Indian Uprisings in Humboldt County, Nevada 1861-1863
Graduation Date
Summer 1969
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Degree Granting Institution
Catholic University of America
Program Name
Humanities
Abstract
This dissertation is an endeavor to examine only a small segment of a tumultuous period in Nevada history. The Comstock Lode and Virginia City are justly famous and much has been written their beginnings, but of the early days of two of the major mining towns in the Humboldt range of Nevada--namely, Unionville and Star City--and their close connection and dependency upon the towns were founded in 1861, but there was no newspaper for the for the area until the publication of the first issue of The Humboldt Register, May 2, 1863. The Sacramento Union of Sacramento, California, from 1861 on, occasionally ran letters from correspondents, small articles, and quotations from other newspapers concerning this region. This writer has pieced together for the first time much of this fragmentary material in an effort to give fi coherent picture, illuminating as far as possible the beginnings of the area, the Indian troubles, and the adversities the miners had to surmount. Neither the miner nor the Indian was prepared for the other, and each reacted according to his need and environment with sometimes disastrous results for both. This work emphasizes the Indian, why his difficulties existed, his attacks against the whites, the problem he represented to the miners and ranchers, and what they did about it. Such an emphasis involves unraveling a complex situation: first presenting the early exploration and settlement of Nevada, and then depicting the Indian and his treatment thereafter.