Collections Represented « California Indian History

COLLECTIONS REPRESENTED

July 2026

As a scholarly online digital archive and evolving thematic research collection, the California Indian History website timelines and educational resources include primary sources from a growing number of public domain online archives and other collections.

As of July 2026, there are 4,900 citations entered onto the timelines (1846 – 1877). Seventeen percent (17%) are citations only for primary sources in the Indian War Papers (IWP) collection (828 entries) located at the California State Archives in Sacramento, California. Forty-one (41) California newspapers are represented from twenty-four (24) counties:

Amador Ledger Dispatch (Amador: Jackson, 1855-1870)
Daily Alta California (San Francisco: San Francisco, 1849-1891)
Weekly Alta California (San Francisco: San Francisco, 1849)
Butte Record (Butte: Bidwell, Oroville, Chico, 1853-1858)
The California Star (San Francisco: San Francisco, 1847-1848)
The California Star and Californian (San Francisco: San Francisco, 1848)
The Californian (Monterey: Monterey, 1846-1848)
Empire County Argus (El Dorado: Coloma, 1853-1856)
Georgetown News (El Dorado: Georgetown, 1854-1856)
Grass Valley Telegraph (Nevada: Grass Valley, 1853-1858)
Humboldt Weekly Times (Klamath; Humboldt: Eureka, Union; Arcata, 1854-1869)
Los Angeles Star (Los Angeles: Los Angeles, 1851-1864)
Marin County Tocsin (Marin: San Rafael, 1861-1879)
Marin Journal (Marin: San Rafael, 1861-1879)
Mariposa Gazette (Mariposa: Mariposa, 1861-1879)
Marysville Daily Appeal (Yuba: Marysville, 1860-1876)
Marysville Daily Evening Herald (Yuba: Marysville, 1850-1858)
Weekly Mountain Democrat (El Dorado: Placerville, 1854-1860)
Napa County Reporter (Napa: Napa, 1857-1865)
Nevada Democrat (Nevada: Nevada City, 1856-1862)
Nevada Journal (Nevada: Nevada City, 1851-1863)
Oroville Weekly Union (Butte: Oroville, 1863-1864)
Petaluma Weekly and Sonoma County Journal (Sonoma: Petaluma, 1856-1864)
Placer Herald (Sacramento: Sacramento, 1849-1850; Placer: Auburn, 1852-1868)
Placer Times (Sacramento: Sacramento; El Dorado: Placerville, 1849-1850)
Red Bluff Beacon (Tehama: Red Bluff, 1860-1874)
Red Bluff Independent (Tehama: Red Bluff, 1860-1864)
Sacramento Transcript (Sacramento: Sacramento, 1850-1851)
Sacramento Union (Sacramento: Sacramento, 1851-1879)
San Diego Herald (San Diego, 1851-1859)
San Francisco Daily Herald (San Francisco: San Francisco, 1852-1856)
San Francisco Evening Bulletin (San Francisco: San Francisco, 1855-1864)
San Joaquin Republican (San Joaquin: Stockton, 1851-1872)
Shasta Courier (Shasta: Redding, 1853-1873)
Sierra Citizen (Sierra: Downieville, 1854-1860)
Sonoma County Journal (Sonoma: Petaluma, 1856-1864)
Sonoma Democrat (Sonoma: Santa Rosa, 1857-1886)
Trinity Journal (Trinity: Weaverville, 1854-1866)
Tulare County Record (Tulare: Visalia, 1859)
Union Democrat (Tuolumne: Sonora, 1854-1870)
Visalia Weekly Delta (Tulare: Visalia, 1859-1861)

Note: California became a state on September 9, 1850. The twenty–seven (27) original counties created in 1850 included: San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Branciforte, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Marin, Sonoma, Solano, Yola [Yolo], Napa, Mendocino, Sacramento, El Dorado, Sutter, Yuba, Butte, Colusi [Colusa], Shasta, Trinity, Calaveras, San Joaquin, Tuolumne, and Mariposa. Nevada, Placer, and Klamath counties were created in 1851. Siskiyou, Sierra and Tulare Counties were created in 1852. Humboldt County was created in 1853. Tehama County was created in 1856. Del Norte County was created in 1857. Mendocino county was reorganized and administered separately from Sonoma in 1859. See generally, Owen C. Coy, The Genesis of California Counties (Berkeley: California Historical Survey Commission), 1923.

Listed below are collections represented at this website.

California Indian Historical Resources Project, California State Library

The California Indian Historical Resources Project (CIHRP) was developed over a three-year period (2003-2006) within the larger context of a concerted effort by staff at the California State Library to begin collaborative dialogues with California Native Americans.

The purpose of CIHRP was to provide access to unique archival documents from California’s historical newspapers, federal documents and reports, and State of California legislative materials related to California Indian history located in the collections at the California State Library, Sacramento, California (CSL). The documents are dated from the period of 1847 to 1868; 1920; and 1937. The CIHRP collection includes three CDs of scanned and digitally processed documents derived from CSL’s microfilm collections, along with corresponding limited searchable databases. Unfortunately, as is often the case in the rapidly changing world of technology, the databases are no longer compatible with current operating systems. Nevertheless, the digital images have been scanned, converted into PDFs, and are accessible via the California Indian History timelines. The CIHRP CD collection includes:

Early California Newspapers 1846-1866 – 3,343 items from 28 newspapers located in 17 early California counties.
Federal Documents Related to California Indians 1847-1868; 1920 – 396 documents.
State of California Indian Legislative History Documents 1849-1863; 1937 – 1,288 documents representing enacted and proposed laws and resolutions, and their corresponding bill histories.

The CIHRP was supported in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), a federal grant program administered by the California State Library.

California Digital Newspaper Collection, University of California, Riverside

As of July 1, 2026, five hundred forty-one (541) newspapers are represented in the California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC). The CDNC website states:

“The California Digital Newspaper Collection is a repository of historical California newspapers published from 1846-present…It also contains issues of current California newspapers, collected as PDFs, that are part of a project to preserve and provide access to contemporary papers.

In 2025, the Collection included 1,525,341 issues, comprising 23,449,221 pages and 53,713,870 articles.

The CDNC was part of a project of the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) at the University of California, Riverside.

CBSR operations were suspended July 1, 2025, due to funding constraints.

The CDNC was supported by funding provided by the State of California and administered by the California State Library, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The CDNC faced significant disruption to its funding over the first half of 2025.

Under the leadership of Daryle Williams, Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, UCR is exploring alternative academic partnerships to ensure continued public access to this important collection.”

The Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) website now states:

“The Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) was a humanities research center in the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. It was founded in 1989 and closed in June 2025. This website page is maintained for historical purposes.”

From the Spring of 2025 to the present, while visiting the CDNC website calindianhistory.org contributors (and many others) experienced disruptions, broken links and delays to accessing the CDNC site. Based upon UC Riverside’s current online statement, it is unclear what level of financial and administrative support the university will allocate in the future to ensure the level of public access that was enjoyed for decades prior to the Spring of 2025.

Office of Indian Affairs, 1849-1880, California Superintendency, American Indian Resources Center, County of Los Angeles Public Library

The American Indian Resources Center, County of Los Angeles Public Library (AIRC) has digitized a portion of the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) microfilm set related to California, the Letters of the Office of Indian Affairs, 1849-1880, California Superintendency. The collection contains letters from federal and state government officials and private citizens in California to the Office of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., on issues relating to California Indians immediately before and during the first 30 years of California’s statehood. The letters’ purpose was to keep the Office informed as to the status and developments in the governance of Indian affairs in California.

AIRC was established in 1979 to meet the informational, cultural and educational needs of Native Americans in Los Angeles County and to make information about them available to the larger community. The AIRC collection is the largest public library collection in the U.S. that focuses on American Indians.

Indian War Papers, Adjutant General’s Office, Military Records, California State Archives, Sacramento, California

The Indian War Papers, 1850-1880 (F3753), originated in the Adjutant General’s Office. These records evidence violence against, and killing of thousands of Indians that was sponsored by the State of California. Local militia and independent companies were usually formed to carry out murdering Indians and eliminating entire villages and rancherias in specific areas of the state. The record group includes militia muster rolls, field reports, claims, correspondence and two volumes of Expenditures for Military Expeditions Against Indians During the Years 1851-59. The documents are public records. Digital images of these primary sources are not currently available online. The State Archives has microfilmed the documents and for a fee may provide copies of the microfilm reels when requested. The images on the microfilm reels obtained and reviewed for this project often were in very poor condition. Thus, the date entries on the California Indian History website timelines are citations only from an online Indian War Papers Finding Aid that is no longer available at the California State Archives online portal. The finding aid included a description of the documents and the location of the original materials in the California State Archives files. It was created in the early 1980s.

The California State Archives collects, catalogs, preserves, and provides access to the historic records of state government and some local governments. The State Archives collection is primarily composed of records from California state agencies, the Governor’s Office, the State Legislature, and the State Supreme Court and Courts of Appeal. The records are organized under the name of the agency or office that transferred the records to the Archives. The collections also include some private papers that have been donated to the State Archives.