Miwok after Arrival of the Colonists

When the Spaniards moved into the Bay Area in 1776, the Ohlone Indians were the first to feel the effects of their colonizing efforts. They lived on the land the Spaniards most wanted. Some Ohlone initially believed the Spanish missionaries had powerful contact with the spirit world, so they accepted Catholic baptism. However, after they were baptized, the Missionaries forced them to remain at the missions, learning European practices, such as agriculture and farming, to become "civilized". Overall the Missionairies overworked and underfed them, and treated them as slaves, with infant mortality as high as 90%.

Many Ohlone escaped to join the Miwok, the native people who inhabited the area around Lodi. By the time the Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans began to move into the San Joaquin Valley, the Miwok were alerted to the danger posed by the colonists. Many fled further into the foothills with other Miwok tribes, but some stayed to fight the colonists moving in.

The colonists also brought the deadliest problem the local populations would face: disease. Having no natural immunity to European-bred diseases like smallpox, influenza, diptheria, and measles, they quickly caused serious illness and death among all the native populations that came in contact with the colonists. It is estimated that disease alone eventually wiped out 90% of the 9,000 Plains Miwok people.

After this region became the State of California and joined the US, the first governor declared them the "Indian foe” and called native people robbers and savages. “That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected,” he said.

With the decimation of their numbers from disease, war, and displacement, the Miwok numbered only 490 remaining by 1910. Some of their cultural practices and knowledge remain, but it is difficult to know the full extent of what was lost. There are closer to 3500 Miwok living now, broken into some federally recognized and some unrecognized tribes, thus with various rights and options.