California genocide
Part of theCalifornia Indian Wars andNative American genocide in the United States
"Protecting The Settlers", illustration by J. R. Browne inThe Indians Of California, 1864
Location	California
Date	1846–1873
Target	Indigenous Californians
Attack type	Genocide,ethnic cleansing,human hunting,mass murder,slavery,rape,Indian removal
Deaths	No more than 2,000 (per Anderson)[1] 4,300 (perCook)[2] 4,500 (perCalifornia Secretary of State)[3] 9,492–16,094 (per Madley)[4]
Injured	10,000–27,000[5][6] taken as forced laborers by white settlers; 4,000–7,000 of them children[6]
Perpetrators	United States Army,California Militia,American pioneers/White Americans

TheCalifornia genocide was a series ofgenocidal massacres of theindigenous peoples of California byUnited States governments, soldiers and settlers during the 19th century.^[7] It began following the Americanconquest of California in theMexican–American War and the subsequent influx ofAmerican settlers to the region as a result of theCalifornia gold rush. Between 1846 and 1873, it is estimated that settlers killed between 9,492 and 16,094 Californian Natives; up to several thousand were also starved or worked to death.^[4]Forced labor,kidnapping,rape,child separation, andforced displacement were widespread during the genocide, and were encouraged, tolerated, and even carried out by American government officials and military commanders.^{[8][7][9][10]}

The 1925 bookHandbook of the Indians of California estimated that California's indigenous population decreased roughly from 150,000 in 1848 to 30,000 in 1870 and 16,000 by 1900 as a result of disease, low birth rates, starvation, and genocide.^[11][12][13] Between 10,000^[5] and 27,000^[6] were also subject to forced labor by U.S. settlers, with California officials repeatedly passinglegislation which disenfranchised Californian Indians.^[14][15]

Since the 2000s, historians have characterized the period immediately following the conquest of California as one in which U.S. miners, farmers, and ranchers on theAmerican frontier engaged in the systematicgenocide of Californian Indians. In 2019, thegovernor of CaliforniaGavin Newsom described the events as "genocide," adding, "...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".^[16] In a 2019 executive order, Newsom announced the formation of a "Truth and Healing Council" to better understand the genocide and inform future generations of what occurred.^[17]

Prior toSpanish arrival, California was home to an American Indian population thought to have been as high as 300,000.^[18] The largest group were theChumash people, with a population around 10,000.^[19] 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.^[13]

The various tribal groups appear to have adapted to particular areas and territories. According to journalist Nathan Gilles, because of traditions practiced by the Native people of Northern California, they were able to "manage the threat of wildfires and cultivate traditional plants".^[20] For example, traditional use of fire by Californian and Pacific Northwest tribes, allowed them to "cultivate plants and fungi" that "adapted to regular burning. The list runs from fiber sources, such asbear-grass andwillow, to foodstuffs, such as berries, mushrooms, and acorns from oak trees that once made up sprawling orchards".^[20] Many practices were used to manage the land without tremendous destruction in other ways including "tillage,pruning, seed broadcasting, transplanting, weeding, irrigation, and fertilizing".^[21] These groups worked to stimulate the growth and diversity of botanical resources across landscapes. Traditional practices allowed for the "extraordinarily successful management of natural resources available to Native Californian tribes".^[22] Because of traditional practices of Native Californian tribes, they were able to support habitats and climates that would then support an abundance of wildlife, including rabbits, deer, varieties of fish, fruit, roots, and acorns. The natives largely followed ahunter-gatherer lifestyle, moving around their area through the seasons as different types of food were available.^[23]

The American Indian people of California, according to sociologistKari Norgaard, were "hunting and fishing for their food, weaving baskets using traditional techniques" and "carrying out important ceremonies to keep the world intact".^[24] It was also recorded that the American Indian people in California and across the continent had used "fire to enhance specific plant species, optimize hunting conditions, maintain open travel routes, and generally support the flourishing of the species upon which they depend, according to scholars^[25] like the United States Forest Service ecologist and Karuk descendent Frank Lake".^[24]

California was one of the last regions in the Americas to be colonized byEuropean colonists. Spanish Catholic missionaries, led byFranciscan administratorJunípero Serra and military forces under the command of officerGaspar de Portolá, did not reach this area until 1769. The mission was intended to spread the Catholic faith among the region's American Indian population and establish and expand the reach of theSpanish Empire.^[23] The Spanish builtSan Diego de Alcalá, the first of21 missions standing in modern-day California, at what developed as present-daySan Diego in the southern part of the state along the Pacific. (The Spanish also built30 missions and 11 visitas in Baja California.)Military outposts were constructed to house the soldiers sent to protect the missions.

Before American rule, Spanish and Mexican rule were devastating for the American Indian populations, and "As the missions grew, California's native population of Indians began a catastrophic decline."^[26]Gregory Orfalea estimates that pre-contact population was reduced by 33% during the Spanish and Mexican regimes. Most of the decline stemmed from imported diseases, low birth rates, 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.^[12][27] According toGeorge Tinker, an American Indian scholar, "The Native American population of coastal population was reduced by some 90 percent during seventy years under the sole proprietorship of Serra's mission system".^[28]

According to journalistEd Castillo, member of the Native American Caucus of the California Democratic Party, Serra spread the Christian faith among the Native population in a destructive way that caused their population to decline rapidly while he was in power. Castillo writes that "The Franciscans took it upon themselves to brutalize the Indians, and to rejoice in their death...They simply wanted the souls of these Indians, so they baptized them, and when they died, from disease or beatings... they were going to heaven, which was a cause of celebration".^[23] According to Castillo, the Native American population were forced to abandon their "sustainable and complex civilization" as well as "their beliefs, their faith, and their way of life".^[23] However, artifacts found at an archaeological site onSan Clemente Island suggested that a group of Indigenous people were practicing traditional ways after the arrival of Europeans and Americans in other parts of California, and until potentially the 1850s.^[29] The artifacts included subsistence remains, middens, and flaked stone tools.^[29]

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.

• 1542: California is discovered by Spain. Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese explorer sailing under the Spanish flag, explores the California coast and lands in San Diego Harbor, naming it San Miguel. His crew peacefully interacts with Kumeyaay natives for six days trading goods and discussing cultural differences. The larger California area is named from a fictional paradise described in the early 16th-century novel "Las Sergas de Esplandián" by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo.^[30]
• 1769: Spanish colonizers extended the Mexican Catholic mission system into themission system in California, which led to the forced conversion and enslavement of California area Native Americans.^[31][32][33]
• 1821–1823:Mexico gained independence from Spain and took control of California, continuing the Spanish government's policies of forced labor and conversion of Indigenous peoples.^[34][33]
• 1845–1846:John C. Frémont leads US Attacks against Native Americans in California and Oregon Country.Frémont is employed by US SenatorThomas Hart Benton and US PresidentAndrew Jackson to explore land routes to California and prepare to conquer the territory from Mexico. Frémont travels Northern California, committing several native massacres along the way. He then declares himself governor of the Territory of California.
• 1846–48: TheMexican–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".^[35][33]
• 1848: The discovery of gold in California led to the influx of a massive horde of settlers, who formed militias to kill and displace Indigenous peoples.^[36][37][33]
• 1850: The CaliforniaAct for the Government and Protection of Indians was passed, legalizing the enslavement of Native Americans and allowing settlers to capture and force them into labor.^[38][15]
• 1851–52: TheMariposa War broke out between white settlers and theAhwahnechee, resulting in the displacement and killing of Native Americans by theMariposa Battalion in the Sierra Nevada region.^[39]
• 1851–66:Shasta city and the communities ofMarysville andHoney Lake paid bounties for the killing of Native Americans.^{[40][41][42][43]}
• 1860s: The federal government began a policy of forced removal of Native Americans peoples to reservations, which led to violence and displacement.^[44]
• Late 1800s–early 1900s: Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families by the California government and placed in boarding schools, where they were subjected to abuse and forced assimilation.^[45][46][47]
• 1909: The California state government established the California Eugenics Record Office, which promoted 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".^[48][49][50]

Following the American Conquest of California fromMexico, the influx of American settlers due to the California Gold Rush in 1849, andthe statehood of California in 1850, state and federal authorities incited, aided, and financed the violence against the American Indians. The California Natives were also sometimes contemptuously referred to as "Diggers", for their practice of digging up roots to eat.^{[51][52][page needed][53][54][page needed][55][56][57]} On January 6, 1851, at his State of the State address to the California Senate, 1st Governor of California,Peter Burnett said: "That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected. While we cannot anticipate this result but with painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power or wisdom of man to avert."^[58][59][60] During the California genocide, reports of the decimation of American Indians in California were made to the rest of the United States and internationally.^{[note 1]}

The CaliforniaAct 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 white settlers, 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.^[61] White settlers took 10,000 to 27,000 California Native Americans as forced laborers, including 4,000 to 7,000 children.^[5][6]

I have the honor to report to the general commanding theDepartment of the Pacific that I have been in this valley fifteen days, carrying out my instructions to chastise these Indians, or the Indians ofOwens River; that I have killed several, taken eleven prisoners, and destroyed a great manyrancherias and a large quantity of seeds, worms, &c., that the Indians had gathered for food.

A notable early eyewitness testimony and account: "The Indians of California" (1864) is fromJohn 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.^[63][64] This was confirmed by a contemporary, Superintendent Dorcas J. Spencer.^[65]

In 1943, a study by demographerSherburne Cook, estimated that there were 4,556 killings of California Indians between 1847 and 1865.^[4][3] Contemporary historianBenjamin Madley 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, including between 1,680 and 3,741 killed by theU.S. Army. Most of the deaths took place in what he defined as more than 370massacres (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"). Madley also estimates that fewer than 1,400 non-Indians were killed by Indians during this period.^[4] The Native American activist and formerSonoma State University ProfessorEd 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-armeddeath squads combined with the widespread random killing of Indians by individual miners resulted in the death of 100,000 Indians in [1848 and 1849]."^[66] Another contemporary historian,Gary Clayton Anderson, estimated that no more than 2,000 Native Americans were killed in California.^[1] Jeffrey Ostler has critiqued Anderson's estimate, calling it "unsubstantiated" and "at least five times too low".^[67]

In the early 1850s, the California legislature authorized payment for multiple expeditions against the Native Americans of California. Some scholars believe that state legislators and officials “created a legal environment in which California Indians had almost no rights, thus granting those who attacked them virtual impunity which is defined as freedom from punishment.”^[68] In addition, state legislators raised up to $1.51 million to pay for state militia expeditions against California Native Americans.^[69]

Research made in 2015 on native burial mounds in the San Francisco Bay area found that natives would move to different places in order to avoid genocide. The movement can be traced by the dating of the burial mounds since multiple native tribes found these burial mound spaces as places of religious and cultural freedom.^[70]

TheAmah Mutsun are a group of Indigenous peoples who were reported to be unable to pass on their traditions during this time, their practices remained untold for a number of years. People of this group, descendants, and archaeologists participate in conducting collaborative, ethnographic research to bring light to previous practices like burial practices and vegetation patterns.^[71]

While many groups were targeted in thegenocide the circumstances of individual groups can be illustrative of the on the ground happenings of the killings.

TheYuki people experienced catastrophe by the events of 1847–1853. The United States took possession of California from Mexico in January 1847, with the Gold Rush arriving swiftly in 1848. Hundreds of thousands came in the search of wealth, placing pressure on Indigenous Californians.^[123] More than 1,000 Yuki are estimated to have been killed in theRound Valley Settler Massacres of 1856–1859 and 400 in theMendocino War; many others were enslaved and only 300 survived. The intent of the massacres was to exterminate the Yuki and gain control of the land they inhabited.U.S. Army soldiers deployed to the valley stopped further killings and in 1862 the California legislature revoked a law which permitted the kidnapping and enslavement ofNative Americans in the state.

A few specific attacks of which there is witness testimony are:

• A local paper reported 55 Indians killed in Clinton Valley on October 8, 1856.^[124]
• A white farmer, John Lawson, admitted an attack killing eight Indians, three by shooting and five by hanging, after some of his hogs were stolen. He stated that these killings were a common practice.^[125]
• A white farmer, Isaac Shanon, testified to killing 14 Indians in a revenge attack after a white man was killed in early 1858.^[126]
• White persons from the Sacramento Valley came into Round Valley and killed four Yuki Indians with the help of locals in June 1858, despite having been warned against it by Indian Agents.^[127]
• White settlers attacked and killed nine Indians in the mountains edging the valley in November 1858.^[128]
• Former Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Thomas Henley (fired two months earlier for embezzling funds), led a massacre of 11 Yuki Indians in August 1859.^[129]

Due to the overwhelming number of killings, an exact death toll is unknowable. The following estimates were made by government agents and newspapers at the time:

• 1856: 300 total killed over the course of the year.^[124]
• Winter 1856–57: About 75 Yuki Indians killed over the course of the winter.^[130]
• March–April 1858: 300–400 male Yukis killed in three weeks.^[131]
• November 1858 – January 1859: 150+^[132] or 170^[133] Yuki Indians killed between November and January
• March–May 1859: 240 Yuki killed in assaults led by H.L. Hall in revenge for the slaughter of JudgeHastings's horse^[134][135] and a total of 600 men, women, and children killed within the previous year.^[136]

These estimates suggest well over 1,000 Yuki deaths at the hands of white settlers. (See Cook, Sherburne; "The California Indian and White Civilization" Part III, pg 7, for an argument in favor of the approximate reliability of figures of Indians killed at this time.)

TheYahi were the first of theYana people to suffer from theCalifornian Gold Rush, for their lands were the closest to thegold fields.^[137] Prior to the Gold Rush that began with the discovery of gold atSutter's Mill in January 1848, the U.S. military had been involved in the destruction of California Natives which included the Yana people. The processes included removals of people from ancestral land, massacres, confinement to small reservations, and the separation of families. In California, miners, ranchers, farmers, and businessmen engaged in acts outlined in theGenocide Convention.^[138] They suffered great population losses from the loss of their traditional food supplies and fought with the settlers over territory. They lackedfirearms, and armed white settlers intentionally committed genocide against them in multiple raids.^[139] These raids took place as part of the California genocide, during which the U.S. Army and vigilante militias carried out killings as well as the relocation of thousands of indigenous peoples in California.^[140] The massacre reduced the Yahi, who were already suffering from starvation, to a population of less than 100.^[137]

On August 6, 1865, seventeen settlers raided a Yahi village at dawn. In 1866, more Yahis were massacred when they were caught by surprise in a ravine. Circa 1867, 33 Yahis were killed after being tracked to a cave north ofMill Creek. Circa 1871, fourcowboys trapped and killed about 30 Yahis in Kingsley cave.^[139]

The last known survivor of the Yahi was namedIshi by American anthropologists. Ishi had spent most of his life hiding with his tribe members in the Sierra wilderness, emerging at the age of about 49, after the deaths of his mother and remaining relatives. He was the only Yahi known to Americans.

In 1770 theTolowa had a population of 1,000;^[19] their population soon dropped to 150^[19] in 1910; this was almost entirely due to deliberate mass murder in what has been described as genocide.^{[72][page needed]} Among these killings, theYontoket Massacre left 150^{[72][page needed]} to 500^{[72][page needed]} Tolowa people recorded dead. Because their homes had burned down, the place received the name "Burnt Ranch". The Tolowa themselves date the first massacre at 1853, stating that between 450 and 600 people were killed. The second dated massacre at 1854 stating that about 150 people were killed.^[141] TheYontoket massacre decimated the cultural center of the Tolowa peoples. The natives from the surrounding areas would gather there for their celebrations and discussions. The survivors of the massacre were forced to move to the village north of Smith's River called Howonquet. The slaughtering of the Tolowa people continued for some years. They were seemingly always caught at their Needash celebrations. These massacres caused some unrest which led in part to theRogue River Indian war. Many Tolowa people were incarcerated at Battery Point in 1855 to withhold them from joining an uprising led by their chief. In 1860, after the Chetco/Rogue River War, 600 Tolowa were forcibly relocated toIndian reservations in Oregon, including what is now known as theSiletz Reservation in theCentral Coastal Range. Later, some were moved to theHoopa Valley Reservation in California. Adding to the number of dead from the Yontoket Massacre and the Battery Point Attack are many more in the following years. These massacres included the Chetko Massacre with 24^{[72][page needed]} dead, the Smith creek massacre with 7^{[72][page needed]} dead, the Howonquet Massacre with 70^{[72][page needed]} dead, theAchulet massacre with 65 dead^[82] (not including those whose bodies were left in the lake) and the Stundossun Massacre with 300^{[72][page needed]} dead. In total, 902 Tolowa Native Americans were killed in 7 years. There are no records that any of the perpetrators were ever held accountable.^{[72][page needed]} This means over 90% of the entire Tolowa population was killed in deliberate massacres.

At the outset, theEuropean-American population ofLos Angeles County identified a practical application for the utilization of Indian labor within an economy that was experiencing a shortage of laborers due to the mass migration of individuals to the gold fields. During the 1850s, white Americans in the United States depended on individuals of Amerindian descent to cultivate vast areas of land in return for minimal or non-existent monetary compensation. During the period of theGold Rush, numerous rancho owners were able to reap significant benefits by driving their livestock into theCentral Valley and Sierra foothills, thereby capitalizing on the relatively prosperous years of gold mining.^{[54][page needed]} Due to Economic expansion because of the increased need for mining, even Indigenous groups in remote locations, such as those in theCoso Range, were incorporated into the economy.^[29]

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According to M. Kat Anderson, an ecologist and lecturer atUniversity of California, Davis, and Jon Keeley, a fire ecologist and research scientist with theU.S. Geological Survey, after decades of being disconnected from the land and their culture, due to Spanish and U.S. settler violence, Native peoples are slowly starting to be able to practice traditions that enhance the environment around them, by directly taking care of the land. Anderson and Keeley write, "The outcomes that Indigenous people were aiming for when burningchaparral, such as increased water flow, enhanced wildlife habitat, and the maintenance of many kinds of flowering plants and animals, are congruent and dovetail with the values that public land agencies, non-profit organizations, and private landowners wish to preserve and enhance through wildland management".^[142] Through these returned practices, they are able to commit and practice their culture, while also helping the other people in the area that will benefit from the ecological differences.

California Landmark 427, built in 2005 represents theBloody Island Massacre of thePomo people that took place on May 15, 1850.^[143] The monument is used as a center point of an annual festival beginning in 1999 held by Pomo descendants. Candles and tobacco are burned in honor of their ancestors.

American Indian scholarGerald Vizenor has argued in the early 21st century for universities to be authorized to assembletribunals to investigate these events. He notes that United States federal law contains no statute of limitations onwar crimes andcrimes against humanity, includinggenocide. 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.^[144]

Vizenor believes that, in accordance withinternational law, the universities ofSouth Dakota,Minnesota, andCalifornia Berkeley ought to establish tribunals to hear evidence and adjudicate crimes against humanity alleged to have taken place in their individual states.^[145] Attorney Lindsay Glauner has also argued for such tribunals.^[146]

In a speech before representatives of Native American peoples in June 2019, California governorGavin Newsom apologized for the genocide. Newsom referring to the proposedCalifornia Truth and Healing Council said, "California must reckon with our dark history. California Native American peoples suffered violence, discrimination and exploitation sanctioned by state government throughout its history .... 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. We can never undo the wrongs inflicted on the peoples who have lived on this land that we now call California since time immemorial, but we can work together to build bridges, tell the truth about our past and begin to heal deep wounds."^[16][147] After hearing testimony, a Truth and Healing Council will clarify the historical record on the relationship between the state of California and American Indians.^[148]

In November 2021, the board of directors of the former "University of California Hastings College of Law" voted to change the name of the institution because of its founder and namesakeS. C. Hastings's alleged involvement in the killing and dispossessing ofYuki people in the 1850s.^[149][150] The name change was approved via an act of the California Legislature (California Assembly Bill 1936, 2021–2022 regular session) and was signed into law by the governor on 23 September 2022. The name change took effect on January 1, 2023.^[151] The institution is now known as theUniversity of California College of the Law, San Francisco.

There is vigorous debate over the scale of American Indian losses after the discovery of gold in California and whether to characterize them as genocide.^[152][153] The application of the term "genocide", in particular, has been controversial.^[154] According to historian Jeffrey Ostler, the debate mostly rests on disagreements regarding the definition of the term.^[153] He writes that by a strict ("intentionalist"^[67]) definition, genocide "requir[es] a federal or state government intention to kill all California Indians and an outcome in which the majority of deaths were from direct killing", while by a less strict ("structuralist"^[67]) definition, it "requir[es] only settler intention to destroy a substantial portion of California Indians using a variety of means ranging from dispossession to systematic killing".^[153] Under the former definition, Ostler argues that "genocide does not seem applicable," whereas under the latter definition, "genocide seems apt."

In 1948, Article 2 of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defined genocide as

... any of the following acts committed withintent to destroy,in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Historians who argue the term "genocide" is appropriate point out that the Indian population of California fell quickly and argue that extreme violence was integral to this process.^[153] Benjamin Madley, aUCLA historian, is one of the most prominent historians espousing this view, writing that "[i]t was genocide, sanctioned and facilitated by California officials" who, according to him, "established a state-sponsored killing machine".^[57] Historian Brendan C. Lindsay, argued that "rather than a government orchestrating a population to bring about the genocide of a group, [in California] the population orchestrated a government to destroy a group",^[156] whileWilliam T. Hagen wrote that "[genocide] is a term of awful significance, but one which has application to the story of California's Native Americans".^[157] James J. Rawls argued that Californian whites "advocated and carried out a program of genocide that was popularly called 'extermination'".^[158] Militias were called out by the governors of California for "expeditions against the Indians" on a number of occasions.^[159]

Supporters of the use of the term "genocide" stress the involvement and complicity of federal and state authorities in perpetrating atrocities against the indigenous Californians, and point to their statements and policies as evidence of directgenocidal intent. For example, historianRichard White, in a review of Madley'sAn American Genocide, argues that "no reader of his book can seriously contend that what happened in California doesn't meet the current definition of "genocide"," citing the "relentless attacks by federal troops, state militia, vigilantes, and mercenaries [that] made the enslavement of Indians possible and starvation and disease inevitable".^[160] White continues, "in California, what Americans have often called "war" was nothing of the sort. For every American who died, 100 Indians perished. They died horribly—men, women, and children. The men who killed them were brutal. Nor did the killings result from a moment of rage; they were systematic." White stresses the complicity of the US federal government, noting that "the funding that the US government provided for California's militia expeditions made attacking Indians possible and profitable".^[160] Writing about the experience of indigenous Californian women during this period,Women's studies scholar Gail Ukockis argues that "government officials were quite explicit about their genocidal intent,"^[161] citing the 1851 State of the State address given by the 1st Governor of California,Peter Burnett, in which he said: "That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected."^[162]

Jeffrey Ostler, too, endorsed the usage of the term, writing that it "rests on a substantial body of scholarship".^[67] Ostler argues that there is a "general consensus" that genocide took place in at least "some times and places in the state's early history".^[67] Responding to critics of the "genocide" charge that have argued that epidemics were the primary cause of Native mortality,^[163] Ostler writes that "depopulation from disease more often resulted from conditions created by colonialism—in California, loss of land, destruction of resources and food stores, lack of clean water, captive taking, sexual violence, and massacre—that encouraged the spread of pathogens and increased communities' vulnerability through malnutrition, exposure, social stress, and destruction of sources of medicine and capacities for palliative care".^[67] He continues, "since the United States' colonization of California was intended to dispossess Indigenous peoples and since that intention had the predictable consequence of making communities vulnerable to multiple diseases which led to massive population loss, disease in this case qualifies as a crucial factor contributing to genocide".^[67]

Karl Jacoby, in his review ofAn American Genocide, argues that the book removes "any doubt that genocide against Native people took place in the most populous and prosperous state in the US" and that it establishes "conclusively the reality of genocide in the Golden State".^[164] He also notes that Madley "illuminates the ways that federal and state policies facilitated popular violence against Indians".^[164] William Bauer Jr. argues that Benjamin Madley "has settled the issue on whether or not genocide occurred in California".^[165] He writes also that "federal and state governments, those bodies that could or should have protected California Indians from the devastating violence, condoned and perpetrated genocides" and that "civilian leaders in California passed legislation that enabled genocide".^[165] Margaret Jacobs writes that Madley has made it "nearly impossible to deny that a genocide took place against Native peoples in at least one location and one time period in American history" and that he shows how "the genocide started out as the work of vigilante groups but soon gained state funding and federal support".^[166] Jacobs points out, for example, that "in 1854, Congress agreed to pay off California's war debt, and by the end of 1856, the federal government had given California more than $800,000 to distribute to bond holders who had financed the genocidal killing in the state."^[166]

In his bookThe Rediscovery of America, historianNed Blackhawk argues that "historians have located genocide across Native American history" and cites California as a specific example.^[167] Blackhawk writes that in California, "settlers used informal and state-sanctioned violence to shatter Native worlds and legitimate their own" and also notes that "in February 1852, for example, the state legislature appropriated $500,000 to fund anti-Indian state militias".^[168] Regarding the role of the federal government, he writes that they had "earlier attempted an alternate scenario to the genocide at hand. In 1851 and 1852, officials negotiated eighteen treaties across the state; however, bowing to California representatives, the Senate rejected these treaties, essentially authorizing the continued use of settler violence to aid colonization."^[169]

Other scholars and historians dispute the accuracy of the term "genocide" to describe what occurred in California, as well as the blame which has been placed directly on thefederal government and thestate government of California,^[1] pointing to the fact thatdisease was the primary factor in the depopulation of California Indians and arguing that mass violence was undertaken primarily by settlers and that the state and federal governments did not establish a policy of physically killing all Indians.^[153] One of the most prominent historians espousing such a view is Gary Clayton Anderson,^[170] aUniversity of Oklahoma professor of history who describes the events in California as "ethnic cleansing",^[1][171] arguing that "If we get to the point where the mass murder of 50 Indians in California is considered genocide, thengenocide has no more meaning".^[1] Historian William Henry Hutchinson, wrote that "the record of history disproves these charges [of genocide]",^[172] while historian Tom Henry Watkins stated that "it is a poor use of the term" since the killings were not systematic or planned.^[173]

In a critical review of Brendan Lindsay'sMurder State: California's Native American Genocide, 1846–1873, Michael F. Magliari notes that "[Sherburne] Cook never described the terrible events of 1846–1873 as a genocide, and neither had any of his leading successors inCalifornia Indian history". While acknowledging that actions against some tribes native to California were genocidal, he opts for the termethnocidal for actions against other tribes, considering the former term's application to all cases "highly problematic". (He rejects theUN Genocide Convention's "sweeping definition" of genocide, whereas Lindsay embraces it.)^[2] In a subsequent review of Benjamin Madley'sAn American Genocide, he says that some scholars may find Madley's use of the UN Genocide Convention as an "overly broad and elastic definition", that the evidence of genocide "varies considerably from place to place and is far stronger in some cases", and that Madley's case against the federal government is "not nearly so strong" as that against "frontier miners, farmers, and ranchers".^[163] Magliari also argues that "epidemics, not violence, still remained by far the greater factor in Native mortality".^[163] He nevertheless concludes : "Beyond the shadow of any reasonable doubt (and by the standards of any reasonable definition), genocide did in fact play a significant role in the US conquest and subjugation of Native California."^[163]

• California genocide
• 19th century in California
• Mission Indians
• Anti-Indigenous racism in California
• Native American genocide
• Native American history of California
• Racially motivated violence in California
• Ethnic cleansing in the United States
• Genocidal rape
• Wartime sexual violence in North America

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