Valley Indians in an
article in the Hesperian Magazine entitled Notes on Napa Valley (1860,
p. 55). He gives the same tribes, or subtribes, as were mentioned by
Yount in the manuscript edited by Camp. These were the Mayacomas, the
Callajomanas, the Caymus, the Napa Indians, the Soscol, and the Ulacas.
He then adds the following:

Their rancherias were numerous throughout the length of the
valley.... It is not known how many of these Indians there were, no
census having been taken nor any careful estimate having been made,
at the time, by anybody. Mr. Yount thinks their number was not less
than three thousand, and possibly twice as many. It would have been
an easy matter to collect a thousand warriors in those times.

Shortly afterward C. A. Menefee (1873) wrote a history of Napa and
adjacent counties, using Hittell and Alexander Taylor as his only
written authorities. No historical scholar in the professional sense,
Menefee nevertheless devoted a full chapter to the Napa Valley Indians,
and gives evidence of having undertaken to secure such information as
he could from local residents. His statements are not sensational and
appear within reasonable limits to be reliable.

He lists the six tribes exactly as does Hittell. He expands on
Hittell's quotation from Yount thus (1873, p. 19): Yount said that "in
round numbers there were from 10,000 to 12,000 Indians ranging the
country between Napa and Clear Lake. Of this number he [Yount] says
there were at least 3,000 in Napa County, and perhaps twice that
number." At one point Menefee comments (1873, p. 18): "No estimate of
their [Indians'] numbers appears to have been made until 1823, and it
was known that they had then greatly decreased."

Menefee's principal contribution, however, is a rough computation of
the surviving Indian population in 1843. This estimate occurs nowhere
else to my knowledge, and I think was no doubt secured by Menefee
through personal interviews with early settlers. He says (1873, p. 18)
that there were 50 to 100 Indians on the Bale rancho, 400 at Caymus
rancho, 600 at Salvador rancho, a "large number" at Soscol. Amplifying
this count, he says: "It was the custom of the Indians to establish
their rancherias upon the grants of the early settlers, in order to
gain a livelihood by occasional labor." Also: "These were in some sense
permanently fixed and residing constantly in one place. Besides these
there were thousands of nom