Reports of these and other raids and murders were forwarded to Gov. John McDougal by Sheriff Burney and other officials, urging immediate measures by the state for the protection of the people. It being in the air that the Indians were rallying for concerted operations, a volunteer force made rapid and toilsome march among the wooded mountains in pursuit and came up with the retreating Indians high up on the Fresno. A skirmish followed, with one man killed, and other casualties. Unorganized and with no supplies, the pursuers were worsted, the pursued elated and the volunteers returned to the settlements for reorganization under John J. Kuykendall.
About 100 took up the war-path and pursued the Indians to near the north fork of the San Joaquin, encamped at an old rancheria on a round, rugged mountain, oak and brush covered. Protected by trees and rocks, they taunted the whites and called upon Savage to come out and be killed. He was kept in safe reserve as his knowledge of the country and of the Indians and their dialect could not well be spared. The leaders of the hostiles were Juarez and Jose Rey, the special pleaders at Savage's council. Eight tribes were represented, chief among them the Chowchillas, Kaweahs and Yosemites — some 500 against not to exceed 100 whites, the latter under Boling and Kuykendall, Doss and Chandler.
The plan was for a daylight attack, setting fire to the village before the surprise assault. The camp was routed, Rey was among the first shot down and the Indians took flight. All was done so quickly that there was nothing left for the reserve under Boling and Savage. The village fire spread so fast as to endanger the camp supplies. The Indians escaped in the smoke, twenty-three killed, no prisoners taken, number of wounded never learned. The whites had only minor hurts. Further pursuit was useless.
A general uprising being evident, the state authorities were aroused to action with the result of the Mariposa Battalion of 200 men being mustered in on January 24, 1851, the settler's organization forming the nucleus of the volunteer force with Savage riding on to Cassady's Bar to make up the complement. The volunteers provided horses and equipments, the state camp supplies and baggage trains, and maintenance was expected at the expense of the United States under the direction of the commissioners. Major Ben McCullough was offered the command in the hope of drawing the Texas Rangers in the county, but he declined, having a lucrative position as collector of the foreign miner's tax. The officers as commissioned on muster in were:
Major — James D. Savage.
Company A, seventy men — Captain, John J. Kuykendall; Lieutenants, John I. Scott, T. T. Rodgers and Elisha M. Smith.
Company B, seventy-two men — Captain, John Boling; Lieutenants, Reuben T. Chandler, T. J. Gilbert and T. J. Hancock.
Company C, fifty-five men — Captain, William Dill; Lieutenants. H. W. Farrell, F. W. Russell and Fletcher Crawford.
Adjutant — M. B. Lewis. Surgeon — Dr. A. Bronson, succeeded by Leach on resignation. Assistants — Drs. Pfeiffer and Black. Field and staff, seven: company officers and men, 197: total, 204.
Incidentally, it may be noted that there is not in the state office any official record of the battalion, nor of this "war."
The particular duty assigned to the battalion was to subdue the Indians on the east side of the San Joaquin and Tulare Valleys from the Tuolumne to Tejon Pass. Ready to start, an order came to halt hostilities and the battalion was visited by Wm. Neely Johnson, the governor's aid and himself governor later, and the United States commissioners — George W. Barbour for whom the temporary fort was named; Redick McKee afterward Indian agent, and the genial and scholarly" Dr. O. M. Wozencraft, who was a member of the constitutional convention, the party escorted by a detachment of United States dragoons.
The commission proceeded first to investigate the cause of the war and condition of affairs. Mission Indians were secured to notify as couriers all tribes to come in and surrender, presents were distributed, powwows held, and promises made of food, clothing and useful things, and while awaiting answer horses and mules were stolen from the vicinity of the camp and in the field. A reservation was selected on the Fresno near the foothills, a few miles above the present Madera, eighteen or twenty miles from camp, and headquarters established.
No active operations were undertaken, aside from scouting parties, so deliberate were the commissioners. But the mountain would not come to Mohammed, and so Mohammed went to the mountain. The mountain tribes would not come in, and so it was resolved to go after them. Major Savage and Boling's and Dill's companies to scour the region of the San Joaquin and Merced, and Kuykendall to operate on the Kings and Kaweah. A Nootchoo rancheria on the south fork of the Merced was the first to be surprised. Bishop's Camp or fort was established and the Indians transferred to the Fresno. Runners were sent to the mountains, a small band of Pohonochees from the Merced divide came in, and next Tenieya, chief of the Yosemites, in response to a special envoy. Surrender? Perish the thought! Forward, March! to the village to bring them in, even to follow them to their lurking places in "the deep canyon."
CHAPTER XI
Tenieya was a wily, voluble and rascally old fellow, who with one plea or another prevented or delayed the march to the valley. Had the rangers been left to themselves, they would have made short work of the campaign, but they were bound by the orders of the commissioners, and much time h.ad been frittered away with powwows and procrastination. Patience at last ceased to be a virtue.
Volunteers were called for the "Deep Canyon" Party and Boling's and Dill's companies stepped out as if on parade, but the select were chosen after a footrace in the snow, the inspiration of Boling. A camp guard was left behind of the distanced. At last the start was made in the snow, trailing in single file, Savage leading, Tenieya an unwilling guide, and the party entered the valley on March 21, 1851, the first appearance of the white man.
This was the very thing that Tenieya had tried to prevent, because of a traditional prophecy. A great medicine man, a friend of his father, induced him to leave the Mono tribe of his mother, and as their chief establish himself in the valley of his ancestors with a few descendants of the Ahwahneechees and other renegades, who had been living with the Monos and Paiutes. The patriarch, had prophesied that while in possession of the valley the tribe would increase and become powerful, he cast a protective spell upon it, but cautioned that, if ever the horsemen of the lowlands (the Spaniards) entered, the tribe would be scattered and destroyed, his people taken captive and he be the last chief. The rangers' stay in the valley was limited to three days, because the provisions were exhausted, and the return to camp was taken up with some 350 Indians, including seventy-five surrendered Yosemites, all of whom save one, escaped from Boling and nine men, on the night before the last day's march to the reservation. Most of the runaways were retaken on pursuit.
But the Yosemites and Chowchillas refusing to leave their haunts, new campaigns were necessary against each, first against the Chowchillas encamped on the north fork of the San Joaquin. The march was taken via Coarse Gold and a circuitous route on which Crane Valley was located and named. Savage was called away as interpreter to treat with Kaweahs sent in from the south by Kuykendall, who in season ended the campaign against the Tulare valleyites by vigorous operations in the valleys, foothills and mountains of the Kings and Kaweah Rivers, chasing them even into the high Sierras.
Boling