The Yosemite Valley, California. Cathedral rocks are on the right and El Capitan is on the left. A valley filled with trees, a body of water in the foreground, and two massive rock outcroppings to either side.
15 September 2021
While Yosemite is not the first National Park, it is the first land the U.S. federal government set aside for preservation and public use. The Yosemite Grant of 1864, signed into law by Abraham Lincoln, designated the land as a park and turned it over to the state of California for administration. When the National Park Service was created in 1916, Yosemite was transferred to its jurisdiction.
The name Yosemite is from the Southern Sierra Miwak yoşşe’meti (they are killers), a name given to the people of the valley, a group made up of renegades from various Paiute tribes, by outside groups.
English use of the Indigenous tribal name dates to at least 3 September 1852, when it appears in the Pacific newspaper:
If Lieut. Moore and his company have failed from circumstances over which they had no control, in chastising the Yosemites and inducing them to preserve a peaceable bearing towards the white population, the expedition has been eminently useful in the exploration of a region of the country which has never before been trodden by white men.
The toponym is recorded a year later in the 24 December 1853 issue of the Daily California Chronicle:
The Yosemite Valley and region contiguous are possessed by a tribe of Indians bearing the name. They are savage and mischievous, as many resident in and near the Mariposa, Agua Fria, Bear Valley, and Shirlock’s settlements, can bear testimony, by irritating experience of recent systematic loss and destruction of property, and sometimes of life by the incautious and venturous.
Sources:
Bright, William. Native American Placenames of the United States. Norman: U of Oklahoma Press, 2004.
Everett-Heath, John. Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names, sixth ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2020. Oxfordreference.com.
“Interesting Discoveries.” The Pacific (San Francisco), 3 September 1852, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Yosemite Falls—1800 Feet High.” Daily California Chronicle, 24 December 1853, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Photo credit: Rainier Marks, 1999. Public domain image.