Honoring Native Land

Rock shelters in Central Nevada show archaeological evidence for ancestral Newe seasonal occupation for more than 7,000 years. In 1863 the Treaty of Ruby Valley formally recognized most of Nevada as the Newe (Western Shoshone) Territory. The treaty asked for safe passage through the Newe Territory for US citizens, protection for the Pony Express, and permit mining for gold on their land and future construction of railroads. A century later in 1962, the Newe people filed to reclaim their land, which had never been relinquished or ceded to the United States or to the Euro-American settlers.  In 1979, the Indian Claims Commission awarded a $26 million land claim settlement to the Newe people. The US Supreme Court ruled in 1985 that the Newe land claims were extinguished by this financial settlement. The Newe refused to take the money. Today, the Morey Peak and the surrounding area is within the Newe traditional homelands and remains contested. The ancestral Newe people were documented in the Morey Peak area by the earliest Euro-American explorers.  Jedediah Smith described Newe people in the area in 1827.  The early 20th century antropologist, Julian Steward documented Newe families living in the Hot Creek and Tybo locations and described the lifeways and resources they used.  By this time, however,  their traditional hunting and gathering economy had been permanently disrupted by EuroAmerican settlers, squatters, livestock, and resource extraction.  Despite these disruptions, the Newe continued to follow their traditions and attend gatherings of other Newe People in places like Duckwater, Kawich, and Biabahuna (Little Smoky Valley).   

History

Jedediah Smith exited Hot Creek Canyon and camped near the mouth of Sixmile Canyon in the shadow of Morey Peak on June 10th, 1827.  The following day, June 11, he crossed the Hot Creek Valley toward the northeast and camped in the southern Heart Hills. In both locations he documented interactions with Newe people. Most of the later Euro-American explorers followed and documented routes further north of Smith's 1827 crossing. In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought an official end to the Mexican-American War (1846-48) and ceded the lands claimed by Mexico in Nevada to the United States. In 1849, Brigham Young proclaimed all the lands of Utah and Nevada as the "State of Desertet." In response, the US Government decreed that the same area as the Territory of Utah. In 1861, the westernmost part of this combined territory (west of the 116th meridian) was recognized as Nevada Territory. Soon after statehood, in 1864, silver was discovered in the Morey mining district in 1865 along the northern edge of the Morey Wilderness Study Area. The Tybo Mining district was organized in 1870 and the smelting of ore required an insatiable appetite for wood and charcoal. The demand for wood led to the numerous charcoal kilns in the area, including along South Six-mile Canyon.  Each set of kilns is estimated to have consumed 4,000 acres of trees over their short life-spans. The rapacious destruction of the pinyon forests the Newe people depended upon most have be unimaginable to these indigenous people. Life in the the Hot Creek mountain was not harmonious, according to Mitchell and Mitchell's Guide to Historic Places in Nye County (1981) the Irish, Cornish, and Europeans hated one another and they all hated Asians.  After the construction of the Trans-Continental Railroad, primarily Chinese workers found employment as wood choppers for the Tybo mining charcoal demands. Apparently an armed posse ordered the Asians out of the district, under the threat of death if they stayed. The first mining boom ended in 1891 and the town remained quiet until 1929 when a floatation mill was installed and ran for 8 years. During its heyday, Tybo was a transportation center, connected to other mining communities throughout Central Nevada by regular stagecoach service. Today, several of these stagecoach stations are still standing in the shadow of Morey Peak.