Tag: Native American

Native American is defined as “All Native people of the United States and its trust territories (i.e., American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, Chamorros, and American Samoans), as well as persons from Canadian First Nations and Indigenous communities in Mexico and Central and South America who are U.S. residents”. This definition was given in 2019 by the National Congress of American Indians in its “Tribal Nations and the United States Report”.

The Ahwahneechees are a Native American group who lived in their homeland of Ahwahnee for thousands of years. Ahwahnee is now called Yosemite Valley, in California. They were a Northern Paiute group of Numu-speaking people.

In the late 18^th century the Ahwahneechees left their valley due to devastation by a “black sickness”. They crossed Kayopah (Sierra mountains) to live with their relatives, the Kutzadika’a, at Mono Lake. Here their Chief married a Kutzadika’a and bore a son called Tenaya.

After his father’s death, Tenaya became Chief. In the early 19^th century Tenaya with his people and all who wished to travel with him returned to Ahwahnee, where they lived in relative peace.

That is until the California Gold Rush. Tens of thousands of fortune seekers arrived in California, driving out the indigenous populations and taking over their homelands. This invasion led to outbreaks of violence, murders, and war. To protect the new settlers, military forces were authorized by the California State Governor. One such force was the Mariposa Battalion, established in 1850.

The Battalion entered Ahwahnee in March 1851 in pursuit of the Ahwahneechees, to drive them out and to take them into Indian reservations. This was known as the Mariposa Indian War. There they mapped and re-named the stunning landmarks of the valley and surrounds. They were the first white people to see the spectacular sights of Ahwahnee, which they re-named Yosemite.

The extraordinary true story of the Ahwahneechees and their Chief, Tenaya is re-told in the historical novel Great Spirit of Yosemite: The Story of Chief Tenaya.