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Reference Notes/Bibliography

-Yosemite park curators Martha J. Lee and Craig Bates noted that from 1870 and onwards, the population of Indigenous people in Yosemite National Park was extremely limited and their overall presence was unknown to the common tourist.

-In the late nineteenth century the population of native inhabitants in Yosemite National Park was difficult to determine, estimations ranged drastically from very few such as thirty, to several hundred.

Ahwahneechee and the Mariposa Wars
Yosemite Valley has been inhabited for nearly 3,000 years, although humans may have first visited the area as long as 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. The indigenous natives called themselves the Ahwahnechee, meaning "dwellers" in Ahwahnee. They are related to the Northern Paiute and Mono tribes. Many tribes visited the area to trade, including nearby Central Sierra Miwoks, who lived along the drainage area of the Tuolumne and Stanislaus Rivers. A major trading route went over Mono Pass and through Bloody Canyon to Mono Lake, just to the east of the Yosemite area. Vegetation and game in the region were similar to that present today; acorns were a staple to their diet, as well as other seeds and plants, salmon and deer.

The California Gold Rush in the mid–19th century drew more than 90,000 European Americans to the area in less than two years, causing competition for resources between the regional Paiute and Miwok and miners. In 1851, as part of the Mariposa Wars intended to suppress Native American resistance, the State of California funded a private militia to drive Native people from contested territory. Trader Jim Savage was appointed United States Army Major and led the Mariposa Battalion into the west end of Yosemite Valley. He was pursuing around 200 Ahwahneechee people led by Chief Tenaya.

Accounts from this battalion were the first well-documented reports of ethnic Europeans entering Yosemite Valley. Attached to Savage's unit was Lafayette Bunnell, who later wrote about his awestruck impressions of the valley in The Discovery of the Yosemite. Bunnell is credited with naming Yosemite Valley, based on his interviews with Chief Tenaya. Bunnell wrote that Chief Tenaya was the founder of the Ah-wah-nee colony. Bunnell falsely believed that the word "Yosemite" meant "full-grown grizzly bear." In fact, "Yosemite" was derived from the Miwok term for the Ahwaneechee people: yohhe'meti, meaning "they are killers". Bunnell's battalion eventually captured Chief Tenaya and the Ahwahneechee and burned their village; the Ahwahneechee were marched to a reservation near Fresno, California. The chief and some others were later allowed to return to Yosemite Valley. In the spring of 1852 they attacked a group of eight gold miners, and then moved east to flee law enforcement. Near Mono Lake, they took refuge with the nearby Mono tribe of Paiute. They stole horses from their hosts and moved away, but the Mono Paiutes tracked down and killed many of the Ahwahneechee, including Chief Tenaya. The Mono Paiute took the survivors as captives back to Mono Lake and absorbed them into the Mono Lake Paiute tribe. In the late nineteenth century the population of all native inhabitants in Yosemite National Park was difficult to determine, estimations ranged drastically from smaller numbers such as thirty individuals, to several hundred, the Ahwahneechee people and their descendents were even harder to identify.

After these wars, a number of Native Americans continued to live within the boundaries of Yosemite. A number of Indians supported the growing tourism industry by working as laborers or maids. Later, Indians became part of the tourism industry itself by selling baskets or performing for tourists. In 1969, the National Park Service evicted the remaining Native people from their residences and destroyed their village as part of a fire-fighting exercise. A reconstructed "Indian Village of Ahwahnee" has been erected behind the Yosemite Museum, located next to the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center.