Exterminate Them: Written Accounts of the Murder, Rape, and Enslavement of Native Americans during the California Gold Rush

Preface

PREfACE Gold and Gold Rush! The words bring forth romantic images of sourdough miners clad in bright flannel shirts, wearing worn-out Levis, scuffed boots, and floppy felt hats. Bending over the rocky shore of roaring rivers, these white miners pannned for gold with the diligence and perseverance that made America what it is today. American history texts, particularly those designed for young readers, are filled with positive images glorifying the Forty-Niners and the California Gold Rush. The Gold Rush in California is part of the "Mining Frontier" that opened the American West to white civilization , economic development, social advancement, and statehood. What is generally missing from these accounts are California's Indians and the holocaust brought by miners to the First Nations of California. California's Indians survived the holocaust, but they are not celebrating the Sesquicentennial of the gold discovery at Coloma in 1848. They are lamenting the rape, murder, and enslavement of their people that began with the discovery of gold by Indians and whites at Sutter's Mill on the American River. Native Americans throughout California are remembering that white miners murdered thousands of Indians, raped hundreds of native women and children, and sold thousands of people into slavery. Population figures vary depending on the source, but scholars generally feel that in 1846 the California Indian population was at least 120,000-if not more-but had plummeted by the 1860s to somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000. The most dramatic era of population reduction came between 1848 and 1868, when approximately 100,000 Indians died from disease, malnutrition, enslavement, and murder. In spite of the continued decline of the native population to roughly 17,000 in 1900, California's Indian population has recovered and survived. xiii xiv "EXTERMINATE THEM" Hupa scholar Jack Norton and anthropologist Florence Shipek argue that the precontact population of California was as high as one million and that the Indian population in 1846 was likely higher than 120,000. But the native people who were murdered, raped, and enslaved in California are not numbers or statistics to be debated by scholars. They were human beings, members of families, and loved ones. The rapes, murders, kidnappings, and enslavements came at a horrendous cost to California's first peoples. Within a matter ofa few years, the people lost their parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters. They lost the providers for their villages, the spiritual leaders, the tribal historians, and the leadership for future generations . The people lost their land and resources, but worst of all, they lost their security and much of their hope. People fell into a state of despair, depression, and anomie. Native peoples in California suffered from tremendous trauma that still affects them. Since the days of the Gold Rush California's Indians have mourned, and mourning continues during the state's celebration of the great events of the 1840s and 1850s. Every tribe and village remembers the Gold Rush and the white atrocities of the era. Scholars such as Jack Norton have collected oral histories of the Gold Rush among contemporary Indians. The following presentation offers another source of information, one written by whites themselves about the Gold Rush era. The newspapers of California during the 1840s to the 1860s, particularly the leading paper, the Daily Alta California, provide one window into the holocaust suffered by California's Indians during the Gold Rush. Most of the murders, rapes, and enslavements occurred in Northern California, where the newspaper was headquartered. But the articles run by the Daily Alta California often appeared in other newspapers around the state and beyond. Many of the entries found in this volume are from the Daily Alta California, but other newspapers are also included, particularly if they presented local and regional news about the killing fields of California. In addition, we have included a few choice letters and some information on the California state law that discriminated against Indians, establishing an indentured system (legalized slavery) among California Indians and establishing the right of whites to control Indian children. From the 1850s to the 1880s, the state had greater influence over Indian affairs in California than did the federal government, and state and local officials used their power to dispossess the First Nations oftheir estates and birthrights. Local sheriffs and justices of the peace allowed non-Indians to steal Indian lands and resources. In their pathbreaking works, Robert Heizer, Alan Almquist, Sherburne Cook, Edward Castillo, James Rawls, George Phillips, Florence Shipek...