Editing Wintu (section)

==History==
{{see also|California Genocide}}

The first recorded encounter between Wintu and [[Euro-American]]s dates from the 1826 expedition of [[Jedediah Smith]], followed by an 1827 expedition led by [[Peter Skene Ogden]].  Between 1830 and 1833, many Wintu died from a [[malaria]] [[epidemic]] that killed an estimated 75% of the indigenous population in the upper and central [[Sacramento Valley]].<ref name="Pritzker-2000">{{Cite book |last=Pritzker |first=Barry |title=A Native American Encyclopedia History, Culture, and Peoples |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2000 |isbn=9780195138979 |page=152}}</ref>

Settlers hoped to come to an agreement with the Wintu tribes over land. They tried to take over Wintu land and relocate them west of Clear Creek in exchange for peace, money and citizenship. Instead there was disagreement, slavery, and war. In 1846, [[John C. Frémont]] and [[Kit Carson]] accompanied by local white settlers killed several hundred Wintu in the [[Sacramento River massacre]]. At a "friendship feast" in 1850, settlers served poisoned food to local natives, from which 100 ''Nomsuu'' and 45 [[Winnemem Wintu|Wenemem Wintu]] died. More deaths of Wintu and destruction of their land followed in 1851 and 1852, in incidents such as the [[Bridge Gulch Massacre]].<ref>LaPena, 1978:324</ref> The increasing population of settlers moving west, as for the California Gold Rush, put pressure on the settlers to relocate Native Americans like the Wintu.