and a
sufficiently clear line can be drawn between aboriginal and postcontact
conditions. In the central valley the white influence was very gradual,
beginning at or near the year 1770 with the entrance of the Spanish
missionaries along the coast and the infiltration of a very few
foreigners into the valley. The volume of invasion increased slowly
over the next three decades, but the effect was intensified by the
escape of numerous mission neophytes into the valley. The years after
1800 saw repeated incursions by the coastal whites who overran the
floor of the valley from the Sacramento River to Buena Vista Lake.
Meanwhile the foothill and mountain tribes were permitted to remain
fairly intact. With discovery of gold, however, these groups lost their
immunity and were rapidly destroyed. Therefore, even though we
oversimplify, we may say that the aboriginal population persisted in
the valley proper up to 1770, in the lower foothills up to roughly
1810, and in the higher foothills and more remote canyons of the Sierra
Nevada up to 1850.

Our sources of information cover only the period during which the
demographic status of the natives was undergoing change. No written
record exists that describes conditions as they might have been found
prior to 1770. The only possible substitute would be an examination of
the habitation sites left from prehistoric times, but archaeological
research in the area has not yet progressed to the point where an
adequate quantitative estimate of population is available. There are
three primary bodies of data to which we have access, all falling
within the historical period between 1770 and 1860.

The first of these derives from the serious effort on the part of the
Americans, who between 1848 and 1852 were entering the region in large
numbers, to determine the quantity of natives surviving in the central
valley. This task was performed by such men as Sutter, Bidwell, and
Savage, together with several Indian commissioners, and army officers
sent out by the government. To their reports may be added the
statements contained in the local county histories published in the era
of 1880 to 1890, as well as in many pioneer reminiscences.

A second major source of information consists of the ethnographic
studies made within the past fifty years, among which should be
mentioned the works of Kroeber, Merriam, Schenck, Gayton, and Gifford.
These investigators depended principally upon informants who were
elderly people in the decades from 1900 to 1940. Their memories,
together with their recollection of what had been told them by their
parents, carry back, on the average, to the period of the American
invasion or just before it. Hence their knowledge of truly aboriginal
population would be valid for the hill tribes only; yet data derived
from them for that region is probably more accurate than can be
obtained from the general estimates made by contemporary white men.
These two types of information, contemporary American accounts and
modern ethnographic material, can thus be used to supplement and check
each other for the era of 1850.

For conditions in the valley before 1840 we have to depend almost
exclusively upon the historical records left by the Spanish and
Mexicans. These consist of a series of diaries, reports, and letters,
by both laymen and ecclesiastics, together with baptism lists and
censuses from the coastal missions. This array of documents is to be
found in the manuscript collections of the Bancroft Library of the
University of California at Berkeley.

It will be clear from these considerations that the population of the
San Joaquin Valley can be determined with some degree of accuracy at
two stages in the history of the region. The later period is at the
point of intense occupancy by the Americans, at or near the year 1850,
for here may be brought to a focus the data from both contemporary
counts and the research of modern ethnographers. The earlier is for the
epoch just preceding the entrance of the Spanish into California, or
just before 1770. To assess the population at this period it is
necessary to bring to bear information from all sources, American and
Spanish, and to utilize all indirect methods of computation which may
be appropriate. As a matter of historical interest, as well as to
provide a background for the estimate of aboriginal population, the
state of the natives in the period of the Gold Rush will be first
examined.




THE POPULATION OF THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY IN APPROXIMATELY 1850

CONTEMPORARY ESTIMATES AND COUNTS FOR THE ENTIRE REGION


General estimates for the population of the San Joaquin Valley during
the period 1848 to 1855 were made by several individuals. James D.
Savage, one of the earliest settlers in the Fresno region, stated in
1851 that the population from the Tuolumne River to the Kern River was
from 50,000 to 55,000. Elsewhere he modified these figures considerably
(Dixon, MS, 1875) and reported the total from the Cosumnes to the Kern
as 18,100, of which 14,000 were from south of the Stanislaus River.
James H. Carson, another pioneer, said in 1852 that "the Indians of the
Tulare Valley number nearly 6,000. About half this number inhabit the
mountains.... The other portion inhabit the plains along the rivers and
lakes."

In 1852 the Indian commissioner, O. M. Wozencraft, estimated for the
area lying between the Yuba and the Mokelumne rivers a total of 40,000
inhabitants. He quotes old residents as saying that four years
previously (i.e., in 1848) the population for the same area had been
80,000. At about the same time another agent, Adam Johnston (1853),
estimated all the Sierra and valley tribes as being 80,000 strong
(including both Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys). In general
magnitude these figures correspond to those given by Sutter for the
region bounded by the Yuba, the Stanislaus, the Sacramento, the San
Joaquin, and the line of the foothills: 21,873 (Sutter, 1850). Sutter's
value definitely represents conditions prior to 1847. Meanwhile H. W.
Wessels reported in 1853 that from the Stanislaus south there were
7,500 to 8,000 persons. In the same year G. W. Barbour, another
commissioner, referred to the reservation Indians as "seven or eight
thousand hungry souls." In 1856, agent T. J. Henly