September 29
Fort Yuma troops attack the Quechan.
Amidst rumors of a large-scale Indian rebellion,
troops stationed at Fort Yuma in Quechan territory
(see entry for AUGUST 1849) march on an Indian
encampment. Taken by surprise, possibly because
they believe an earlier truce with the army is still
in effect, the Quechan flee their homes. Although
angered by the soldiers’ presence in their lands, the
Quechan soon sue for peace, out of fear that a con-
frontation with the army will disrupt their planting
season and leave them starving in the upcoming
winter.
1853The last surviving Chumash is found on
San Nicolas Island.
A crew of hunters on San Nicolas Island off the
California coast come upon an Indian woman sit-
ting with her dog outside a house she constructed
from whale bones. The woman has lived alone
on the island for 18 years. She was accidentally
left behind when the rest of her people, the San
Nicolas Chumash, were moved to the mainland
by mission priests. All have since died of non-In-
dian diseases.
The hunters take the woman to Santa Bar-
bara, where she is baptized as Juana Maria and
dies of disease seven weeks later. Her story will
be told in several works of fiction, most nota-
bly Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins, a
young-adult novel that will win the 1960 New-
bery Award.
Fall
The United States compels land cessions
from northern Indian Territory tribes.
In order to clear land for the construction of
a transcontinental railroad through the Great
Plains, Commissioner of Indian Affairs George W.
Manypenny negotiates land cessions from tribes
relocated to lands in Indian Territory above 37 de-
grees latitude. The Indian groups affected include
the Lenni Lenape (Delaware), Kickapoo, Miami,
Omaha, and Shawnee. Reporting that their lead-
ers have dealt with him “without enthusiasm,”
Manypenny notes that many of their tribes “have
been removed, step by step, from mountain to val-
ley, and from river to plain, until they have been
pushed halfway across the continent.”December 30United States makes the
Gadsden Purchase.
Diplomat James Gadsden negotiates the Gadsden
Purchase, in which Mexico agrees to sell for $10
million a 45,000-square-mile tract south of the Gila
River in what is now southern New Mexico and
Arizona. The agreement settles boundary disputes
left unresolved by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
(see entry for FEBRUARY 2, 1848). It also provides
the United States with lands needed to construct
a railroad route through the Southwest. Indian
groups living in the area, including the Chiricahua
Apache and the Papago (now known as the Tohono
O’odham), are not consulted in the negotiations
and will refuse to acknowledge the new interna-
tional boundary.1854John Rollin Ridge’s Life and Adventures of
Joaquin Murieta is published.
The grandson of Cherokee leader Major Ridge
(see entries for DECEMBER 29, 1835, and for
JUNE 22, 1839), John Rollin Ridge becomes the
first American Indian novelist, with the publica-
tion of Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta.
Ridge’s book tells the story of a man of mixed
Spanish and Indian ancestry who is forced from
his land by whites. When whites kill his brother,
Joaquin Murieta vows revenge and becomes a
noble outlaw in the tradition of Robin Hood. The
character’s romantic adventures will inspire many