Superintendent Henley then visited the locatrion for a military reserve as proposed by H. L. Ford and stated that "the location is in my judgement very well adapted for the purposes intended." Later, in early October, Henley again visited the "Nome Lackee Reservation," where he met the local Indians: "I was astonished to find on my arrival there about 250 Indians who had assembled there according to an agreement I had made with them in the vicinity three weeks ago. They had built their huts and were . . . gathering seeds and acorns for winter . . . . The buildings are now in the course of erection at the reserve . . . . I have sent for a tribe of Indians numbering about 200 reaching about 70 miles east of the Reserve at the foothills of the Sierra-Nevada Mountains." fn51, chap III (emphasis added)

In the spring od 1859, thousands of other Indians throughout the state were gathered in droves and herded like cattle from their homesites to some unfamiliar and unpromising locality. An example were the very peaceful and cooperative Maidu or Concow, who lived near the present town of Chico. The tribal chief told the following story to Lieutenant Tassin, who recorded it:

By the summer of 1859, the Indians in Mendicino County and the northern part of the state faced the destruction of their culture and were demoralized by the sudden disruption of their normal lives. They not only had to kill livestock to keep from starving, but had to resort to beggary as well. They began to loiter about the settlements, becoming public nuisances. Because of this, the citizens of Mendocino County elected a grand jury, which demaned in a report to the state legislature that the government should rid the county of the "miserable half-starved creatures prowling about and infesting every neighborhood, greatly to the damage and annoyance of our citizens." fn13, chap V

On April 22, 1850, a piece of legislation called "An Act for the Government and Protection of Indians" was enacted into law. This act was the first of a series which provided for the indenture or apprenticeship of Indians of all ages to any white citizen for long periods of time. Indenturing of Indians, which was a common practice from 1850 to 1863, was a legal means of securing an Indian, but another common practice was to avoid the legal method and to purchase children outright. This act and its sequel, passed on April 18, 1860, opened the door to the white slave traders who did a good business providing "apprentices" to farmers and miners, who in turn legitimized these indentures by obtaining the local justice court's permission as provided through these laws. fn 18, chap VI

In the fall of 1862, a large number of Indians were on the reservation. Because of overcrowding, lack of food, and unsanitary conditions, disease spread rapidly. Winter was approaching, and the swollen streams surrounding the valley would isolate it from the rest of the world until spring. The Indians realized what thier fate would be, so one morning in September, a large number, from three to five hundred, packed thier meager valuables, said goodbys to Supervisor Short, and started for their old home in the Sacramento Valley. Tome-ya-nem, the last chief of the Concow told his story:

On July 25, Superintendent Hanson received a message from Special Agent John Bidwell and one of his employees from Chico, about 250 miles northeast of San Francisco and in the lower Sacramento Valley, that "two children in the neighborhood had been killed by Indians" and that the superintendent's "immediate presence in that neighborhood was important." Traveling by steamer, railroad, and stage, Hanson arrived in Chico the following day about 10 pm. In Chico, he attended a meeting with "Major Bidwell and others," and on their arrival at Pence's ranch he found about three hundred "of the most infuriated menI've ever met." At the meeting the men passed a resolution that the "superintending should be required to move every Indian in the County of Butte within 30 days to the reservation and any left after this time should be killed." Hanson urged the angry men to "act rationally," and he tried to convince them that the murder of the children could be traced to an "outraged committee of that same tribe of Indians a few days previously when some bad white men had hanged five of their tribe to a tree without any proof against them." Those whites had lost some horses and had hanged the first Indians whom they had met. fn59, chapVI

Superintendent Hanson told the men that he would try to remove "the tribe and tribes of Indians who committedd offenses if they could be got from the mountains," but that he could not remove all the Indians since he could "not provide for them on the reservation" because there were almost two thousand of them and since many were working for farmers. Hanson knew that the enraged citizens of Butte County were determined to carry out their threats of extermination. Just before he arrived on the scene, some men had captured some Indians whom they had tied to a tree and then shot and scalped, not even concerned whether they were guilty or not. Hanson telegraphed General Wright for help, and he sent a detachment of calvery to aid in protecting the Indians and in collecting and removing them to the Round Valley Reservation. fn60, chapVI

Over fifty witnesses testified in the first trial for the prosecution and defense, and many were recalled to the stand. The prosecution tried to prove the following: that a mob could not have been in the area on September 27, 1895; that only three shots were fired; and that there was a conspiracy to murder Jack Littlefield.

Attorney General Post tried to prove that it was impossible for a mob to murder Jack Littlefield because he "showed where everybody in that country was, . . . a reference to all residents of the country as being in rebuttal to the testimony of an alleged mob"

Walter Clark, one of the strongest witnesses for the prosecution, had sworn that he had heard three shots, one loud and two of lesser detonation, at the same time Littlefield was lynched, and the defense attempted to impeach his statements. Attorney Reid and Thomas Haydon testified that the two, in company with Buck Lacock, John Vinton, and Gordon Van Horn, went to the place wherre Littlefield was murdered and fired five shots from a .44-caliber Winchester rifle. The purpose of this "was to prove that the report of a riifle fired at the scene of the lynching could not be heard and was not heard at the Red Mountain house."

When this plan of attack failed, Walter Clark's reputation was attacked by witnesses for the defense. George Grist and William Bonee testified that they were well acquainted with Walter Clark and that they had heard may good citizens in and around Round Valley say that his reputation for truth, honesty, and integrity was bad. The stereotyped term half-breed, with all its sinister negative connotations, was repeatedly used to describe him: "You can't trust a half-breed."

In 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Severalty Act, which provided for allotment of reservation land to individual Indians. The land was designated either "valley" or "mountain," and these designations determined the size of an individual allotment. The "valley" allotments were mostly 10-acre parcels, while "mountain" allotments varied from 50 to 70 acres, the average being 55 acres. A total of 1,240 allotments were made, amounting to 42,163 acres. Since the reservation had contained 102,118 acres prior to allotment, 59,955 acres were lost to white settlement. Since most of the reservation was occupied and used by whites, this process merely made official what had been a reality for years. fn44, Appendix

The size and distribution pattern of individual allotments were a loss to the Indians. Ten acres of the most fertile land can only be used as a truck farm, which requires skill and a market to be profitable. The Indians of Round Valley had received little or no training in small-farm management, and there were no large cities in the area and so no market for their produce. The mountain allotments were also unproductive, since this land was usable only for pasture. In order to be profitable, ranching required large tracts of land with a centralized organizational operation. The Indians were thus left with small plots of unproductive land and lived in poverty. Many of the Indians left the valley after the Dawes Act aws implimented. fn45, Appendix

The major argument for the Dawes Act was that the Indians would be civilized by integrating them into white society. And this policy was carried out by carrying out a "checkerboard" pattern of allotment. Individual allotments were alternated with public parcels opened for sale to whites. This pattern made it impossible for the Indians to combine their lands for cooperative use and separated the Indians from their land. However, after the mountain land was allocated in 1909 and the final trespassers removed, the Indians obtained cattle handled in a communal herd which grazed on the ranges until 1918, when this stock was disposed of by hte U.S. government. fn47,Appendix

The remnants of eight bands of California Indians were placed on the Round Valley Reservation at different times from 1856 to 1873. These bands were from as many different tribes (linguistic groups), speaking languages belonging to six seperate language stocks. The Yuki lived in Round Valley and the surrounding mountains, and the Wailaki (Athapascan speaking) inhabited the rugged mountains to the north. Nomlaki Wintun (Penutian speaking) were brought from the Nomlaki Reservation to the east, near their old home some forty miles from Round Valley across the summit of the range. The Concow Maidu (Penutian) were driven from the placer-mining secton of the Sacramento Valley on the Feather and American rivers. The Pit River Achomawi (Hokan) were on the reservation for only a short time, returning home in small groups to the Mount Shasta area. The last Indians to be brought in were the Clear Lake and Little Lake Pomo (Hokan), who were driven from their homes in 1872 and taken thirty miles northeast to the reservation. fn48, Appendix