The First Peoples

For thousands of years, the American River has been an important place of habitation, resource gathering, and processing for the native Nisenan Maidu and Plains Miwok people. Their daily lives were drastically altered with the establishment of Mexican land grants beginning in 1839 and with the discovery of gold in 1848. Jane Lewis, known to friends and family as Koto Jane, was born in the Nisenan Maidu village of Anaape near present-day Orangevale in about 1840. In the 1860s, when soldiers passed through this area to forcibly relocate Nisenan people, she found temporary shelter in Folsom's Chinatown. Until her death in 1945, she helped maintain tribal traditions including basket making and medicinal herbal remedies which marked the beginning of the acorn harvest each year. Despite centuries of harm brought by European colonists and damaging policies of the U.S. Government, descendants of the original Nisenan Maidu and Plains Miwok inhabitants persevere, and Native Californians continue to advocate for social justice, self-determination, and respect for the enviroment.

Orangevale, California · United States