Hudson’s Bay Company Fur Trappers

The first Hudson’s Bay Company brigade enters the Sacramento Valley when Alexander Roderick McLeod leads a party of French Canadians south from Fort Vancouver.  By 1832 they  are trapping for fur along what is now called Cache Creek.  The trappers refer to the creek as “Riviere la Cache” because they have a cache (or “hiding spot” in French) there for their traps. Venereal disease is transmitted from the Europeans to the Patwin people. Social disruption is compounded with extensive flooding in 1832, which leads to an outbreak of malaria that kills an estimated 75 percent of the native people of the Sacramento Valley.