Chronology of American Indian History

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people. At a nearby village on Russian River, the
soldiers slaughter another 75 Pomo.

California legalizes Indian indenture.
The legislature of California passes the Act for the
Government and Protection of Indians. Despite
its benevolent name, the law allows whites to de-
clare any Indian a vagrant; the vagrant must then
perform up to four months of unpaid labor for
whatever party offers the highest bid at a public
auction. The act also states that parents can legally
bind Indian children to work for whites for food
only for a period of several years. Non-Indians in
California soon take advantage of this law to obtain
free Indian labor. Routinely, groups of Indians are
rounded up, forced to work for whites throughout
the summer, then released, physically broken and
starving, at the onset of winter. The kidnapping and
sale of Indian children, particularly older girls, also
becomes widespread. Before the act is repealed in
1863, about 10,000 California Indians will have
been indentured or sold into slavery.

Dreamer Religion leader Smohalla is
forced from his village.
A Wanapam shaman named Smohalla (“Dreamer”)
attracts followers among Plateau Indians with a mes-
sage of passive resistance to white encroachment and
influence. He opposes land sales and counsels his
followers to practice traditional ways while await-
ing a future day when the Creator will drive all the
non-Indians from their lands. His teachings anger
Homily, another leader in his village, who welcomes
whites and their goods. In a confrontation between
the two men, Homily declares, “Look at you, you are
a poor man.... You always talk of the old customs
while... others accept the new ways and they grow
rich.” Driven from the village by Homily’s follow-
ers, Smohalla and his people form a new village near
what is now Vernita, Washington, on lands that will
be ceded to the United States only five years later (see
entry for MAY 24 TO JUNE 11, 1855). Among future
adherents to Smohalla’s Dreamer Religion will be
Chief Joseph (Heinmot Tooyalaket) of the Nez Perce
(see entry for JUNE 15, 1877).

“You ask me to plow the

ground. Shall I take a knife and

tear my mother’s breast? Then

when I die she will not take me

to her bosom to rest.

You ask me to dig for stone.

Shall I dig under her skin for her

bones? Then when I die I can-

not enter her body to be born

again.

You ask me to cut grass and

make hay and sell it and be rich

like white men. But how dare I

cut off my mother’s hair?”

—Wanapam prophet Smohalla,

rejecting whites’ demands that

Indians take up farming

June 8

Five Cayuse are executed for the Whitman

mission murders.

Since Cayuse warriors murdered missionary Marcus

Whitman and 11 other whites (see entry for NO-

VEMBER 29, 1847), the Oregon Territory militia has

been attacking any Cayuse, whether involved in the

killings or not. Exhausted by continual skirmishes

with white soldiers, the tribe turns in five of the

attackers to the authorities. With little understand-

ing of the white legal system, the men stand trial,

defended by a lawyer provided by the Oregon ter-

ritorial government. The accused are found guilty,

sentenced to death, and hanged.

September 29

Congress passes the Donation Land Act.

A year after Oregon is organized as a territory,

the United States offers American settlers flood-

ing into areas on the Oregon Trail an opportunity