Nataqua Territory

United States Nevada  Nataqua Territory

Nataqua Territory was an unrecognized provisional United States territory in northeast California and western Nevada from 1856 to 1861. At the time the location of the eastern boundary of California and the western boundary of Utah were still vague. Utah in 1849 had claimed land as far as the crest of the Sierra Nevada.

Twenty residents of Susanville in Honey Lake Valley (now in Lassen County, California) on the east slope of the Sierra Nevada apparently did not feel they were part of California, and did not care to be part of Utah. Led by Peter Lassen and Isaac Roop, they met in "mass convention" 26 April 1856 at Roop's house. Their main purpose was to draw up rules for, and promote their valley. In the process the convention wrote, "Inasmuch as Honey Lake Valley is not within the limits of California, the same is declared a new territory . . . the said territory to be named Nataqua . . ." They went on to define a rectangle shaped territory by latitude and longitude which technically did not include their own valley, but did encompass most of what soon became western Nevada. About 600 residents of future Nevada were apparently unaware of the Honey Lake Valley "convention." The convention elected Peter Lassen as governor of Nataqua. After Lassen died, in September 1859 Isaac Roop was elected first territorial governor of the proposed Nevada Territory. The provisional government convened in Genoa (aka Mormon Station) on 15 December 1859.

William Newell Davis, Jr., "The Territory of Nataqua: an Episode in Pioneer Government East of the Sierra," California Historical Society Quarterly 21, No. 3 (September 1942), 225-238 http://www.jstor.org/stable/25161008