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What Happened During the California Genocide?

In 1851, California governor Peter Hardeman Burnett gave his “State of the State” address. Among his goals for the year, he said “that a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected.” (emphasis added in case it wasn’t horrific enough)

In the late 1840s as the Gold Rush brought more settlers to California, treaties with the Native American people who lived in those areas were broken. The United States government not only encouraged these crimes, but rewarded it. In California specifically, the legislature passed the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians in 1850. Rather than protect the Native Americans, as the name would imply, the government rewarded settlers per the amount of Native Americans they murdered and the horses they stole.

An estimated 1.7 million dollars in rewards was handed out for the murder of around sixteen thousand people. The Act also included a long list of a variety of “crimes” a Native person could be found guilty of and the punishment was often forced servitude. Remember, this was before the Civil War and the African Americans were not the only ethnicity to be forced into enslavement.

What Happened After the California Genocide?

The genocidal campaign resulted in an eighty percent reduction of the Native American people in the area over just twenty-four years. This time period is also when Native Americans saw the rise of “residential schools,” meant to erase their traditions and cultures and force assimilation to that of the white colonizers. Of the people who did not get murdered, the children were kidnapped and sent to the residential schools, while the adults were forced into physical ranch labor on the lands they used to call home.

In 1852, Senator John Weller (who later was also elected Governor of California) stated “California Indians will be exterminated before the onward march of the white man.” Native Americans were not allowed to vote, hold office, or become lawyers, so they were entirely at the mercy of the colonizers and settlers. When the Declaration of Independence said “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights – that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that really only applied back then if you happened to also be born white.

California Governor Apologizes

As with a lot of uncomfortable history, these horrific times were not really talked about, remembered mostly by those who survived or the families of the victims throughout the generations. Finally, in 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom hosted a press conference. During the conference, he issued a formal apology to the Native Americans of California for the California Genocide. I would encourage you to watch this video report of the conference and hear part of Governor Newsom’s words.

While naming the violence appropriately and saying the words “I’m sorry” are a start, we are far from healed as a country. Native American nations all over America are still fighting for Land Back and proper recognition. We as a country owe our support to the Native nations who have done their best to survive in the face of so much American-caused destruction.

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