234 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



So much for the general situation in California. In the wild and 

 rugged 2)art of the state, Indian resistance lasted for a long 

 time. One such area was west of the Sacramento in the Siskiyou 

 region, along the upper waters of the Trinity and Eel rivers. "Bad" 

 Indians used to frequent the wilds in this part of the state long after 

 the tribal organizations had broken down. Such Indians caused some 

 little trouble to enterprising settlers in the hills. A region where the 

 Indian opposition was still more spirited and where Indian disturbances 

 dragged out still longer was in northeastern California. Here the Pitt 

 Eiver Indians, and later the Modocs, put up a number of very spirited 

 contests before knuckling under. The whites, on the whole, were very 

 bitter towards " wild " Indians, even when harmless, and blamed them 

 for everything, from the occurrence of freshets to the presence of 

 potato-bugs. 



It must of course be recognized that the occupation of California by 

 the whites was inevitable. The Indians had to be dispossessed to make 

 room for the new order. The white occupation, however, was not only 

 inevitable, it was relentless. The methods used are not a thing of which 

 we can be proud. The whites, for example, introduced into California, 

 where it was unknown prior to their coming, the practise of scalping. 

 It was very much the fashion in the early days for white settlers and 

 miners to carry on Indian wars individually and informally. The line 

 between their actions and plain murder is rather hard to draw. Many 

 of the white loafers and irresponsibles that "bummed" around the 

 frontier settlements used to preach openly a doctrine of "exterminat- 

 ing " the Indians. A very considerable proportion of our " Indian 

 fighters" in this state deserved, in strict justice, to be hung. It may 

 throw some light in general on the nature and methods of these " wars " 

 to state that there existed in California, long after the close of the civil 

 war, a lively traffic in Indian slaves. White administration of Indian 

 affairs in the more easterly states impresses one most by its hopeless 

 stupidity. The history of whites and Indians in California impresses 

 one rather with a sense of the white man's ruthlessness. 



The YaU Tribe 



In the northeastern part of the Sacramento valley there lived a 

 nation of Indians who were early driven into a vigorous hostility to the 

 whites. They had already, from their friction with other tribes, de- 

 veloped some adeptness in raiding and thieving, and in a sort of 

 guerilla warfare. Their northern branch, the so-called Noai, after a 

 time capitulated, and became hangers-on of civilization. The southern 

 branch of the stock, calling themselves simply Yahi, or "people," and 

 inhabiting a stretch of country immediately east of the Sacramento, 

 kept the whites in a state of uncertainty for a considerably longer time. 



