Nome Cult Trail
On August 28, 1863, the Konkow Maidu were ordered by the California state militia to report to Camp Bidwell near Chico to be removed to the Round Valley Reservation at Covelo in Mendocino County.
[2] Today, there are close to 2,000 Maidu people who currently belong to the Federally Recognized Native Tribes of Berry Creek, Enterprise, and Mooretown Rancherias in Northern California.
[3] The Maidu people continue to make contributions to their Nation, their communities, and the world, especially through establishing strong administrative and financial systems at the rancherias aiming to improve tribal health.
[3][4] The current residents of the Round Valley Reservation host an annual walk on the Nome Cult Trail to commemorate the 1863 Removal of their Concow Maidu ancestors.
[6] The Act also allowed white settlers to post bail for Native Californians accused of misdemeanors and compel them to work to pay off their bond.
In the afternoon I called my party around me and christened it ‘Nome Cult’ Valley.”[8]The Yuki, Nisenan, and Atsugewis performed the manual labor necessary to provision the farm and build its infrastructure.
[6] The Nome Cult Farm was under-resourced, with food shortages and lack of clothing leading to increased spread of illness and high death rates.
[6][9] The relocated Concows fled the reservation in mid-1862, as an act of resistance against the violence they faced at Round Valley, returning to their homeland near what is today known as Chico, California.
In the summer of 1863, General George Wright ordered Captain Augustus Starr to forcibly remove the Concows from John Bidwell’s ranch to Round Valley reservation.
The wagons which had been transporting elders, children, and those too sick to walk, were returned to Chico at this point, and the group waited for four days along Thomas Creek for a mulepack train from Round Valley.
When the mule pack train arrived on 14 September, the group set out again, the majority of them on foot; those who were sick but well enough to travel rode muleback; one wagon carried the children.
[11] Tribal members and their descendants tell stories of impatient soldiers using whips on the marchers, shooting anyone trying to escape, and beating the children against rocks and trees.
Tom-ya-yem, a Concow Maidu man forced on this march recounted the experience in a letter to Lieutenant Tassin:The Indians continued their journey onward until reaching their destination.
Doughlas, commander of the Army troops at Fort Wrigh], who sent his medicine man to take care of my sick, and Ad-sals and mules all the way to Chico to bring my people left dying on the trail – and here have remained ever since.
They found lush valleys that were amenable to raising livestock, rivers that promised to yield easy mineral wealth, and wild life teeming in the mountains.
In order to reap the bounty, ranchers and farmers demanded access to Indian workers.” [6]Professor Jesse Dizard, Chair (2018) CSU Chico Department of Anthropology gives the following context: The Concow Trail of Tears was not an isolated event.
The Gold Rush of 1849 brought hundreds of thousands to California, most of them young men who cared very little for the indigenous population and its way of life, or their claims to traditional lands.
[2] Many scholars, including historian Benjamin Madley, have linked indigenous removal to Round Valley Reservation to the broader California genocidal campaign.
[9] Professors Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn echo Madley’s argument in their book The History and Sociology of Genocide: The authors argue that the violence against the Yuki in Northern California is “a clearer case of genocide” as “the impact of kidnapping, epidemics, starvation, vigilante justice, and state-sanctioned mass killing” contributed to the dramatic population decline of the Yuki people.
