Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology

Albert Hurtado published an intriguing picture in his book Indian Survival on the California Frontier that portrayed an Indian village on Dry Creek, near the present- day town of Thornton. After becoming fascinated by the image and the story that went with it, I tracked down some additional background information on the village and on an attack that it sustained from the neighboring whites. Aspects of the village shown in the drawing—including a mixture of what appear to be conical tule houses mixed with slab-sided tent-like dwellings, and what looks like a wooden stockade wall—suggest a mixed community with some background in European warfare. After consulting contemporary newspaper accounts and census records, additional details came to light on the incident. This article thus becomes a useful case study on the complicated Indian/White interactions, often leading to violence, of the 1850s.