Читать книгу Lost Worlds of 1863. Relocation and Removal of American Indians in the Central Rockies and the Greater Southwest онлайн

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Generally speaking, where prospectors go ranchers and farmers will follow, along with merchants and bankers. The only real problem was that Indians always seemed to be using the best lands. Ergo, white Americans had to resolve the problem by removing the Indian, either through the actions of miners’ militias, vigilante groups, citizen posses, or federal troops. Enter the protagonist of the Mariposa Indian War, 1851–1853, a wild white fellow with at least five Indian wives known, ironically enough for an Indian fighter, as James D. Savage.³³

Although at first Savage was doing the tedious work of panning for gold on the Merced River, by 1850 he quickly abandoned that activity by setting up a trading post outside of Mariposa followed by another on the Fresno River. When an Indian raid destroyed his Fresno operation, the governor quickly authorized Savage “Major” of the “Mariposa Battalion,” comprised of three companies of volunteers. A few “Yosemites” (Awanis or Ahwahnees) were killed, some were taken hostage, and Teneiya (or Tenaya), headman of the Awanis, was captured. Overall, the Mariposa Battalion had mostly succeeded in being the most likely first group of white men to camp in Yosemite.³⁴