California Treaties

Unlike some of the Eastern and Midwestern states, there are no ratified treaties in California. There are several unratified treaties that the Interior Department tried to make to maintain peace between settlers and California Indians. The agent responsible for making contact with tribal leaders in Northern California had little knowledge of the people he was tasked with contacting, but was dedicated to what he saw as a humanitarian mission (Hoopes 1970). Redick McKee’s aim was to provide Indians with secured food and lands and in doing so protecting whites from retaliatory violence at the hands of the dispossessed Indians. McKee soon found out that Congress was essentially unwilling to provide the necessary funds to make and maintain these agreements, so little came of them (Hoopes 1970).

What we do have in California are land grants. Hand drawn diseños outline proposed areas for desired ranchos and often include proximal water ways and topographical features. The diseño for Lomas de Kotate isn’t much to look at but the diseño for the nearby Rancho Cabeza de Santa Rosa is significantly more interesting and detailed.