The first recorded visit of a European to California occurred when Diaz crossed the Colorado River and entered southeastern California in 1540. From that point on Europeans
occasionally visited California from land and by way of the Pacific Ocean but there were no settlements for a few centuries and the Indian population was free to live tranquilly. The Indian possessed a highly
developed system of beliefs and an elaborate philosophy on the origins and attributes of the universe.Russian fur trappers pursued otters to California from the northwest and began setting up areas where they could
put ashore along the coast north of San Francisco. Spain moved to extend its influence north from Mexico by 1769 to counter Russian movements from the north.
Rather than treating California Indian tribes
as sovereigns and respecting members of the tribe as residents of another government, the Spaniards once again carried out their systematic colonization policies and declared California Indians to be citizens of New
Spain. Missionaries worked to convert Indians to Catholicism and sought to wipe out all traces of their native beliefs and culture. To accomplish this missionaries forced the Indians to build missions where
they were required to reside and submit to the demands of the Padres. Vicious punishment was meted out to those who refused to submit to the missionaries or who attempted to flee.
Once Mexico gained its
independence from Spain it assumed control of the missions and rewarded its supporters with huge land grants that included areas occupied by the Indians. The homeless Indians had no alternative but to become
indentured to the landowners. Meanwhile a few white European immigrants began to reach California and settle in the valleys.
When gold was discovered in 1848, people in the midwest and eastern parts of the
country began heading west. Here is how historian, H.H. Bancroft described the impact on Indians:
"The California Valley cannot grace her annals with a single Indian war bordering on respectability. It
can boast, however, a hundred or two as brutal butchering, on the part of our honest miners and brave pioneers, as in any area of equal extent in our republic…
When now and then one of them [Indians] plucked up
courage to defend his wife and little ones, or to retaliate on one of the many outrages that were constantly being perpetrated on them by whiter persons, sufficient excuse was offered for the miners and settlers to band
and shoot down any Indians they met, old or young, innocent or guilty, friendly or hostile, until their appetite for blood was appeased."
During these "black pages" of California Indian history the California
State Legislature, meeting in their first session since being admitted to the union, passed the California Indian Indentured law which gave the white citizens the right to enslave Indian people and abuse them any way
they desired. No consideration was given to the United States Supreme Court ruling that Indian tribes were sovereign nations and that their territory was not to be a part of the state surrounding it and that the
state did not have jurisdiction within "Indian country". Sexual abuse and even murder could be carried with impunity because Indians were not deemed to be citizens and were not afforded the right to
appear in court and bear witness.
White merchants, miners, and others impatient for the new state to further their interests created citizen militias to rid the state of Indians who resisted their demands for their
land, their labor, or anything else. The Pit River Rangers, the Oregon Militia and others carried out their deadly work with support from the new State of California that provided a bounty for Indian scalps.
By 1859 less than a third of the Indian population in California was able to escape the bloodbath. During this period the federal government negotiated eighteen treaties with Indians that promised reservations
where Indians could live in peace and economic aid and vocational training g in compensation for the lands taken from them. The California Legislature prevailed on the Senate not to ratify the treaties and the
genocide proceeded. By 1900, California Indians had nearly been annihilated and the population was only 15% of what it had been in 1850. The surviving Indians had to learn to live with an alien set of
beliefs and life philosophy. Indians were forced to adapt to changes in their standards of living, their ability to travel, their ability to use their own language, the way they practiced conservation, their diet,
and their art forms. In other words, their way of life was forcibly taken away from them and those who rebelled were destroyed.
Towards the end of the 19th
century the policy of exterminating and isolating Indians (physical genocide) changed to forcing total assimilation (cultural genocide). Because the reservations provided some territory where Indians could try to maintain their shredded identity, the United States passed the Dawes Act which took tribal ownership of the reservations away from the common tribal ownership and deeded it to individual Indians who were given the right to sell it to non-Indians.
The final stage was set when California Indians were herded on foot like animals from the various parts of California to concentration camps in northern California. Many people died on the roads and trails of
California during the California "Trail of Tears" that mirrored in many respects the "Trail of Tears" followed by Indians in the southeastern United States that were forced to face unendurable hardships on their forced
march to western reservations.
The next article will cover the history of Indian affairs beginning at the turn of the century.
