The Little Ahwahnee is an inn situated in the mountains surrounding Yosemite Valley in a minutely small town that boasts a population of 59 and goes by the name of Fish Camp.
It has a general store and a lake and that’s all. The neighborhood though; it’s gorgeous. Serene, peaceful, and if you need it there’s a spa across the street at the Tenaya Lodge. Get those hiking or skiing aches and pains massaged right out!
The Little Ahwahnee is a place I would comfortably recommend. The owners, although timid at first, soon came around and ensured a memorable stay with friendly conversation, an evening fire, and a full cooked breakfast when you woke.
But it’s the name Ahwahnee and the history of these people who command at least a basic understanding for anyone traveling in the area. There are a couple of versions of the story but the one I outline below appears to be agreed upon by most.
Native Americans lived in North America thousands of years before the white settlers ever arrived. They banded themselves together into tribes. Each having its own way of living and surviving; making each tribe unique.
The Yosemite Indians belonged to a group known as the Miwok.
Yosemite was a name given to this tribe by the white newcomers but the actual origin of the name is complicated. It is thought to derive from one of two sources. Uzumati which means “grizzly bear” or the more menacing possibility Yos.s.e’meti which means “those who kill”.
History tells us that the Yosemite people were referred to as killers by the surrounding tribes because they feared them. Led by Chief Tenaya, the Yosemite Indians were composed mostly of renegades; united in a cause to retake a land once lost to disease by generations previous. This is the Valley.
The older legends speak of a band of people being led by the Great Spirit. These natives spoke the Miwok language and settled into the “Ah-wah-nee”, which means “deep, grassy valley.” Some say it means “place of the gaping mouth.” Either way, the tribe took on the name of the valley in which they settled.
The Ahwahneechees easily lived off the land in the Ahwahnee Valley. The streams were full of trout, and the forests provided bear, deer, and elk meat. The trees and bushes gave them acorns, pine nuts, fruits, and berries.
Around 1800, a mysterious disease forced them to leave their villages in the Ahwahnee Valley. The valley remained empty for many decades. Several generations passed before a band of about two hundred Indians, led by the young Chief Tenaya, decided to move back.
Once again, the Ahwahneechee tribe lived well.
The discovery of gold in 1848 in the nearby mountains brought thousands of gold seekers. They scattered out among the hills churning up the land and streams in their search for gold. Those that followed brought great herds of cattle that used up the acorns and grasses along the way. The Ahwahnees’ food became depleted so they moved quickly to find new sources.
As they moved higher into the mountains their supplies dwindled. They began to prey upon the cattle and horses that belonged to the gold seekers. They raided settlements for food and were met with guns and resentment. As the violence grew, so did the fear instilled in those men seeking their fortunes in gold.
Eventually a group called “Commissioners” was sent from Washington, D.C. to the town of Mariposa. Their mission was to try to subdue the “Yosemite” Indians.
In 1851, the Mariposa Battalion was organized. They elected a local trader named James D. Savage as leader. He had a personal grudge against the Yosemite tribe because several of his supply stores had been attacked, destroyed, and the men in charge murdered. He is reported to have said, “If I ever have a chance, I will smoke out the Yosemite from their holes.”
The world of the Ahwahnee was closing in but worse was in store.
Slave Traffic and Disease
The Ahwahneechees: A Story of the Yosemite Indians (1966) by John W. Bingaman
On October 2, 1854, the “Alta California” published an article in which it was stated that abducting Indian children had become quite a common practice. Many children belonging to some of the Indian tribes in the northern part of the State were stolen, and were taken to the southern part of the State, and there sold.
On May 23, 1857, the Butte County Record noted the presence in Chico of a Mexican, “who has been in the habit of stealing Indian children and selling them to Mexican rancheros in southern California.”
Accounts from Petaluma Journal, and Marysville Appeal, of December 6, 1861, contained the following. “It is from these mountain tribes that white settlers draw their supplies of kipnapped children, educated as servants, and women for purposes of labor, and of lust. It is notorious that there are parties in the northern counties of this state, whose sole occupation has been to steal young children, and squaws from the poor Diggers, who inhabit the mountains, and disposed of them at handsome prices to the settlers, who being in the majority of cases unmarried but good at housekeeping, willingly pay fifty or sixty dollars for young Digger to cook and wait upon them, or a hundred dollars or a likely young girl.”
Kidnaping went on as late as 1861 and 1864. There were reports of up to two hundred and fifty kidnapings in 1862. The practice began about 1852, and continued at least till 1867. It was during these fifteen years, perhaps between three and four thousand children were stolen. This estimate would not include squaws taken for concubinage or adults for field labor.
The effect on the Indians of this peculiarly Yankee kidnaping industry was exasperating to the highest degree. It was not only an irritant which drove some of them to physical and violent retaliation; it intensified and prolonged their aversion to the type of labor in which the kidnaped persons were employed.
The most dominant diseases were syphilis, tuberculosis, and dysenteries. Most Indian deaths were due to these.
Syphilis appeared in upper California certainly within the first decade of settlement. The conventional story attributed its introduction to the de Anza expedition to Los Angeles in 1777. Thus Miguel and Zalvidea state that this putrid and contagious disease had its beginning with the time Don Juan Bautista de Anza stopped at the Mission San Gabriel with his expedition.
The very first expeditions were characterized by disorderly conduct with the Indian women on the part of the soldiers.
Epidemics were reported early in 1800 of pneumonia, diphtheria, measles, consumption, dysentery, and diarrhoea. Syphilis was reported in 1807. Smallpox was reported in 1833.
Sweeping epidemics of 1830 – 1840, and all sorts of diseases became established among the central California tribes. Losses from these epidemics from 1838 to 1848 may be up to 5,000 deaths. These occurred in the six tribes, Pomo, Wappo, Wintun, Maidu, Miwok, and Yokuts. Neglecting entirely possible mortality, even from syphilis, prior to 1830, it has been estimated that 4,500 perished in the 1833 pandemic, 2,000 in the smallpox scourge of 1837, and 5,000 from endemic. illness and secondary epidemics up to 1848. This gives a total of 11,500. The estimated aboriginal population of the six tribes would be about 58,900.
So white man’s diseases and habits took untold count of these six Indian Tribes, and surely left a black mark in the annals of the history of our State.
For more historical information please visit this site Yosemite and the Ahwaneechees