The Future of the Konkow Maidu

Ever since the first Colonial contact the Konkow Maidu have been struggling and fighting to survive. The ones that were rounded up and taken away to Round Valley eventually found their way home for being "Good Indians" and helping the white militia hunt down other tribes and wiped them out. When they reached the Pulga area what we now call the Hwy 70 corridor our people had cattle, Gold and Jade mines that were eventually taken from us once again. Where the Cal-trans yard sit a 11-bedroom house stood that housed all the Gramps family for generations that was torn down, when they were forces to sale or it would have got taken away by the government to build the highway. 42 acers ... Our family cemetery (the only Indian cemetery recognized in Butte County) ... Our Culture .... All gone... But the Konkow are the ONLY non-federal tribe in Butte County. How you ask? Well, we are asking the same thing, we were Indian enough to have a Treaty (even if the Government lied and it was Unratified), we were Indian enough to get slaughtered and rounded up. We were Indian enough to be forced to live on a Reservation 100 miles away from our homelands. We were Indian enough to have our children taken and placed in to the Indian Boarding School in Greenville. And we were Indian enough to get the California Indian Compensation in the 70's. Today the Konkow Maidu have over 250 members, a Cultural department, Tribal Land Managment crew, Tribal Monitoring crew just like the federal tribes. This year we honored to be the first tribe non-federal tribe to have a contract with a national forest and also the first non-federal tribe to received funeral objects and ancestors bone from the 1990 federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act requires federally funded institutions, such as universities, to return Native American remains and cultural items to lineal descendants, Indian Tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations. We have can along ways from the 1800's we have had our cultural, land and ideates taken but we are still here. We are bringing back the old ways and remembering our ancestors what they passed down generation after generation and breathing life back into it. This has not been an easy task but we come from a strong bloodline and I always like to think they made it through hell for me to be here.

The Round Up: Nome Cult Walk (Konkow Trail of Tears)

The Nome Cult Walk was one of several military-enforced relocations of Native Americans throughout California in the mid-1800s. During those moves, Native Americans were not only taken from their tribal lands but were also forced to live with many different tribes. Sometimes those people forced to live together had been longtime rivals. One result of the Nome Cult Walk relocation was the creation of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. This federally recognized tribe exists today and includes the Yuki, Wailacki, Concow, Little Lake Pomo, Nomlaki, Pit River, Maidu and Nissinan tribes.https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2013/11/21/tribes-remember-nome-cult When they came to the Konkow Valley or Concow as the gold seekers would say, they took them by force and rounded them up like cattle with what they had on their backs. Once gone they would burn and destroy their villages if escape did happened there was nothing to come back too. They were forced to march on foot for over 100 miles that ended up being a 2-week journey for then when they left there was 461 Konkows. They military would use scare tactics with them they would threaten to beat the women and children if anyone tried to escape. And when the women were too slow due to their child, they would help lighten their load by beating the babies against trees and rock. When army official followed the trail, he seen malnourished Indians some still alive but too weak that were getting eaten alive by wild hog they incorporated into this region. Once the journey was over there were only 277 left ... They were forced to incorporate themselves with other Indians that were taken as well. The Konkows had their Nopani (Headman) Tome-ye-nem who tried to take care of his people the best he could. When the President Grant wanted the "Bad Indians" found they used Tome-ye-nem he was known for his great tracking and hunted down all the hostile Indians known as the Mill Creek Indians or the Tiger Indians. After a few years of being a good Indian to the whites in charge he begged for them to let him, and his people go they were starving and wanted to go home after a while they gave in and let the Konkows return to their homelands.

Mo-Lay-yo our Treaty Signer

>On August 1,1851 Mo-lay-yo the Nopani(Leader)from Kimsewa or modern day Pulga went to John Bidwell's Ranch along with nine headmen to sign Treaty G. It's promises included 200 head of beef cattle, to average weight of five hundred pounds, seventy-five sacks of flour one hundred pounds each (within two years of the signing). Also, goods such as calico cloth, needles, thread, scissors, blankets, one thousand pounds of iron. One hundred pounds of steel, mules, ploughs and one hundred milk cows were also guaranteed. The most important item was the 227 square mile (about half the area of San Antonio, Texas) tract of land outlined in the treaty as the permanent home for the tribes who agreed to the treaty. Through 1851-1852 the U.S government negotiated 18 treaties with promises of reserving eight million acers of land for Native Americans. But later, the California State Senate and the Governor objected to reservation of land for Indians since it might be for agricultural or gold bearing value. Secretly the U.S. Senate rejected the treaties on July 8,1852. It was until 1905, over fifty years later would the injunctions of secrecy be removed, and the unratified treaties brought to light. The Konkow Maidus then fled further into the hills after the lies and trickery from the U.S government over the treaties started an uproar with the local tribes. The Maidu were starving, unable to hunt on their land they would rebel against the Whites and do what they had to survive.