ABOUT

In the early part of the 20th century, the homeless Maidu bands at Strawberry Valley and Anthony House, were awarded a rancheria which later became famous for it's status as being among the smallest reservations in the United States. Measuring about one-third of an acre, even that tiny parcel of land was taken from them during the termination policies of the 1950's and later sold to non-Indians in the 1960's. Termination was to be a process of removing Indians and their land from federal trust and was implemented upon a 1948 Hoover Commission recommendation, with the California Indians to be the first recipients. While the US was spending millions of dollars on the post WWII reconstruction of Germany and Japan, it had simply decided to drop it's own natives along the side of the road. This task fell on Dillon Meyer, the commissioner of Indian Affairs during the 1950's whose principal resume item was the administration of the Japanese-American concentration camps during WWII. Several termination bills were introduced during this time by the Indian Service and they specifically targeted California Indians.

Strawberry Valley Rancheria (1918-1961) had been located approximately 30 miles east of Marysville, California in the Sierra foothills, in close proximity to the places of cultural and historical significance to the Strawberry Valley Maidu. Places where important tribal activities occurred and still occur to this day. The Strawberry Valley Maidu have held grass games and gatherings since time immemorial around the areas straddling portions of Yuba, Plumas, Sierra and Butte counties. The Sutter Buttes are the Creator's holy lands and the Strawberry Valley Maidu have gazed upon the Buttes from the foothills since before European time.