User talk:73.2.42.15

Hello,

I am extremely new to this part of Wikipedia, but I read your article on the Sacramento River Massacre and would like to start a conversation as I believe you have the site wrong for the massacre. I have done significant research into this massacre and I used to think as your article proposes that the massacre occurred near Redding on an Island in the Sacramento that was later termed "Bloody Island" by Samuel Hensley.

If you read Breckenridge's account closer you will see that he describes the location as being only 12 miles from Lassen's Ranch (Rancho Bosquejo). There is also other interesting information that forms the context of the massacre as well.

Breckenridge was sent to Sutter's fort just prior to the event to acquire more horses for their upcoming foray into Oregon. While at the fort Breckenridge encountered a number of settlers that had been camped at the fort since fall and were now getting ready to leave the state and travel north to Oregon right through the territory that Fremont had just explored. That being the Red Bluff, Cottonwood, Anderson, Redding, Millville, and Bella Vista plains areas. There were a few young women in the (I believe from my research) three families leaving for Oregon. (They were leaving due to the proclamation made by Manuel Castro for Americans to leave the state, in response to Fremont's aggression on Gavilan Peak). In speculation; Breckenridge's chivalry takes over and he accompanies the three families north with the newly acquired horses and organizes a pre-emptive strike against the tribes along the river to clear the way for the settlers.

If you read further you find that after the massacre Fremont's men AND the settler's throw a three-day celebrator Shindig just south of Lassen's Ranch with the party of Settlers.

I would agree with the lower estimate of 150 - 300 Natives slaughtered. Only because of the timing of the massacre in 1846. The two tribes caught in the massacre were the River bands of the Nomlaki tribe (a branch of the Wintu) in the Corning area and the Yana/Yahi tribes from the eastern side of the Sacramento (Ishi's father was a part of this tribe and his mother was a Wintu). The reasoning for a smaller death count is due to the 1830 - 1833 epidemics that swept the tribes closest to the river. These epidemics (Small-Pox or Measles) are estimated having killed 70 - 80% of the tribes along the river. Thirteen years later it would not have been possible for those tribes to have come back to full strength. And, indeed is seems (from information gathered from Ishi himself) the Yana and Yahi were cooperating with the Nomlaki to harvest the spring salmon runs. This is what Fremont caught them in the process of doing at the time of the massacre. Fremont and his scouts talked of the tribes preparing for war with their black face paints. I would suggest that they were not preparing for war but preparing for the harvest. Which the tribes had already discovered was smaller than usual. Which if you dig further you find that John Bidwell was at Sutter's Fort netting the salmon from the river to barrel up and send to the Whaling fleet at Yerba Buena. So I think it's safe to say that the tribes up stream were a tad freaked out with the size of the salmon run. They weren't preparing for war they were crying out to their god.

Anyway, would love to collaborate. Not too many researchers have found Breckenridge.

Derek Hastings derek.hastings@gmail.com