Wintu

The Wintu lived in the northern Sacramento Valley and the mountains to its west, with communities also along the upper Trinity and lower McCloud Rivers. Acorns were ground into flour for soups and bread, and families gathered at the rivers for the spring and autumn salmon runs. Along Clear Creek, villages occupied the lower country in winter while people moved into the mountains in summer to hunt and gather.

Jedediah Smith's expedition encountered the Wintu in 1826, followed by Peter Skene Ogden's party the next year. Between 1830 and 1833, an epidemic of malaria killed many Wintu and other Indigenous people in the upper Sacramento Valley. The disease reached communities whose lives had long followed the seasonal rhythms of the rivers and mountains.