10.3: Cultural Geography

Native Americans

Archaeological excavations placed Martis people of Paleo-Indians in northcentral Sierra Nevada during the period of 3,000 BCE to 500 CE. The earliest sustaining indigenous people in the Sierra Nevada were the Northern Paiute tribes on the east side, with the Mono tribe and Sierra Miwok tribe on the western side, and the Kawaiisu and Tübatulabal tribes in the southern Sierra. Today, some historic intertribal trade route trails over mountain passes are known artifact locations, such as Duck Pass with its obsidian arrowheads. The California and Sierra Native American tribes were predominantly peaceful, with occasional territorial disputes between the Paiute and Sierra Miwok tribes in the mountains. Washo and Maidu were also in this area.

Initial European-American Exploration

American exploration of the mountain range started in 1827. Although prior to the 1820s there were Spanish missions, pueblos (towns), presidios (forts), and ranchos along the coast of California, no Spanish explorers visited the Sierra Nevada. The first Americans to visit the mountains were amongst a group led by fur trapper Jedediah Smith, crossing north of the Yosemite area in May 1827, at Ebbetts Pass.

In 1833, a subgroup of the Bonneville Expedition led by Joseph Reddeford Walker was sent westward to find an overland route to California. Eventually the party discovered a route along the Humboldt River across present-day Nevada, ascending the Sierra Nevada, starting near present-day Bridgeport, and descending between the Tuolumne and Merced River drainage. The group may have been the first non-indigenous people to see Yosemite Valley. The Walker Party probably visited either the Tuolumne or Merced Groves of giant sequoia, becoming the first non-indigenous people to see the giant trees, but journals relating to the Walker party were destroyed in 1839, in a print shop fire in Philadelphia.

Starting in 1841, emigrants from the United States started to move to California via Sonora and Walker Passes, and in the winter of 1844, Lt. John C. Frémont, accompanied by Kit Carson, was the first American to see Lake Tahoe. The Frémont party camped at 8,050 ft. Another iconic group of pioneers during this time were the Donner-Reed Party. The Donner-Reed Party embarked on a westward migration in 1846, but a series of misfortunes turned their journey into a chilling tragedy. Delayed by a late start and a challenging route, they found themselves trapped by heavy snow near Donner Lake, in the Sierra Nevada mountains, as winter arrived. Facing starvation and harsh conditions, some members resorted to unthinkable measures to survive. Eventually, relief parties reached the survivors, but many had already succumbed to starvation, disease, or exposure. The Donner-Reed Party's ordeal became a cautionary tale, forever etched in history as a symbol of the perils faced by 19^th century pioneers venturing westward.

Gold Rush

The California Gold Rush began at Sutter's Mill, near Coloma, in the western foothills of the Sierra. On January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall, a foreman working for Sacramento pioneer John Sutter, found shiny metal in the tailrace of a lumber mill Marshall was building for Sutter on the American River. Rumors soon started to spread and were confirmed in March 1848 by San Francisco newspaper publisher and merchant Samuel Brannan. Brannan strode through the streets of San Francisco, holding aloft a vial of gold, shouting "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!"

On August 19, 1848, the New York Herald was the first major newspaper on the East Coast to report the discovery of gold. On December 5, 1848, President James Polk confirmed the discovery of gold in an address to Congress. Soon, waves of immigrants from around the world, later called the "forty-niners", invaded the Gold Country of California or "Mother Lode". Miners lived in tents, wood shanties, or deck cabins removed from abandoned ships. Wherever gold was discovered, hundreds of miners would collaborate to put up a camp and stake their claims.

Because the gold in the California gravel beds was so richly concentrated, the early forty-niners simply panned for gold in California's rivers and streams. However, panning could not take place on a large scale, and miners and groups of miners graduated to more complex placer mining. Groups of prospectors would divert the water from an entire river into a sluice alongside the river, and then dig for gold in the newly exposed river bottom.

By 1853, most of the easily accessible gold had been collected, and attention turned to extracting gold from more difficult locations. Hydraulic mining was used on ancient gold-bearing gravel beds on hillsides and bluffs in the gold fields. In hydraulic mining, a high-pressure hose directed a powerful stream or jet of water at gold-bearing gravel beds. It is estimated that by the mid-1880s, 11 million troy ounces (340 metric tons) of gold (worth approximately $16 billion in 2020 prices) had been recovered by hydraulic mining. A byproduct of these extraction methods was that large amounts of gravel, silt, heavy metals, and other pollutants went into streams and rivers. Even today, many areas still bear the scars of hydraulic mining since the resulting exposed earth and downstream gravel deposits do not support plant life.

It is estimated that by 1855, at least 300,000 gold-seekers, merchants, and other immigrants had arrived in California from around the world. The huge numbers of newcomers brought by the Gold Rush drove Native Americans out of their traditional hunting, fishing, and food-gathering areas. To protect their homes and livelihood, some Native Americans responded by attacking the miners, provoking counterattacks on native villages. The Native Americans, outgunned, were often slaughtered.