The People of Tsulu

From a tribe that was estimated in 1857 to number 500-600 people, the Chilula Indians have been reduced to “two or three families and a few persons incorporated with the Hupa” within a few short years of contacting white settlers. The Chilula are connected with the Hupa and Whilkut Indians.

While they called themselves the Tsulu-la, the “people of Tsulu,” after the name of their home, locally, they were known as the Bald Hills Indians. They lived on and Redwood Creek to a few miles above Minor Creek.

The whites’ trails from Trinidad and Humboldt Bay to the gold camps on the Klamath and Trinity crossed the Bald Hills. And like the other tribes, the Bald Hills Indians suffered harsh treatment at the hands of the incoming migration.

Finally the tribe was rounded up and moved to the Hoopa Reservation and to Fort Bragg. But blood feuds took their toll, and by 1919 the Chilula were nearly decimated.