Ione Band of Miwok Indians
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 750 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 United States ( California) |
|
| Languages | |
|
English, historically Northern Sierra Miwok language |
|
| Related ethnic groups | |
| other Miwok tribes |
The Ione Band of Miwok Indians is a federally recognized tribe of Miwok people in Amador County, California. As of the 2010 census the population was only 5.
The Ione Band conducts business from Plymouth, California. The tribe is led by an elected council. The current tribal administration is as follows.
Miwok people lived in over a hundred villages along the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, as well as north of the San Francisco Bay area east into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Ione Miwok oral history says the tribe comes from the Buena Vista Peaks, south of Ione, California, when the Sacramento Valley was covered by water.
European contact came in the 19th century, when Spanish explorers descended upon Miwok lands. They enslaved thousands of Indians during the mission system period. Smallpox and other epidemics hit the Miwok between 1820 and 1840, which drastically reduced the Indian population. Before the Spanish first landed on California soil, there were about 22,00 Miwok Indians within the region; today there are about 750.
John Sutter built his fort in 1839 and continued enslaving Indians. He raided around Ione. The 1848–50 California Gold Rush brought an onslaught of non-Native people into the region. This massive inflow of people seeking fortune lead to settlers invading their land in the Sierra foothills; many of their hunting and gathering areas were then occupied. This led to extremely violent and even deadly clashes between the immigrants and the Indians.
Spurred by the violence created by the newcomers onto indigenous Californians' lands, the United States federal government negotiated three treaties with the Ione Miwok. The US Congress never ratified the treaties, and the public did not learn about them until 1905. They were pushed off their ancestral lands and denied human rights or protection. This forced the Miwok people into homelessness, forced to develop a new lifestyle with means to survive. Some were able to survive by relocating and uniting with neighboring tribes in the Sierra foothills, which created amalgamated (merged groups of Native Americans) or by working as laborers on ranches.
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