History
The first recorded encounter between Wintu and Euro-Americans dates from the 1826 expedition of Jedediah Smith, followed by an 1827 expedition led by Peter Skene Ogden. Between 1830 and 1833, many Wintu died from malaria: an epidemic that killed an estimated 75% of the indigenous population in the upper and central Sacramento Valley.
In following years the weakened Wintu fell victim to competition for resources by incoming European-American settlers. Their sheep and cattle herds destroyed the Wintu food supply and Gold miners' processing activities caused pollution of rivers. The Wintu were also forced to work as laborers in gold mining operations. In 1846 John C. Frémont and Kit Carson killed 175 Wintu and Yana.
Settlers tried to control Wintu land and relocate the people west of Clear Creek. In a "friendship feast" in 1850, whites served poisoned food to local Indians, from which 100 Nomsuu and 45 Wenemem Wintu died. More deaths and destruction of Wintu land followed in 1851 and 1852, in incidents such as the Bridge Gulch Massacre.
Read more about this topic: Wintu People
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—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
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