Our
HISTORY
The ancestral village of the Mikćapdo was located on Little Butte Creek, less than 4 miles south of downtown Chico.
How it Started
LEARN OUR HISTORY
Mechoopda was a village community formerly located on Little Butte Creek, about 3 ½ miles south of today’s downtown Chico. The people of Mechoopda spoke a language related to Maidu, one of the more than 175 languages and dialects once spoken in native California.
Mechoopda oral tradition does not include a story of migration, but rather makes reference to the beginnings of this world at a place known as Tadoiko, a few miles south of the village. It was here that a raft carrying Kodoyampeh (Earth Maker) and Turtle first came ashore on the soft, newly created earth. A large depression was visible there for centuries until leveled for agriculture in the early 20th century.
By 1850, following John Bidwell’s acquisition of the Spanish Land Grant, Rancho Arroyo Chico, the Mechoopda moved to a former summer camp site located on the south side of Chico Creek near First and Flume Streets in what is now downtown Chico. A few years later the village was moved downstream, closer to Bidwell’s residence. In 1868, the village was moved ½ mile west to its final location, eventually becoming the Chico Rancheria.
The people called this last settlement Bahapki (”unsifted”), rather than Mechoopda, because Indians from several different villages, and neighboring tribes, resided there as members of the Rancho Arroyo Chico work force.
REBIRTH
After twenty-five years of exile, the Mechoopda became an officially federally-recognized tribe in 1992 as the result of a successful lawsuit filed against the United States in 1986 (along with three other tribes). In 1996 the tribe administered their first HUD program, purchasing 40 acres of almonds. A year later, the tribe began the task of re-establishing residency and addressing the housing needs of tribal members when it purchased 4 homes within the city of Chico. Two years later the tribe purchased an additional 26 homes.
Since 1998, the Mechoopda Tribe has made several steps towards greater economic self-sufficiency and independence, developing the Chico Rancheria Housing Corporation; purchased land and constructed a tribal office complex and community building; developed the Mechoopda Economic Development Corporation. In 2003 the tribe successfully acquired 650 acres of land south of Chico. Characterized as "restored lands," it represents another step in the political, economic, and social rebuilding and restoration of the original people of the region.
LIFE ON RANCHO ARROYO
The people of Mechoopda had a long relationship with early pioneer John Bidwell and his wife Annie. It has been the subject of controversy, and opinions about the relationship vary. The Bidwell's prospered with the help of Native labor and the scene resembled that of a plantation to some. Yet, the Native residents of Rancho Arroyo Chico were provided work, homes, and some protection from hostile vigilantes. The rancho also became a refuge for individuals escaping government sponsored removals of Native people from Butte County.
In 1847 John Bidwell arrived in the vicinity of Mechoopda and grazed cattle. He apparently lived with the people of Mechoopda for several weeks. It may have been during this time that he met Nuppani, the daughter of headman Lukiyan. Bidwell's relationship with Nupanni appears to have been recognized as a marriage. This early association helped establish a relationship that would last into the 20th century.
Soon after the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848, John Bidwell began mining on the Middle Fork of the Feather River with about twenty Native workers. With his fortune made from gold mining, Bidwell purchased a Mexican Land Grant, Rancho Arroyo Chico in 1849. From the earliest days of Rancho, local native people worked for Bidwell, clearing the land for plantings of wheat and oats, working with livestock, harvesting and packing fruit from the orchards.
With the establishment of Bidwell's Rancho Arroyo Chico, most of Mechoopda (as well as residents from several other local villages) moved on the ranch. The native people provided Bidwell with a resident work force, and he was much the envy of landowners. Examination of ledger books shows that native people were paid the same rate as non-Indian workers performing the same or similar work. Residence on Rancho Arroyo Chico also afforded protection from the prevailing lawlessness from which many native communities suffered. In one instance (1863), after a series of violent incidents in Butte County, Bidwell found it necessary to bring a company of soldiers from San Francisco to protect the native population of the rancho from threats of extermination by local militias. The soldiers stayed for over a year, and were routinely picketed around the village at night.
Bidwell's marriage to Annie Kennedy in 1868 brought further changes to the lives of native people. Mrs. Bidwell instituted Christian religious teachings, and established a church within the village in 1895. She also taught sewing, administered a small school, preached temperance, and was Vice President of the Nation Indian Association. In 1904, she had written Senator Perkins in support of a bill before Congress which would have allowed land to be granted to Indians. The population of the village in 1910 was fifty (13th U. S. Census).
After John Bidwell's death in 1900, Annie continued her role as overseer and protector of the village, a stance many now view as maternalism. Nonetheless, Annie had new frame houses built for most of the Native families in the village, and before her death, secured their rights to live there by deeding the property to the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church as trustee for the Native residents. Annie Bidwell died in 1918 and the land she had deeded to the church as held in trust until the Untied States conveyed the land into federal trust in 1939.
POLICY OF REMOVAL
Following the rejection of the treaties, a policy of removing native people from areas occupied or coveted by non-Indians began. Temporary reservations, such as Nome Lackee, located twenty miles west of Chico, became the destination of several native groups from the Butte County area, as they were formally "removed" with the assistance of U.S. Army soldiers. It is unclear if any Mechoopda were removed to Nome Lackee, as they were attached to Bidwell's ranch at the time, and likely spared removal.
The next decade saw a dramatic rise in conflict between Indians and non-Indians throughout Butte County. There were several episodes of cruelty and murder perpetrated upon the native population by lawless and unruly individuals accounting for scores of deaths. On occasions when Indians retaliated against such outrages, calls for extermination went out, and retribution was severe. In addition, introduced diseases continued to take a heavy toll. Cholera, influenza, smallpox, tuberculosis, and typhoid appear in the region between 1849 and 1859. In 1853, forty Indians reportedly died from pneumonia at a small village near Cherokee. Historic demographer Sherburne Cook estimated that nearly 800 Maidu must have perished due to disease in 1853.
In 1863, implementation of the plan for (near) complete removal of Indians from Butte County began. Rounded up from small villages throughout the foothills, some 461 left Camp Bidwell, four miles north of Chico, on the long march to Round Valley in Mendocino County. Fourteen days later only 277 reached their destination. Thirty-two people died en-route, and of those, several were known to have been cruelly killed, in some cases for walking to slow. Some men were shot for trying to escape, while others succeeded in their flight.
Most of the Mechoopda were not forced into removal due to their association with John Bidwell, and in effect received his protection. In fact, several of those who managed to escape, either en-route, or later from Round Valley, sought asylum at Bidwell's ranch. In most cases they were granted refuge. Thus, a number of individuals from foothill villages became residents of the new Mechoopda located on Bidwell's Rancho Arroyo Chico.
TREATIES
Amid a climate of growing tensions and conflict between Indians and non-Indians, the U.S. Congress authorized a commission to negotiate a series of treaties in the state that would guarantee specific lands to native tribes, and provide economic aid. On August 1, 1851, headmen for nine tribal communities of the region signed the treaty at Bidwell's ranch, including Luck-y-an of the Mechoopda. Known as the U.S. Treaty of 1851, its promised provisions included, "200 head of beef-cattle, to average in weight five hundred pounds, seventy-five sacks of flour one hundred pounds each" within two years of the signing. Additional goods such as calico cloth, needles, thread, scissors, blankets, one thousand pounds of iron, one hundred pounds of steel, mules, ploughs, one hundred milk cows, yokes, etc., were also guaranteed. Most importantly, however, was the 227 square mile tract of land outlined in the treaty as the permanent home for the tribes who agreed to the treaty.
In all 18 treaties were negotiated throughout the state during 1851-1852, reserving more than eight million acres of land. However, succumbing to opposition mounted by the California State Senate and the Governor, who objected to the reservation of lands for Indians that might be of either agricultural or gold bearing value, the U.S. Senate secretly rejected the treaties on July 8, 1852. Not until 1905, over fifty years later, would the injunction of secrecy be removed, and the treaties brought to the light of day. And not until 1928, were the Indians of California permitted to sue the federal government for compensation.
TREATIES
Jedediah Smith was likely the first non-Indian to pass through Mechoopda country, in January and April of 1828, although there is no evidence they had contact. From 1828 to 1836, members of the Hudson Bay Company trapped the waters of the region, and it is likely the Mechoopda were at least aware of their presence. One of the early effects of groups such as the Hudson Bay Company may have been the large number of game in which they killed, resulting in a fairly rapid depletion of the large mammal population. For example, in January of 1833, members of the company under Michael La Framboise camped in the Sutter Buttes to take refuge from local flooding. While there they reported killing 395 elk, 17 bears, and 8 antelope.
In 1833, an epidemic thought to be malaria, entered the northern Sacramento Valley with stunning, lethal results. Some areas may have suffered mortality rates of 75%. The effect of this epidemic on the Mechoopda is unknown, although they were clearly in its path.
In 1844, Governor Micheltorena issued a series of land grants, including the Rancho Arroyo Chico grant to William Dickey in the fall of 1845. This grant was later purchased by John Bidwell. The area encompassed by the Rancho Arroyo Chico grant, as well as the Esquon grant, included the lands occupied by Mechoopda. With the establishment of the ranchos, the introduction of agriculture and cattle, local native people soon entered into a working relationship with the newcomers as ranch hands.
With the discovery of gold in January of 1848, and the literal invasion of their country by tens of thousands of miners, merchants, and immigrants from around the world, the lives of native people were forever altered, and would quickly reach a point when their very survival would be questioned. Ironically, many of the Mechoopda participated in the mining of gold, accompanying John Bidwell to the Feather River at a place which became known as Bidwell Bar. Bidwell's native laborers helped him extract some $100,000 in gold between 1848 and 1849, for which they were compensated in trade goods such as handkerchiefs, cigars, scissors, brandy, glass beads and pants.
The discovery of gold in California resulted in major changes to native societies like Mechoopda. With the massive influx of immigrants, access to the range of traditional foods necessary for survival became much more limited. Indians often met with violence in efforts to hunt and gather in accustomed places. Mining also resulted in serious environmental damage, such as the silting of streams, which damaged crucial salmon runs. Even the course of Little Butte Creek, upon which the village of Mechoopda rested, was altered after a build-up of deposits from dredging gold upstream blocked its normal flow, diverting the stream into another channel. Most markedly, these series of changes forced the Mechoopda and other native people out of a hunting and gathering economy into the cash economy, very quickly. People had to learn new skills, a new language, and adapt to new foods as matters of immediate survival. Between 1848 and 1850 the world must have seemed as though it had turned upside down.