William J. Bauer, Jr.

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William J. Bauer, Jr. | "We Were All Migrant Workers Here": Round Valley Indian Labor in Northern California, 1850–1929 | The Western Historical Quarterly, 37.1 | The History Cooperative

"We Were All Migrant Workers Here": Round Valley Indian Labor in Northern California, 1850–1929

Between 1850 and 1929, Indians on northern California's Round Valley Reservation experienced the transformation from a hunting and harvesting people to an agricultural workforce. Using oral history and archival sources, this essay traces the social, cultural, and economic adaptations of Round Valley Indians. By the Great Depression, many Round Valley Indians had successfully adjusted to the economic changes of the period by incorporating wage labor into their seasonal economies, recreational activities, and religious beliefs.

Oh yeah. I picked hops. Remember down there, they called it the Hop Ranch. They used to grow hops there.... And our parents used to work there—I know my mom did and my dad, they were separated, he worked on the ranch there. I remember Mr. Walter Winters and Grant Winters and their dad, I can't remember his name. Well, their dad ran the whole ranch at that time.... Anyway, all the people here, the Indian people, they would have a truck go around and pick all the people up at their homes early in the morning. I hated to get up in the morning. But we were little, and he would haul them down there like migrant workers or something.... Everybody used to go down there and work. It gave everybody a job. They were like migrant workers. Like they do now with Mexican people, that was how the Indians used to work. A few non-Indians worked in there that was poor and that wanted to work. We were all like migrant workers here...

Kathleen Cook (Concow-Little Lake Pomo)¹

KATHLEEN COOK SPEAKS to the tremendous historical change that Round Valley Indians experienced after contact. Located 150 miles north of the San Francisco Bay area, Round Valley is home to seven California Indian tribes—some indigenous to Round Valley and others relocated from northern and central California.² Between 1850 and 1929, this diverse Indian community experienced the transformation from a hunting and harvesting people to an agricultural workforce. However, agricultural labor did not destroy Indian culture, economy, or social life. Rather, oral histories and government documents reveal that Round Valley Indians used wage labor to maintain their community. Wage labor offered opportunities for religious expression and social interaction as well as an opportunity to generate income.³

For Round Valley Indians, the transformation to an agricultural workforce occurred in three stages. Between 1850 and 1865, Indians accommodated and resisted the introduction of a new labor system. That is, Indians began to work for whites because their survival depended upon it, but they protested the worst manifestations of agricultural labor. After the American Civil War, the introduction of cash wages and the opportunities for off-reservation recreation persuaded Indians to look beyond the reservation for job opportunities and produced a conflict between Indians, white ranchers, and government officials about Indian labor. Finally, after the General Allotment Act, Round Valley Indians adjusted to new economic circumstances. Oral history illustrates how Round Valley Indians interpreted the labor experience.

This study adds depth to the rapidly growing field of American Indian labor history. Recent studies of Navajo, Tohono O'odham, Paiute, and Ottawa workers have examined the abilities of American Indians to adapt to economic change. However, these studies ignore other aspects of the work experience.⁴ As historian Peter Iverson writes in his study of American Indians and cattle ranching, "The economics mattered.... However, [cattle ranching] had already emerged as considerably more than an economic venture. It had permeated the social fabric of the community."⁵

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