The Pomo people lived in a stretch of northern California roughly 50 miles north of San Francisco, spanning from the Pacific Ocean inland to Clear Lake. Their territory covered about 90 miles from south to north and 50 miles from coast to lake, encompassing coastal redwood forests, river valleys, and lakeshores across what is now Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake Counties.
Seven Groups Across One Region
The Pomo were not a single unified tribe but seven distinct groups, each speaking its own language within the Pomoan language family. Scholars typically identify them by direction: Southwestern, Southern, Central, Northern, Northeastern, Eastern, and Southeastern Pomo. Two of these groups had their own names for themselves. The Southwestern Pomo called themselves Kashaya, and the Northeastern Pomo were known as the Salt Pomo.
Six of the seven groups lived in a continuous block of territory. The seventh, the Salt Pomo, occupied a small, separate area on the east side of the Inner Coast Range, about 20 miles northeast of the main body of Pomo land.
The Coast: Kashaya Territory
The Kashaya (Southwestern Pomo) held a roughly 30-mile stretch of the Sonoma County coastline, from the Gualala River in the north down to Duncan’s Point, a few miles south of the Russian River. Their territory wasn’t just a narrow coastal strip. It reached inland about 30 miles, crossing four coastal ridges and following Warm Springs Creek down to its meeting point with Dry Creek. This was the coast-redwood region, with fog-drenched forests and access to both ocean resources and inland game.
The Russian River Valleys
Moving inland from the coast, the Southern, Central, and Northern Pomo lived in a chain of valleys along the Russian River drainage. Each group controlled its own section of the river system, and all three also had territorial extensions reaching west to the Pacific coast. The Russian River corridor provided fertile land, freshwater fishing, and dense oak groves that supplied acorns, a dietary staple. One Northern Pomo community also held a portion of the northwestern shore of Clear Lake, bridging the river valleys and the lake basin.
Clear Lake: Eastern and Southeastern Pomo
Clear Lake, the largest natural freshwater lake entirely within California, anchored the eastern side of Pomo territory. The Eastern Pomo (sometimes called “Clear Lake Pomo”) lived along the lake’s eastern and northern shores, with five main settlement clusters. These were centered in Big Valley south of present-day Lakeport, along Kelsey Creek on the south shore, in Clover Valley northeast of Upper Lake, along Middle Creek in Upper Lake Valley, and on the north shore. Villages were typically set back from the lakeshore along streams rather than right at the water’s edge.
The Southeastern Pomo had a more unusual arrangement. They lived on three islands in the southeastern part of Clear Lake, while also owning and using portions of the adjacent mainland. Island living gave them natural defense and direct access to the lake’s fish, waterfowl, and tule reeds used for building and weaving.
The Salt Pomo: An Isolated Enclave
The Northeastern Pomo, or Salt Pomo, were geographically separated from every other Pomo group. They lived on the far side of the Inner Coast Range, roughly 20 miles northeast of the nearest Pomo neighbors. Their name comes from the salt deposits in their territory, which made them valuable trading partners. Despite the distance, they maintained linguistic and cultural ties to the broader Pomo world.
Forced Removal in the 1800s
Pomo connections to these lands were violently disrupted in the 19th century. Between 1821 and 1828, Spanish missionaries took many Southern Pomo from the Santa Rosa Plain to Mission San Rafael. In the Russian River Valley, a missionary colonized and baptized the Makahmo Pomo near present-day Cloverdale, driving many Pomo out of the valley entirely.
The situation worsened after the California Gold Rush. The Russian River Valley was settled by miners in 1850, and the Lake Sonoma Valley was rapidly homesteaded. White settlers used bullwhips and guns to force Pomo people off their land, and the U.S. government established four Pomo reservations in 1851 and 1852. In 1856, many Pomo were forcibly marched to Round Valley, a remote reservation in northern Mendocino County, in what became known as the “Marches to Round Valley.” The stated justification was that removing the Pomo from their ancestral land would “protect their culture.”
Where Pomo Communities Are Today
Despite that displacement, Pomo people maintained a presence in their homeland. Today, at least 13 federally recognized Pomo tribes and rancherias operate in northern California, many of them located within or near the original Pomo territory. These include the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians near Clear Lake, the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians at Stewarts Point Rancheria on the Sonoma coast, the Hopland Band in Mendocino County, the Cloverdale Rancheria along the Russian River, and the Elem Indian Colony at Sulphur Bank on Clear Lake.
Others include the Dry Creek Rancheria, Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake, Manchester Band of Pomo Indians on the Mendocino coast, Middletown Rancheria, Pinoleville Pomo Nation near Ukiah, Redwood Valley Band, Scotts Valley Band, and Sherwood Valley Rancheria. Several additional rancherias with partial Pomo heritage, such as the Guidiville Rancheria, Robinson Rancheria, Lytton Rancheria, and Potter Valley Tribe, also hold federal recognition. The Round Valley Reservation in Covelo remains home to a confederation of tribes that includes Pomo descendants of those forced relocations in the 1850s.