Sonoma County, also known as wine country, and its total of approximately 1,800 square miles, was officially founded in 1850. However, the area’s scenic beauty, rich soil, hospitable year-round climate, and Easy access to ocean and river fishing, as well as abundant game reserves, attracted inhabitants for many centuries. The Pomo, Coast Miwok, Patwin, and Wappo Indian tribes were its earliest known and documented inhabitants dating back to 8000 BC. And these early Native American Indian tribes who enjoyed their prosperous lives in peace and harmony until European settlers, more specifically the Spanish, arrived in the 19th century.
The Pomo Indians…
The Pomo Indians were actually made up of seventy smaller tribes, each with their own language and distinct territory within the region. What literally brought them all together was their art: the art of basket weaving practiced by both men and women. Everything about their lifestyles, their cultures, and their livelihoods was directly connected to their baskets and revolved around their making. The seventy basket-weaving tribes of the Pomo Indians used similar materials, used the same techniques, and derived forms that were quite similar.
The Pomo Indians were invaded in the 18th century by brutal Russian fur traders and, with the discovery of gold in 1848, by Americans. Their population was greatly reduced by murderous massacres, debilitating forced labor, as well as white man’s diseases. Due to the 1996 American Indian Reservations and Trust Areas, today’s Pomo Indians acquired a federally protected reservation.
Coast Miwok Indians…
The Coast Miwok Indians made the region we now call Sonoma County their home for more than five thousand years until they were captured and forced into slave labor by early Spanish settlers in the late 18th century.
Of the 600 villages discovered in the area, archaeologists discovered that the Coast Miwok had an extraordinarily rich and intricate culture that included hunting birds and large animals, fishing, acorn gathering and processing, basket making and beads, as well as ritual ceremonies. which incorporated dance and music. The language of the Coast Miwok Indians was unusually elaborate and extremely complicated.
The Patwin Indians…
The Patwin Indians are one of five other tribes (the Ululatos, the Libaytos, the Malacas, the Tolenas, and the Suisunes) within the larger group of Wintum who lived in the Sonoma Valley area for approximately four thousand years until they they were also brutalized by the invaders. Spaniards in the nineteenth century.
The Patwin Indians are best characterized as keepers and storytellers of local myths, powerful legends, tall tales and oral histories from their own families and the community at large. The Patwins firmly believed that their spiritual leaders, the shamans, could speak with the dead and heal the sick.
The Wappo Indians…
The Wappo Indians inhabited the general territory that is now Sonoma County and maintained their livelihood and rich traditions by hunting and gathering the bounty that the land provided, and their beautifully crafted baskets were so well constructed that they could hold water indefinitely.
The entire Wappo nation was forcibly baptized and absorbed into the various local Spanish missions.
