Wikipedia

California genocide

mass murder of the indigenous population of California due to violence, relocation and starvation as a result of the U.S. occupation of California

California genocide is the name for a series of systematic killings of thousands of people in California. It happened in the second half of the 19th century. Between 1846 and 1873, agents of the United States government killed indigeonous people. These people had lived in California before the European settlers came. Between 9,492 and 16,094 natives were directly killed. Many more people were either starved, or forced to work until they died. Their number is less clear; estimates range from several hundred to several thousand people.[4] Acts of enslavement, kidnapping, rape, child separation and forced displacement were widespread. These acts were encouraged, tolerated, and carried out by state authorities and militias.[8]

California genocide
"Protecting The Settlers", illustration by J. R. Browne in The Indians Of California, 1864
LocationCalifornia
Date1846–1873
TargetIndigenous Californians
Attack type
Genocide, ethnic cleansing, human hunting, slavery, rape, Indian removal
DeathsNo more than 2,000 (per Anderson)[1]
4,300 (per Cook)[2]
4,500 (per California Secretary of State)[3]
9,492–16,094 (per Madley)[4]
100,000+ (per Castillo/California Native American Heritage Commission)[5]
Injured
10,000–27,000[6][7] taken as forced laborers by white settlers; 4,000–7,000 of them children[7]
PerpetratorsUnited States Army, California State Militia, White American settlers

The killings started in 1846, when America had conquered California, after a war with Mexico. Many settlers came, because of the California Gold Rush. The native population of California was shrinking already, these factors increased the decline.

The 1925 book Handbook of the Indians of California estimated that the Indigenous population of California decreased from perhaps as many as 150,000 in 1848 to 30,000 in 1870. In 1900, only about 16.000 were left. The decline was caused by disease, low birth rates, starvation, killings, and massacres. California Natives, particularly during the Gold Rush, were targeted in killings.[9][10][11] Between 10,000 and 27,000[7] were also taken as forced labor by settlers. The state of California used its institutions to favor white settlers' rights over Indigenous rights, dispossessing natives.[12]

Since the 2000s several American academics and activist organizations have characterized the period immediately following the U.S. Conquest of California as one in which the state and federal governments waged genocide against the Native Americans in the territory. In 2019, California's governor Gavin Newsom stated, "It's called genocide. That's what it was, a genocide. No other way to describe it. And that's the way it needs to be described in the history books". He also apologized for the "violence, discrimination and exploitation sanctioned by state government throughout its history"[13] and called for a research group to be formed to better understand the topic and inform future generations.[14]

Timeline change

The following is a rough timeline of some of the key events and policies that contributed to the genocide. It is by no means comprehensive.

  • 1769: Spanish colonizers establish a mission system in California, which leads to the forced conversion and enslavement of Native Americans.[15][16][17]
  • 1821–1823: Mexico gains independence from Spain and takes control of California, continuing the Spanish government's policies of forced labor and conversion of Indigenous peoples.[18][17]
  • 1846–48: The Mexican–American War led to the annexation of California by the United States. The settlers and U.S. military formed an alliance and were joined by some Indigenous people, although the military had "murdered many natives".[19][17]
  • 1848: The discovery of gold in California leads to the influx of a massive horde of settlers, who form militias to kill and displace Indigenous peoples.[20][21][17]
  • 1850: The California Act for the Government and Protection of Indians is passed, legalizing the enslavement of Native Americans and allowing settlers to capture and force them into labor.[22][23]
  • 1851–52: The Mariposa War breaks out between white settlers and the Mariposa Battalion, resulting in the displacement and killing of Native Americans in the Sierra Nevada region.[24]
  • 1851–69: California pays bounties for the killing of Native Americans.[25][26]
  • 1860s: The federal government begins a policy of forced removal of Native Americans peoples to reservations, which leads to violence and displacement.[27]
  • Late 1800s–early 1900s: Indigenous children are forcibly removed from their families by the California government and placed in boarding schools, where they are subjected to abuse and forced assimilation.[28][29][30]
  • 1909: The California state government establishes the California Eugenics Record Office, which promotes the forced sterilization of people declared by the government to be "unfit", including "Black, Latino and Indigenous women who were incarcerated or in state institutions for disabilities".[31][32][33]


 
Estimated native California population based on Handbook of the Indians of California (1925) (Cook 1978)

Citations change

  1. ↑ Alexander Nazaryan (2016-08-17). "California's state-sanctioned genocide of Native Americans". Newsweek. Archived from the original on May 14, 2022. Retrieved 2022-05-14.
  2. ↑ Magliari, Michael F. (2013-08-01). "Review: Murder State: California's Native American Genocide, 1846–1873, by Brendan C. Lindsay". Pacific Historical Review. 82 (3): 448–449. doi:10.1525/phr.2013.82.3.448. ISSN 0030-8684. Archived from the original on July 10, 2023. Retrieved January 14, 2023.
  3. ↑ "Minorities During the Gold Rush". California Secretary of State. Archived from the original on February 1, 2014.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Madley, Benjamin (2016). An American Genocide, The United States and the California Catastrophe, 1846–1873. Yale University Press. pp. 11, 351. ISBN 978-0-300-18136-4.
  5. ↑ Castillo, Edward D. "California Indian History". California Native American Heritage Commission. Archived from the original on 2019-06-01.
  6. ↑ Pritzker, Barry. 2000, A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples. Oxford University Press, p. 114
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Exchange Team, The Jefferson. "NorCal Native Writes Of California Genocide". JPR Jefferson Public Radio. Info is in the podcast. Archived from the original on November 14, 2019.
  8. ↑ Adhikari, Mohamed (25 July 2022). Destroying to Replace: Settler Genocides of Indigenous Peoples. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. pp. 72–115. ISBN 978-1647920548. Archived from the original on March 26, 2023. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  9. ↑ Madley, Benjamin (2016). An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846–1873.
  10. ↑ Krell, Dorothy, ed. (1979). The California Missions: A Pictorial History. Menlo Park, California: Sunset Publishing Corporation. p. 316. ISBN 0-376-05172-8.
  11. ↑ "California Genocide". Indian Country Diaries. PBS. September 2006. Archived from the original on 2007-05-06.
  12. ↑ Lindsay, Brendan C. (2012). Murder State: California's Native American Genocide 1846–1873. United States: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 2, 3. ISBN 978-0-8032-6966-8.
  13. ↑ Cowan, Jill (19 June 2019). "'It's Called Genocide': Newsom Apologizes to the State's Native Americans". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
  14. ↑ "Governor Newsom Issues Apology to Native Americans for State's Historical Wrongdoings, Establishes Truth and Healing Council". California Governor. 2019-06-18. Retrieved 2023-10-14.
  15. ↑ Lightfoot, Kent G. (2005). "Colonial Period (1769–1821)". California Indians and Their Environment: An Introduction. Seattle: University of Washington Press. p. 48.[permanent dead link]
  16. ↑ Scharf, Thomas L. (Spring 1978). "Indian Labor at the California Missions: Slavery or Salvation?". The Journal of San Diego History. 24 (2). Archived from the original on June 2, 2023. Retrieved 2 June 2023.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 "The History of Colonization in California". Santa Clara University. Archived from the original on June 2, 2023. Retrieved 2 June 2023.
  18. ↑ Guilliams, Michael T. (2013). "California Indian Slavery in the Mission and Mexican Periods". Indigenous People and Economic Development: An International Perspective. New York: Routledge. p. 238.[permanent dead link]
  19. ↑ Weber, David J. (1994). "The Mexican War: 1846–1848". The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. p. 291. Archived from the original on April 26, 2023. Retrieved April 26, 2023.
  20. ↑ "The Gold Rush Impact on Native Tribes". PBS: The American Experience. Archived from the original on May 30, 2023. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  21. ↑ Hitchcock, Robert K.; Flowerday, Charles (2020). "Ishi and the California Indian Genocide as Developmental Mass Violence". Humboldt Journal of Social Relations. 1 (42: Special issue: California Indian Genocide and Healing): 69–85. doi:10.55671/0160-4341.1130. JSTOR 26932596.
  22. ↑ Madley, Benjamin (2016). "The Yuma Massacres, Western Genocide, and U.S. Colonization of Indigenous Mexico". An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846–1873. Yale: Yale University Press. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-19-921140-1. Archived from the original on April 26, 2023. Retrieved April 26, 2023.
  23. ↑ "The Gold Rush: Act for the Government and Protection of Indians". PBS: The American Experience. Archived from the original on June 5, 2023. Retrieved 2 June 2023.
  24. ↑ Treuer, David (May 2021). "Return the National Parks to the Tribes". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on May 31, 2023. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  25. ↑ "Untold History: The Survival of California's Indians". KCET and the Autry Museum of the American West. Archived from the original on April 5, 2023. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  26. ↑ La Tour, Jesse (7 July 2020). "The California Native American Genocide". Fullerton Observer. Archived from the original on May 30, 2023. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
  27. ↑ Prucha, Francis Paul (2000). "The Reservation System". American Indian Policy in the Formative Years: The Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts, 1790–1834. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. p. 352.[permanent dead link]
  28. ↑ Fenelon, James V.; Trafzer, Clifford E. (2014). "From Colonialism to Denial of California Genocide to Misrepresentations: Special Issue on Indigenous Struggles in the Americas". American Behavioral Scientist. 58 (1): 23–24. doi:10.1177/0002764213495045. ISSN 0002-7642.
  29. ↑ Ferris, Jean. "Let Those Children's Names be Known: The Paradox of Indian Boarding Schools". No. Winter 2021/2022. News from Native California. Retrieved 5 June 2023.
  30. ↑ Federis, Marnette; Kim, Mina (3 August 2021). "Examining the Painful Legacy of Native American Boarding Schools in the US". KQED. Archived from the original on May 29, 2023. Retrieved 29 May 2023.
  31. ↑ Mies-Tan, Sarah (20 July 2021). "For Decades, California Forcibly Sterilized Women Under Eugenics Law. Now, The State Will Pay Survivors". California Public Radio. Archived from the original on May 29, 2023. Retrieved 29 May 2023.
  32. ↑ Morris, Amanda (11 July 2021). "'You Just Feel Like Nothing': California to Pay Sterilization Victims". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 22, 2023. Retrieved 29 May 2023.
  33. ↑ "California tries to find 600 victims of forced sterilization for reparations". The Guardian. 5 January 2023. Archived from the original on May 29, 2023. Retrieved 29 May 2023.

References change

 

  • Browne, J. Ross (August 1861). "The Coast Rangers of California". Harper's New Monthly Magazine. 23.
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  • California Legislature (1860), California Legislature, Majority and Minority Reports of the Special Joint Committee on the Mendocino War, Sacramento{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Carranco, Lynwood; Beard, Estle (1981). Genocide and Vendetta, the Round Valley Wars of North California. Norman: University of Oklahoma.
  • Chapman, Charles E. (1921). A History of California; The Spanish Period. New York: The MacMillan Company.
  • Engelhardt, Zephyrin (1922). San Juan Capistrano Mission. Los Angeles, California: Standard Printing Co.
  • Heizer, Robert F. (1993). The Destruction of California Indians. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-7262-0.
  • Heizer, Robert (1974b). They Were Only Diggers: A Collection of Articles from California Newspapers, 1851-1866.
  • Hinton, Alexander Laban; Woolford, Andrew; Benvenuto, Jeff, eds. (2014). Colonial Genocide in Indigenous North America. Duke University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv11sn770.
  • Kelsey, Harry (1993). Mission San Juan Capistrano: A Pocket History. Altadena, California: Interdisciplinary Research, Inc. ISBN 978-0-9785881-0-6.
  • Luomala, Katharine (1978). "Tipai-Ipai". In Heizer, Robert F. (ed.). Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 8: California. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. pp. 592–609. ISBN 978-0-16004-574-5.
  • Madley, Benjamin (2012). "The Genocide of California's Yana Indians". In Totten, Samuel; Parsons, Williams S. (eds.). Centuries of Genocide: Essays and Eyewitness Accounts. Routledge. pp. 16–53. ISBN 978-0-415871-921.
  • Michno, Gregory F. (2003). Encyclopedia of Indian Wars: Western Battles and Skirmishes 1850–1890. Mountain Press Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0-87842-468-9.
  • Norton, Jack (1979). Genocide in Northwestern California : when our worlds cried. San Francisco: Indian Historian Press. ISBN 0-913436-26-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ignored ISBN errors (link)
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  • Rowley, Gavin (2020). Defining Genocide in Northwestern California: The Devastation of Humboldt and Del Norte County's Indigenous Peoples. Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, No. 42, Special Issue 42: California Indian Genocide and Healing, pp. 86-105.
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