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California Scenes, California Indians, letter sheet, RB 48052 #103

The Gold Rush was to have a devastating impact on California's Indian peoples, whose numbers had already been reduced by one-third when California was a Spanish colony. The Nisenan and Miwok peoples of Northern California worked the mission, ranches, and, later, the goldfields. This letter sheet shows the gold seekers' fascination with but little understanding of the Indians' cultures.

"Californian Mode of Catching Cattle, with a Distant View of the Mission of St. Joseph," engraving in California: A History of Upper and Lower Californias by Alexander Forbes, London, 1839, RB 401667

Long important to colonial Alta California, cattle raising became its economic lifeblood after Mexico achieved independence from Spain in 1821. Both the missions and the land-owning rancheros who succeeded them found a ready international market for cowhides and tallow.

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