The oak trees, which produced the acorns--one of their staple articles of food,--were being cut down and burned by miners and others in clearing up land for cultivation, and the deer and other food game were being rapidly killed off or driven from the locality.
[Illustration: _Copyrighted Photograph by Boysen_.
AN INDIAN DANCER.
Chow-chil-la Indian in full war-dance costume.] In the "early days," before California was admitted as a free State into the Union, it was reported, and was probably true, that some of the immigrants from the slave-holding States took Indians and made slaves of them in working their mining claims.
It was no uncommon event for the sanctity of their homes and families to be invaded by some of the "baser sort," and young women taken, willing or not, for servants and wives.
RETALIATION.
In retaliation, and as some compensation for these many grievous outrages upon their natural inalienable rights of domain and property, and their native customs, the Indians stole horses and mules from the white settlers, and killed them for food for their families, who, in many instances, were in a condition of starvation.
Finally the chiefs and leading men of all the tribes involved met in a grand council, and resolved to combine their warrior forces in one great effort to drive all their white enemies from the country, before they became more numerous and formidable.
BEGINNING OF HOSTILITIES.
To prepare for this struggle for existence, they made raids upon some of the principal trading posts in the mining sections, killed those in charge, took all the blankets, clothing and provisions they could carry away, and fled to the mountains, where they were soon pursued by the soldiers and volunteer citizens, and a spirited battle was fought without any decisive advantage to either side.
The breaking out of actual hostilities created great excitement among the whites, and an urgent call was made upon the Governor of the State for a military force to meet the emergency, and protect the settlers--a force strong enough to thoroughly subdue the Indians, and remove all of them to reservations to be selected by the United States Indian Commissioners for that purpose.
Meantime the Governor and the Commissioners, who had then arrived, were receiving numerous communications, many of them from persons in high official positions, earnestly urging a more humane and just policy, averring that the Indians had real cause for complaint, that they had been "more sinned against than sinning" since the settling of California by the whites, and that they were justly entitled to protection by the Government and compensation for the spoliations and grievances they had suffered.
These protests doubtless had some influence in delaying hostile measures, and in the inauguration of efforts to induce the Indians to come in and treat with the Commissioners, envoys being sent out to assure them of fair treatment and personal safety.
Many of the Indians accepted these offers, and, as the different tribes surrendered, they were taken to the two reservations which the Commissioners had established for them on the Fresno River, the principal one being a few miles above the place where the town of Madera is now located.
As before stated, these Indians were not a warlike people.

Their only weapons were their bows and arrows, and these they soon found nearly useless in defending themselves at long range against soldiers armed with rifles.

Moreover, their stock of provisions was so limited that they either had to surrender or starve.
DISCOVERY OF YOSEMITE VALLEY.
The Yosemites and one or two other bands of Indians had refused to surrender, and had retreated to their mountain strongholds, where they proposed to make a last determined resistance.

Active preparations were accordingly made by the State authorities to follow them, and either capture or exterminate all the tribes involved.

For this purpose a body of State volunteers, known as the Mariposa Battalion, was organized, under the command of Major James D.Savage, to pursue these tribes into the mountains; and, after many long marches and some fighting, the Indians were all defeated, captured, and, with their women and children, put upon the reservations under strong military guard.
It was during this campaign that Major Savage and his men discovered the Yosemite Valley, about the 21st of March, 1851, while in pursuit of the Yosemites, under old Chief Teneiya, for whom Lake Teneiya and Teneiya Canyon have appropriately been named.
[Illustration: _Photograph by Foley._ THREE BROTHERS (WAW-HAW'-KEE), 3,900 Feet.
Named by the soldiers who discovered the Valley, to commemorate the capture of three sons of Teneiya near this place.