Round Valley

CONGRESSIONAL

HISTORY

by Ernest Merrifield, Covelo Indian Community Member

The Yuki Indians were the Native people who inhabited the area now know as Round Valley. The Yuki Tribe also was respected by neighboring Indians to have approximately a fifteen mile radius of land within the "Yuki World." This land base belonged to the Yuki Indians for many thousands of years.

Some of the first reports by the earliest settlers stated that the population of the Yuki Tribe within the valley floor and the surrounding foothills numbered somewhere from 7,000 to 11,000 people. Later it became known that sub-tribes of the Yuki occupied the valleys and glades nearby which contributed to a much greater population. It is not known today what the total population might have been before White Anglo-Saxon settlement.

The valley was "discovered" by non-Indians in the Spring of 1854. Soon after its discovery, a few very humane persons agreed that the Indian people should reserve for themselves the entire valley for an Indian Reservation. From vigorous insistence, the valley was declared an Indian Reserve and boundaries including the entire valley established by Executive Order in 1870. The Order also stated that present settlers remove; and it included the statement that further settlement should be prevented. Further settlement was not prevented or discouraged even though the Government began to bring in many Indian people from a number of tribes from the Northern California areas.

Besides the Yuki Indians (who originally inhabited the Round Valley area), the newly established Reservation was populated by people from the following tribes: the CAHTO from the Laytonville area, the LASSIK from the Alder Point area, the WAILAKI from the Island mountain area, the POMO from the Willits, Ukiah, Potter Valley, Lake County, and Santa Rosa areas, the MAIDU from the Chico area, the YANA from the Mt.. Lassen area, the WINTUN from the Sacramento Valley area, the PIT RIVER from the Modoc County area, the CONCOW from the Sacramento Valley area, the LITTLE LAKE from the Willits area, and lastly, the NOMELAKI from the Paskenta-Newville area. An accurate record of how many from each tribe was not kept, but some estimates of the total number of people "driven" into the Reservation were around the 5,000 mark.

Ten years after the discovery of Round Valley, Congress passed an "Act to declare Round Valley an Indian Reservation."

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