Murder State: California's Native American Genocide, 1846-1873

4. The Economics of Genocide in Southern California

4 The Economics of Genocide in Southern California Cannot some plan be devised to remove them [Indians] from our midst? Could they not be removed to a plantation in the vicinity of our city, and put under the control of an overseer, and not be permitted to enter the city, except by special permit of the Superintendent? Our citizens who are in want of their labor could apply direct to the Superintendent for such help as they might want, and when their work was finished, permit them to return to their home. Los Angeles Star (1856) Despite their location away from the main gold fields of the Sierra Nevada and its foothills, Native peoples in southern California faced challenges to their very existence.1 While Indigenous populations in the northern half of the state experienced a massive influx of EuroAmericans into areas previously unoccupied by Spanish and Mexican settlement, in southern California Euro-Americans entered the “cow counties”and grafted themselves onto existing systems of ranching and farming. White Americans in the 1850s relied on Native Americans to work large tracts of land in exchange for little or no hard currency. As the Gold Rush boomed in the north, many rancho owners benefited mightily, as they herded their animals into the Central Valley and Sierra foothills to reap massive profits during the relatively flush years of gold mining. Despite the relative lack of precious metals in southern California, existence was no less perilous for Native Americans.They 136 part 2 faced genocide as Euro-Americans attempted to carve out fortunes that depended not on gold but on land. Destroying Native lifeways, economies, and people, Euro-Americans created an economy based on stolen land worked by what was, in many of its essentials, slave labor. Euro-Americans in southern California used multiple aspects of their traditional democratic forms to accomplish these goals. Initially the Euro-Americans of Los Angeles County found a use for Native labor in an economy starved for laborers by the migration of people to the gold fields. Even in the middle of the 1850s, with gold fever near its cure, Euro-Americans still sought Native Americans as laborers, although typically only if they could be controlled effectively. The Los Angeles Star echoed the sentiments of its readers when it asked, “Cannot some plan be devised to remove them [Indians] from our midst? Could they not be removed to a plantation in the vicinity of our city, and put under the control of an overseer?” In such an atmosphere , Indigenous people who could not be removed to reservations or failed to remain in remote desert areas risked death. Euro-Americans had little use for Indians not harnessed to their interests. Only strong Native leadership, cooperation, and cultural resiliency prevented EuroAmerican success at obliterating Native peoples in southern California. The example of the Quechan people living at the Yuma Crossing near the present-day confluence of California, Arizona, and Mexico shows the genesis of the genocidal intent of Euro-Americans and how democracy was harnessed against Native peoples in the southern portion of the state. As the Quechans, historically a powerful Native people living along the lower Colorado River, attempted to engage in commercial enterprise in competition with a gang of white outlaws, they found that Euro-Americans neither suffered rivals to their enterprises nor allowed nonwhites to exact justice on white men, even when they were murderous, rapacious, and evil.2 A group of Quechans living near the Colorado River in southeastern California in 1850 attempted to maintain a ferry business, running people, wagons, and stock over the river.3 Since the colonial era, some Euro-Americans had argued that Indians’emulation of white labor and The Economics of Genocide 137 culture was key to their becoming civilized. The Quechans, however, were about to learn that such arguments were a pretense only. As had happened in the East, most famously to the Cherokees, Euro-Americans , except for missionaries, were usually not interested in living with and working near Native Americans or in allowing them to hold on to valuable resources. The Quechans were among the earliest victims of Euro-American hypocrisy in southern California. Dr. Abel Lincoln was perhaps like many Euro-Americans of the Gold Rush era: he found mining hard work, competitive, and not the easy fortune advertised in the East. Lincoln decided to join a growing minority in and around California, the people...