The Quechan are an aboriginal American tribe who live on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation on the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California just north of the Mexican border. Members are enrolled into the Quechan Tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation; the federally recognized Quechan tribe's main office is located in California. Its operations and the majority of its reservation land are located in United States; the historic Yuman-speaking people in this region were skilled warriors and active traders, maintaining exchange networks with the Pima in southern Arizona, New Mexico, with peoples of the Pacific coast. The first significant contact of the Quechan with Europeans was with the Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and his party in the winter of 1774. Relations were friendly. On Anza's return from his second trip to Alta California in 1776, the chief of the tribe and three of his men journeyed to Mexico City to petition the Viceroy of New Spain for the establishment of a mission.

The chief Palma and his three companions were baptized in Mexico City on February 13, 1777. Palma was given the Spanish baptismal name Salvador Carlos Antonio. Spanish settlement among the Quechan did not go smoothly, they attacked and damaged the Spanish mission settlements of San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuñer and Puerto de Purísima Concepción, killing many. The following year, the Spanish retaliated with military action against the tribe. After the United States annexed the territories after winning the Mexican–American War, it engaged in the Yuma War from 1850 to 1853. During which, the historic Fort Yuma was built across the Colorado River from the present day Yuma, Arizona. Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. Kroeber put the 1770 population of the Quechan at 2,500. Jack D. Forbes compiled historical estimates and suggested that before they were first contacted, the Quechan had numbered 4,000 or a few more. Kroeber estimated the population of the Quechan in 1910 as 750.

By 1950, there were reported to be just under 1,000 Quechan living on the reservation and more than 1,100 off it. The 2000 census reported a resident population of 2,376 persons on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation, only 56.8 percent of whom said they were of Native American heritage. More than 27 percent of these persons identified as white; the Quechan language is part of the Yuman language family. The Fort Yuma Indian Reservation is a part of the Quechan's traditional lands. Established in 1884, the reservation, at 32°47′N 114°39′W, has a land area of 178.197 km2 in southeastern Imperial County and western Yuma County, near the city of Yuma, Arizona. Both the county and city are named for the tribe. Quechan traditional narratives Quechan language Fort Yuma Blythe geoglyphs Indigenous peoples of the Americas Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas Native Americans in the United States Forbes, Jack D.. Warriors of the Colorado: The Yumas of the Quechan Nation and Their Neighbors. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Kroeber, A. L.. Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin. 78. Washington, DC. Pritzker, Barry M.. A Native American Encyclopedia: History and Peoples. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-513877-1. Zappia, Natale A.. Traders and Raiders: The Indigenous World of the Colorado Basin, 1540-1859. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. "Yuma Reservation, California/Arizona". United States Census Bureau. Quechan Tribal Council, official website Fort Yuma-Quechan Tribe, Inter Tribal Council of Arizona

Matthias Sention Sr. was a founding settler of Dorchester, Massachusetts, of Windsor, Connecticut, of Wethersfield, Connecticut and of Norwalk, Connecticut. Matthias was the son of Joane St. John, he was the grandson of Thomas St. John and Jane Mathew and great-nephew to Sir William St. John, Knight of Highlight and his wife Eleanor St. John of Lydiard Tregoze, he was the great-grandson of Christopher St. John, Lord of Uchel-olau until his death, his wife Elizabeth Bawdrip; this St. John family came from a small, now abandoned, feudal village called Uchel-olau, Wales. Thomas St. John, Esquire removed to London after he was admitted to Gray's Inn, one of the four Inns of Court in 1577. Mathias' father, Christopher St. John was raised in London no than 1584 and married about 1600. Matthias appears to be his first born child. Sir William St. John, Knight his great uncle was a member of the Virginia Company of London and recorded in the early census records of Virginia. Sir William was back and forth between London and Colonial America until Matthias and his uncle Matthew came to America permanently.

Sir William had his own ships. Matthias' occupation as a chandler refers to ship chandler a service he provided for his great uncle, lord of Uchel-olau. Matthias and his uncle Matthew have been merged into 1 person in the 1907 St. John Genealogy book, he came to Dorchester, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1632. He was named a freeman on September 3, 1634, he received a grant of twenty acres of land there on January 14, 1635. In 1638, he sold his house to a Mr. Withington, in 1639, he sold his land to Withington too, he moved to Windsor, Connecticut Colony in 1640. He was granted land 18 rods deep adjacent to the palisades. In 1643 and 1644, he served as a member of a Grand jury. Matthias is listed as a settler in Wethersfield as early as 1648. Jonas Weede sold Matthias his land in Wethersfield in 1640. On several occasions he served on a jury, was himself challenged in court in Hartford. In some cases, the issue was either a debt owed to him. On one occasion, he was brought before the court accused of selling "syder to Indians by which they was Drunke".

On another occasion he won a judgment against Stephen Beckwith for defamation. In February 1658, Thomas Wickham bought Matthias' land in Wethersfield, he moved to Norwalk in 1654. In 1657, he is recorded as working with Isacke More, Edward Nash to "make and provide a good and sufficient wolfe-pit." The record states that Matthias was chosen in 1660, as a townsman "to act and agitate all such affairs and occasions as the orders of the court authoriseth and that for the Yere ensuinge." He is listed on the Founders Stone bearing the names of the founding settlers of Norwalk in the East Norwalk Historical Cemetery. Matthias Sension is the ancestor of many people with the surname St. John in America; the name was changed in the early 1700s. Ninth great-grandfather of George H. W. Bush John St. John Matthias Sention Jr. founding settler of Norwalk Mark Sension, deputy of the Connecticut General Assembly from Norwalk Stephen St. John, member of the Connecticut House of Representatives from Norwalk Stephen St. John, member of the Connecticut House of Representatives from Norwalk Frederick St. John Lockwood, member of the Connecticut House of Representatives from Norwalk St. John Family Website

Curtis Chip Kell is a former center in the Canadian Football League and for the University of Tennessee Volunteers college football team. Kell was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2006. In 1966, Kell set the Georgia All Classifications record for Avondale High School in the shot put, at a distance of 66' 7", a record that stood for 50 years until broken in 2016 by Isaiah Rogers of Campbell High School. Kell was drafted in the 17th round of the 1971 NFL Draft by the San Diego Chargers, he played for the Edmonton Eskimos of the CFL in 1971 and 1972. Kell was a three-time All SEC and two-time All-American performer for the Tennessee Volunteers football team, he helped lead the Vols to an SEC Championship in 1969. During Kell's time in Knoxville, Tennessee was undefeated at Shields–Watkins Field. In 2006, Kell was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, making him the 20th Tennessee player to be inducted. College Football Hall of Fame page