The modern Miwok (or Mewuk) Indians derive from a loose aggregation of Utian-speaking groups that occupied a wide band in central California from present-day Marin and Sonoma Counties north of San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento River, extending beyond the Yosemite Valley into eastern Nevada, as far north as present-day Tehama County and as far south as the San Joaquin Valley. Generally, the Miwok groups fall roughly into the following divisions: Coast (Tomales and Bodega Bays, in Marin, Mendocino, and Sonoma Counties); Bay (Mount Diablo to the Sacramento Delta, in Contra Costa and Sacramento Counties); Lake (Lake and Yolo Counties); Plains (drainages of the Cosumnes and Mokelumne Rivers, in Sacramento, Amador, and San Joaquin Counties); and the Northern Sierra, Southern Sierra, and Eastern Sierra Miwoks (in the foothills and peaks of the Sierras). The Western and Sierra Miwok languages became separate over twenty-five hundred years ago, while the Plains and Sierra Miwok languages separated at the beginning of the Common Era. The modern enrollments of the Miwok and mixed-Miwok bands and tribes range from one person (Buena Vista Rancheria) to 200 (Jackson Rancheria), 300 (Tuolumne Rancheria), and nearly 600 (Mooretown Rancheria), while estimates of their precontact total populations through mission records, accounts of explorers, census records, and special federal enrollments indicate that the population was about 19,500 in 1800. In 1904, and again in 1905 and 1906, Special Indian Agent C. E. Kelsey enumerated the Miwok population at fewer than 800 persons in or near aboriginal villages. The 1910 U.S. Census identified about 700 living in distinct communities. Kelsey's successors continually monitored the population and condition of Miwok bands and tribes through the 1930s, and Cook found about 760 in 1930. By 1951, the California Senate's Interim Committee on California Indian Affairs found only 109 living on the rancherias. The 1990 U.S. Census and other recent Indian Health Service and California Office of Economic Opportunity estimates suggest that some 3,500 persons with some degree of Miwok Indian ancestry survive in California, at least 500 of whom are enrolled members of federally recognized tribes.
The Spanish explorers encountered Eastern Sierra Miwoks in the late 1700s. Before the United States acquired California in 1848, the Coast Miwok and Plains Miwok groups in particular had been the objects of early Spanish and Mexican colonization and proselytization efforts in areas surrounding the Roman Catholic missions, starting at San Francisco in 1794, and continuing at San Jose in 1811, and then at San Rafael, Solano, Sonoma, and Santa Rosa. The Lake Miwoks met the Luis Arguello expedition near Middletown in 1821. Mortality from disease and slaughter greatly reduced these populations, while the Russian fur-trading activities at Fort Ross and nearby coastal villages had a similarly negative impact. Sierra and Plains Miwoks under the leadership of hereditary patrilineal leaders known as headmen or captains—such as Ha Pipia, Estanislao, Maximo, and their relations—fought the invaders in the 1820s and 1830s and attacked Mexican coastal settlements with the support of their Yokuts neighbors. These activities played a role in the secularization of the missions, and Miwoks aided the United States in the war with Mexico. Mariano Vallejo's 1848 treaty with Lake and Coast Miwok headman availed the tribes nothing.
The California gold rush and agricultural development brought waves of settlers into Miwok territories after 1850. U.S. treaty commissioners signed treaties that ceded most Miwok lands, while reserving several parcels for the Miwoks' permanent use. When the U.S. Senate refused to ratify these treaties, American settlers indentured or enslaved hundreds of Miwoks and murdered or drove away uncounted hundreds of others. Survivors sought employment in timber, fishing, mining, ranching, farming, and other industries, where many continue to labor. Many Coast and Lake Miwoks became fishermen and migrant farm workers throughout the Central Valley region, while Northern Sierra and the Central Sierra division of the Eastern Miwoks became ranchers and farmers, and Southern Sierra Miwoks became loggers. Over 200 Plains and Southern Sierra Miwoks worked for miners by 1860. Ghost Dance prophets like Chiplichu of Pleasanton passed through the Miwok tribes at Knight's Ferry and Ione from 1872 to the 1920s, and there remain notable surviving examples of the phenomenon, and its influence, among the Miwok rancherias.
While Miwok-speaking groups attempted to reunite as an organized body as recently as 1927, no unified Miwok national tribal organization survives. At the local level, little if anything remains of the two traditional social moieties, or "land" and "water" divisions. Modern federally acknowledged California Miwok entities reside on small rancherias (reservations under four hundred acres in area). The U.S. Congress or Bureau of Indian Affairs terminated intergovernmental relations with most of the Miwok rancherias between 1934 and 1972, but with few exceptions, these entities have obtained restoration of their status since 1984. Three of these formerly acknowledged primarily Miwok rancherias (Nevada City, Strawberry Valley, and Wilton) remain terminated.
Seven surviving rancheria-based tribes have primarily or exclusively Miwok populations. These include: Buena Vista (Plains Miwok; Amador County), Chicken Ranch (Central Sierra division of Eastern Miwok; Tuolumne County), Ione (Northern Sierra and Plains Miwok; Amador County), Jackson (Northern Sierra and Plains Miwok; Amador County), Middletown (Lake Miwok; Lake County), Sheep Ranch (Northern Sierra Miwok; Calaveras County), Shingle Springs (Plains Miwok; El Dorado County), and Tuolumne (Central Sierra Miwok; Tuolumne County). The Assistant Secretary of Interior for Indian Affairs reaffirmed the acknowledgment of the Ione band in 1994.
Most Miwok groups aboriginally traded with neighboring Miwok divisions, shared many of the same cultural and ceremonial activities and calendars, and intermarried with one another. The Coast Miwoks traditionally intermarried with Pomos as well. Lake Miwoks intermarried with Concows, Maidus, Nomlakis, Pomos, Yukis, Wailakis, and Wintus. Sierra Miwoks intermarried with Maidus and Pomos. Accordingly, at least seventeen other federally acknowledged California bands and tribes include Miwok descendants.
Traditional songs, dances, a gambling game (a form of hand game played with bone markers or sticks, to the accompaniment of singers), and other ceremonial activities remain among particular bands and rancherias. Weaving and beading, as well as the making of traditional garments and implements for ceremonial purposes, for sale, and as gifts, persist—particularly in the counties of Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino, Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne, and Mariposa. The September Acorn Festival at Tuolumne Rancheria, the winter and spring commemorations of the hibernation and awakening of the Bear Spirit, and the Goose Dance near the winter solstice are significant examples of surviving ceremonial activities. Tuolumne Rancheria has a dance house currently in use, while one is still under construction at the Ione Reservation, and others have been constructed, destroyed, and rebuilt at Grinding Rock State Historical Park (called Chaw'se by the Miwoks.)
The Northern Sierra Mewuk Language Program has aided in the preservation of surviving Miwok language skills with the help of elders like the Ione band's Captain Nicolas Villa, Sr. The Mariposa-Amador-Tuolumne-Calaveras Indian Health Board and the Tuolumne Indian Health Center at Tuolumne Rancheria serve primarily Miwok Indians in the four named county areas. Health clinics and other Indian service agencies serve Miwoks in Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake Counties.
Allogan Slagle
United Keetoowah Band
Association on American Indian Affairs
New York, New York
