"The traditional Maidu boundaries were roughly from Mount Lassen and Honey Lake on the north to the Cosumnes River on the south, and from the Sacramento River on the west to the crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the east. Early ethnographers divided this vast territory into three major areas based on certain language differences. These areas are the Northern or Mountain Maidu, mostly of Plumas County; the Northwestern or Concow-Maidu of Butte County and parts of Yuba and Sutter Counties; and the Southern Maidu or Nisenan, generally south of the Yuba River and extending to the Miwok lands.
Earliest contact with Europeans would have occurred during the twenty years while California was part of the Spanish holding and fur trappers constantly explored the Northstate’s waterways. There is a persistent story of a Spanish document, dated 1542 or 1559, being found in the hollow of an oak tree on the Middle Fork. However, the earliest recorded Concow contact was with Gabriel Moraga in 1800. Trapping greatly increased in the 1820’s and 1830’s. Many strange diseases were introduced and along with the many killings and massacres of Indian villages, the California Indians declined from 310,000 to 20,000 during the years 1700 to 1900.
When gold was discovered in 1848, many foreigners swarmed into Concow territory, and the Indians had to get out of the way. As gold fever wore off, these intruders began appropriating more lands for timber, agricultural and commercial ventures, particularly railroading. The U.S government negotiated treaties with tribes, promising many benefits in exchange for the homelands, but none were ever honored, and the Native Americans were left landless and homeless. Reservations were established and the Concows were forcibly moved out of their ancestral homes. Many died or were killed along the way to these distant, hostile places. For example, one group of 461 Concows left Chico on September 4, 1863, but only 277 survived the two-week trip to Round Valley."
https://www.mooretownrancheria-nsn.gov/Tribal-History/
Learn more by visiting the California State Indian Museum next to Sutter's Fort in Downtown Sacramento: https://www.sacmuseums.org/museums/state-indian-museum
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Dec 8 202418 mins