CHAPTER ONE
Tribal Historic Overview
Tribal Name:
The name of the Michoopda Indian tribe comes from two origins, first, the village Michoopda or ‘Mikopta’ which moved numerous times. Once located in Durham moved to Chico where Flume St. meets big Chico Creek later the village moves down the creek to Bidwell Mansion, about 300 yards away. The second Origin comes from the ethnographical/archeological name of the Valley Maidu with cultural similarities. Present day Mechoopda Indian tribe is the only remaining group of the Valley Maidu People.
Creation Story:
There are numerous published version of the Maidu Creation storie that have been derived from the Chico area. One version comes from ethnographicerDixon, and another version is the Henry Asbill version.
Migration Of the Peoples
Mechoopda Village in Durham
The remains of the village is located on the Patrick Ranch, the owner is preserving the site by not putting it into production. The Archeological reference number is Butte-1
Mechoopda Village In Flume St.
Site has been Archeoilogical Mapped
Mechooopda Village on W. Sacramento Ave
Contact
Mechoopda People First contact:
Possibly the first contact the Mechoopda People had was with Spanish pioneer Gabriel Moraga who followed the Sacramento River up to where present day Pine creek enters the Sacramento river from there he went westward into nomlacki territory. In his journal Moraga came through Maidu(mechoopda)Territory twice(along the Sacramento River Didn't go up Chico Creek), in his first recording of the Indian population he was astonished by the size of the population noting that there were Indian villages all up and down the Sacramento river and Chico creek. On his second visit approximately 7 years later he was startled at the reduce size of the population noting that skeletons where visible under trees, on the top of the ground, where the Indians last rested.
Disease effect
After Gabriel Moraga came into Mechoopda territory other explores arrived such as …. and …. with these new visitors came the introduction of disease that the native population had no immunity too.
Pioneers:
Archeological Data
Mark Kowta
Culture
Treaties
MechoopdaTreaty,
18 Unratified Treaty
Early Rancheria Life
Time Line:
ckick
Culture in transition
Early 1900’s
Former Leaders
headman:
Chairpersons:
TIMELINE
Indian Timeline of the United State
100,000 B.P.- Some scholars believe people where living in California by this date, using crude stone tools.
12000 B.P. People start using food-grinding tools in the southwest
9000 B.P.- Indians with stone pointed weapons kill off now extinct Pleistocene herd animals: great bison, wooly mammoth, mastodon, and early horse
7000 B.P. The Cochise culture evolves in southern AZ, emphasizing the use of vegetables
650 B.P. Pyramid temples and large complex towns are constructed in central Mexico
300- Bows and arrows appear in central California, and spread to the Pueblo people in the four-corner area
767 Mayan scientists hold a great meeting at Copan to discuss astronomy and adjust the Mayan calendar
1007 Leif Ericsson contacts Indians in the North American mainland
1170-Chichimeca Tribes(nomads) invade central Mexico introducing bows and arrows into the region.
1276-1299: Tree rings in the southwest indicate a drought; which may have forces abandonment of Pueblos and cliff dwellings
1300- Eskimos attack European settlements on Greenland, destroying 3 churches and 90 farms
1400 The last pueblo type settlement in southern AZ is abandoned.
1428 The Aztec-Mexica rise up and destroy the Tepanec Empire to gain their independence.
1492 Columbus ‘discovers’ America
1520 Mexicans led by Cultlahuac drive the Spanish from Mexico city with great losses
1570- Spanish settlement in Virginia are destroyed by the Pawhatan Confederation
1585 Tribes in north Carolina repeal English attempts to colonize. Those colonist captured are adopted into those tribes
1599 Spanish invaders invade and virtually destroy Acoma pueblo in NM
1600- The French begin an active fur trade on the St. Lawrence, with a post in Tadoussac.
1607 A report indicates that no Indians in Mexico travel by foot, all ride horse
1614-Twenty seven Native Americans enslaved by the English at Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts are sold in Spain.
1622 Mohawk make peace with the French
1626-The Dutch march against the five nations and are defeated, Albany, NY. is largely abandoned
1638- French explorer Nicolet visits the Winnebago peoples on Green Bay
1646 Father Jogues leaves the Mohawk to talk peace with the Seneca.
1661- Another church is established in Taos. the taos people have been independent since
1640, and once again remove the church.
1650 The Cheyenne abandon their farms on the Mississippi, Minnesota, and red river to move west and become buffalo hunters
1654: Michigan lower peninsula is almost uninhabited because of intertribal wars.
1691 English persons Marrying Indians, Negroes, or Mulattos are banished from Virginia
1705- A great force of English and Creek raid Choctaw villages for slaves.
1720- A Spanish army is wiped out by Pawnee and Otto Indians on the Platte River. Halting Spanish expansion in the Great Plains.
1726- Yamasee, lower creek, and free blacks from Florida step up raids in South Carolina.
1763 Pontiac Confederacy attacks English invaders with a surprise assault on Detroit.
1787 Delawares enter into the First Treaty(Treaty making ends in 1871)
1788 A small pox epidemic virtually wipes out the Pecos Pueblo
1794 The secretary of war says white seizure of Native American lands “causes ill-will
1802 From the Jefferson Administration on the US Gov’t tries to force, bribe, and persuade all Gative American tribes from east of the Mississippi to move west of the Mississippi.
1805 The Chickasaw cede all lands in Tennessee for $20,000
1806 The Indians of San Pedro Martir in Baja California revolt and force abandonment of the Mission
1823 Johnson Vs. Mcintosh
1824 Kamia Indians in San Diego kill livestock and steal horses to sell.
1827 The Cherokee republic adop0ts a written constitution and form of government more modern and effective then those used by most tribes to this day.
1831 Cherokee Nation Vs. Georgia
1832 The Kickapoo cede all lands in Missouri in exchange for a reserve near fort Leavenworth
1832-1850 200 people are killed by Apache raiders in fronteras, Sonora
1837 Kennekuk, kickapoo Prophet, teaches among the Indians of Kansas. Many potawatomi become followers
1839 A delegation of Ojibwa visits Queen Victoria in London.
1849 Bidwell buys Mexican land grant Rancho Del Arroyo from William Dickey
1849 Fifteen million buffalo are still on the plains, in two great herds. (1880 the southern herd is gone, by 1885 the northern herd is almost exterminated)
1850 US Government Employees steal Indian Bonds. Congress passes a reimbursement Act in 1862, which is ignored.
1850 Presidential Act 3 commissioners are sent to California to sign treaties with Indians
1850 Mechoopda Sign treaty with the federal government.
1852 Congress Secretly rejects 18 California treaties and hides them in secrecy
1853 Treaty with the Omaha tribe cedes land in Nebraska to the US and gives the Omaha a 23.5-acre reserve.
1853 Kennekuk, the Kickapoo Prophet dies in Kansas
1862- The Secretary of the Interior advocates change in policy to treat Tribes no longer as independent nations but as wards of the government
1862 Dakota War in Minnesota 500 whites killed, establishes Upper and Lower Reserves
1863 The easternmost Dakota resist white trickery and aggression in the so-called Minnesota Sioux war:<300 are captured and 38 are hanged.
1863 Mechoopda and other Indians are rounded up and sent to reservation 200 miles away
1871 End of Treaty Making with the Tribes
1875-1890: Oklahoma Kickapoo successfully resist establishment of white style schools.
1876 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors annihilate Custer and his 265 men at the Little Big Horn
1877 Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce try to escape to Canada but US troops block them
1880 Crazy Horse dies
1881- Starvation forces Sitting Bull and his followers from Canada to settle at Standing Rock, SD
1887 The Commissioner of Indian Affairs forbids use of Native American languages in Native American school
1887 Allotment era begins: General Allotment Act(Dawes Act)
1888-1890 Sitting Bull leads Sioux “Ghost Dance”
1890 Big Foot massacre
1890 Wounded Knee
1894 Troops forcibly round-up Hopi children and punish parents for resisting white education.
1905 Congress reveals 18 unratified treaties with California tribes.
1900 Diaz Dictatorship adopts policy of Yaqui extermination in Mexico
1902 The Supreme Court says Congress can ignore Indian Treaties if doing so is in the interest of the U.S. and the Indians.
1904 Chief Joseph dies.
1910- Yaqui guerrillas join Mexicans to overthrow the Diaz dictatorship.
1924 All Indians are given U.S. Citizenship
1928- Senate hearings reveal gross abuses within the bureau of Indian affairs and the failure of Indian education programs
1929 The Commissioner of Indian Affairs visits Taos and Jails the entire council for “religious crimes”
1940 The Seminoles refuse to register for the draft because they are technically still at war with the US.
1942 The Six Nation declare war on the Axis Powers
1944-Fifty Tribes meet in Denver to form the National Congress of American Indians.
1945 The Iroquois send a delegation to the UN in San Francisco, seeking membership for the Six Nations.
1953-1968 Congress institutes policy of Termination of recognition by the federal Gov’t
1953 Bureau of Indian Affairs institute policy of Relocation.
1959 Mounties attack the council house of the Six Nation, 33 Native Americans are arrested, but charges are dropped.
1963 The Native American movement is launched in California.
1969- The six-nation confederacy declares the Six nations Reserve in Ontario a sovereign state.
1969 Navajo Community College opens, the first Indian controlled school in 400 years.
1963-Washington state rules against Indian fishing rights: Game wardens crack down, sparks fish-ins.
1968- Mohawk of Akwesasne block US-Canada traffic through their reservation, asserting Indian control.
1969- Fourteen native Americans land on Alcatraz Island, near San Francisco: hundred more follow, their goals was to set up a cultural center.
1970- Taos people win their battle to recover their sacred blue lake region
1970 Elem Pomo reoccupy Mu-Do-n island in Clear lake California,
1970- Fifty Native Americans take-over Mount Rushmore and demand the return of
123,000 acres of their land.
1986 Mechoopda is re-recognized by the Federal Gov’t
