Yosemite Miwuk? Henry Johnson 1928 California Indian Application.

I found this while looking on an ancestry board about Miwuk or Miwoks.

Around 1928, the state of California had American Indian people in the state fill out applications that indicated who there parents were, what tribe they were from, who their children were, and who their chief was around 1852. These are public documents.

Here is Henry Johnson, a well known Indian person around Mariposa;

The first page shows Henry Johnson, the patriarch of the Mariposa Johnson family.

He is 62 years old, and two or his sons are living with him and his wife. One of his son's, Harry Johnson, is already married and has his own household.

Henry Johnson was married to Mary Ann.

2nd page shows they reside in Mariposa County.

The application states that Henry Johnson is married to Mary Ann Lewis who is 1/2 *Casson Yokut and 1/2 white. (*we note this because of other applications of their children which indicate she was from Madera County)

Henry is full blooded Indian.

Henry's people are from the band that signed the Fremont Treaty on March 19th 1851. Chief Tenaya and the Paiutes DID NOT sign any Treaty in the area giving up Yosemite. The 1891 Petition to Congress was not a treaty, but a request for payment, since it was already taken and settled. The United States government paid all white land owners when the federal government decided to turn the Yosemite area into a park. The Monos and Paiutes wanted equal treatment for lands taken, unlike the Fremont and Barbour Treaties, which they never got paid. In the late 1990s the Southern Sierra Miwuks once again gave up any right to sue the United States federal government;

http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/yosemite_indian_petition_to_the_us.html

*the person who put this up, put links to Henry and Mary Ann Johnson in the Bingaman book called the Ahwahneechees. He did a great service, but there was a Paiute with the name Henry in Yosemite and was not Henry Johnson, and that Mary Ann has a Paiute name, which Mary Ann Johnson was not.

Henry's parents are Sam Johnson and his mother is Maria (Soo-ee-ku-lut, which looks like a Yokut woman's name).

3rd page, line 13, is the most important and most revealing. It shows that Henry Johnson's chief was Bautistia or Chief Bautista (Vow-chester or Keechee) and not Chief Tenaya of the Ahwahnee people.

Chief Bautista was the Indian chief who aided Major James Savage and the Mariposa Battalion. He and his people were afraid to enter Yosemite Valley. He got his people, the Potoyantees and others, to dig gold for Savage and he signed the Fremont Treaty, giving up all claims to Yosemite and surrounding areas. Chief Bautista, along with Russio, was the one of chiefs who called the Ahwaneechees, the Yosemites, which in their language meant "The Killers" and not “Some of them are killers (the Paiutes)”. That was a new definition that was fabricated later on to cover up the real translation. There was never any sources for this new translation, which mysteriously appeared in 1978, not 1878, but about 27 years ago. After all how could you have the Miwoks afraid and fearful of the original Yosemite Indians if they were Miwoks also, that’s because they weren’t.  Bautista was James Savage’s overseer and would chase down Indian runaways who tried to escape the mines. He was even James Savage’s cook and taught Savage the Miwok language, even the chiefly Miwok dialect. Savage married many of their wives.

On the application they resided in Mariposa County, probably the lower foothills around the border close to Merced Falls. That is where many of their children were born.

His parents are both full blooded Indians.

* Because of space I am only going to put the first 3 pages of the Application. The application has an affidavit, with signature, thumbprint of the Indian person. The affidavit is signed by two Indian witnesses that knew him for decades. The affidavit swears that what they are saying is true to the best of their knowledge.

It would appear Henry is a Miwuk-Yokut person from Chief Bautista's band, rather than an original Indian from Chief Tenaya's Paiute Yosemite band.

The BIA uses these same 1928 California Indian Applications to prove Indian ancestry and are public record for ancestry research.

Henry Johnson was a well known Miwok person around Mariposa, but I guess not an original Yosemite Indian, but from Chief Bautista’s band.

You can see who were the Miwoks and who were Chief Tenaya's band in Lafayette H. Bunnell's book here;

http://www.esnips.com/web/YosemiteIndiansWebResearch

CC: Yosemite National Park