California genocide

California genocide
Part of the Conquest of California and California Gold Rush
"Protecting The Settlers", illustration by J. R. Browne for his work The Indians Of California, 1864
Location	California
Date	1846–1873
Target	Indigenous Californians
Attack type	Genocide, ethnic cleansing, human hunting, slavery, rape, Indian removal
Deaths	9,492 to 16,094 (Madley)[1] (other estimates: 4,500[2]–100,000[3]) indigenous Californians killed, thousands more died due to disease and other causes
Injured	10,000[4] to 27,000[5] Native Americans were taken as forced laborers by white settlers; 4,000[5] to 7,000[5] of them children
Perpetrators	United States Army, California State Militia, settlers of Mexican, Spanish and other European descent

The California genocide was the killing of thousands of indigenous peoples of California by United States government agents and private citizens in the 19th century. It began following the American Conquest of California from Mexico, and the influx of settlers due to the California Gold Rush, which accelerated the decline of the indigenous population of California. Between 1846 and 1873, it is conservatively estimated that American settlers murdered some 9,500 California Natives,^[1] and acts of enslavement, kidnapping, rape, child separation and displacement were widespread. These acts were encouraged, tolerated, and carried out by state authorities and militias.

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 and fell further to 16,000 in 1900. The decline was caused by disease, starvation, killings, and massacres. California Native Americans, particularly during the Gold Rush, were targeted in killings.^[6][7] Between 10,000^[4] and 27,000^[5] Native Americans 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.^[8]

Since the 2000s several American academics and activist organizations, both Native American and European American, 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 apologized for the genocide and called for a research group to be formed to better understand the topic and inform future generations.

Background[]

Indigenous peoples[]

Indigenous ethnic and (inset) linguistic groups of California prior to European arrival.

Prior to Spanish arrival, California was home to an indigenous population thought to have been as high as 300,000.^[9] The largest group were the Chumash people, with a population around 10,000.^[10] The region was highly diverse, with numerous distinct languages spoken. While there was great diversity in the area, archeological findings show little evidence of intertribal conflicts.^[7]

The various groups appear to have adapted to particular areas and territories. California habitats and climate supported an abundance of wildlife, including rabbits, deer, varieties of fish, fruit, roots, and acorns. The natives largely followed a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, moving around their area through the seasons as different types of food were available.^[11]

Contact[]

California was one of the last regions in the Americas to be colonized. Spanish missionaries, led by Franciscan administrator Junípero Serra and military forces under the command of Gaspar de Portolá, did not reach this area until 1769. The mission was intended to spread the Christian faith among the region's indigenous peoples and establish places to develop area resources and products for the empire. The Spanish built San Diego de Alcalá, the first of 21 missions, at what developed as present-day San Diego in the southern part of the state along the Pacific. Military outposts were constructed alongside the missions to house the soldiers sent to protect the missionaries.^{[citation needed]}

Spanish and Mexican rule were devastating for native populations. “As the missions grew, California’s native population of Indians began a catastrophic decline.”^[12] Gregory Orfalea estimates that pre-contact population was reduced by 33% during the Spanish and Mexican regimes. Most of the deaths stemmed from imported diseases and the disruption of traditional ways of life, but violence was common, and some historians have charged that life in the missions was close to slavery.^[13]

California statehood and genocide[]

In the latter half of the 19th century California state and federal authorities incited,^[14][15] aided, and financed miners, settlers, ranchers, and people's militias to enslave, kidnap, murder, and exterminate a major proportion of displaced Native Americans. The latter were sometimes contemptuously referred to as "Diggers", for their practice of digging up roots to eat. Many of the same policies of violence were used here against the indigenous population as the United States had done throughout its territory.^{[16][17][18][19][20][21][22]}

Simultaneous to the ongoing extermination, reports of the decimation of Native Americans were made to the rest of the United States and internationally.^{[note 1]}

The California Act for the Government and Protection of Indians was enacted in 1850 (amended 1860, repealed 1863). This law provided for "apprenticing" or indenturing Indian children to Whites, and also punished "vagrant" Indians by "hiring" them out to the highest bidder at a public auction if the Indian could not provide sufficient bond or bail. This legalized a form of slavery in California.^[23] White settlers took 24,000 to 27,000 California Native Americans as forced laborers, including 4,000 to 7,000 children.^[5]

A notable early eyewitness testimony and account: "The Indians of California" 1864, is from John Ross Browne, Customs official and Inspector of Indian Affairs on the Pacific Coast. He systematically described the fraud, corruption, land theft, slavery, rape, and massacre perpetrated on a substantial portion of the aboriginal population.^[24][25] This was confirmed by a contemporary, Superintendent Dorcas J. Spencer.^[26]

By one estimate, at least 4,500 Californian Indians were killed between 1849 and 1870.^[2] Contemporary historian has documented the numbers of Californian Indians killed between 1846 and 1873; he estimates that during this period at least 9,492 to 16,092 Californian Indians were killed by non-Indians. Most of the deaths took place in what he defined as more than 370 massacres (defined as the "intentional killing of five or more disarmed combatants or largely unarmed noncombatants, including women, children, and prisoners, whether in the context of a battle or otherwise").^[1]

The Native American activist and former Sonoma State University Professor Ed Castillo was asked by The State of California's Native American Heritage Commission to write the state's official history of the genocide; he wrote that "well-armed death squads combined with the widespread random killing of Indians by individual miners resulted in the death of 100,000 Indians in [1848 and 1849]."^[3]

List of recorded massacres[]

Population decline[]

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

Legacy[]

Call for tribunals[]

Native American scholar Gerald Vizenor has argued in the early 21st century for universities to be authorized to assemble tribunals to investigate these events. He notes that United States federal law contains no statute of limitations on war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide. He says:

Genocide tribunals would provide venues of judicial reason and equity that reveal continental ethnic cleansing, mass murder, torture, and religious persecution, past and present, and would justly expose, in the context of legal competition for evidence, the inciters, falsifiers, and deniers of genocide and state crimes against Native American Indians. Genocide tribunals would surely enhance the moot court programs in law schools and provide more serious consideration of human rights and international criminal cases by substantive testimony, motivated historical depositions, documentary evidence, contentious narratives, and ethical accountability.^[85]

Vizenor believes that, in accordance with international law, the universities of South Dakota, Minnesota, and California Berkeley ought to establish tribunals to hear evidence and adjudicate crimes against humanity alleged to have taken place in their individual states.^[86] Attorney Lindsay Glauner has also argued for such tribunals.^[87]

Apology by California's governor[]

In a speech before representatives of Native American peoples in June, 2019, California governor Gavin Newsom apologized for the genocide. Newsom said, "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."^[88] After hearing testimony, a Truth and Healing Council will clarify the historical record on the relationship between the state and California Native Americans.^[89]

See also[]

• California Indian Wars
• California mission clash of cultures
• Genocide of indigenous peoples
• List of Indian massacres
• Trail of Tears
• Long Walk of the Navajo
• 1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic
• Comanche campaign
• Yavapai Wars
• Northern Cheyenne Exodus

Notes[]

Citations[]

References[]