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Chapter 5 ********************************** ANGLO DEPREDATIONS AGAINST CALifORNIA INDIANS The Gold Rush brought a tide of people from all over the world to California. Thousands from the United States-mostly men-soon arrived in the region. Anglos carried with them dangerous attitudes toward North American Indians. For centuries, the English and their American descendants drove Indian peoples from their indigenous homelands. Whites indiscriminately killed Native Americans, considering native people to be less than human. This legacy of hatred and murder continued in California during the Gold Rush. Many whites viewed the indigenous inhabitants of the Golden State as obstacles to their economic well-being. Beginning in 1849, with the attack on a Maidu village, American military units, militia groups, and vigilantes fought Indians in what essentially became a war of extermination. For instance, whites organized the Mariposa Battalion for the sole purpose of killing Indians in the Southern Mines. Many Anglos preferred to kill Native Americans rather than remove them to federal reservations. They hunted down and mercilessly murdered Indian men, women, and children-sometimes hundreds at a time. At least one newspaper correctly described the murders as "wholesale killing:' Another document relates how white men brutally slit the throat of a crippled Indian boy. The courageous lad had attempted to defend a little girl from the Anglo intruders. Miners raped Indian women and enslaved children, forcing young girls into prostitution or selling them outright to the highest bidder. Several newspaper articles in this chapter seek to justify the abundant Indian murders committed by whites. Many journalists first detail Indian raids on "innocent" American communities and then recount how whites "retaliated"onlyas a defensive measure. Anglos assumed that they could kill 113 114 "EXTERMINATE THEM" any Indians, even those not involved in raids against whites. In the eyes of Americans, murdering Indians became a crusade-a righteous, noble act. The press thereby strives to convince readers that these killings are just and Native Americans simply got what they deserved. In fact, these accounts attempt to blame native people for their own deaths. Daily Alta California. June 2. 1849 From the Placer Times of May 12 CORRECT DETAIL OF THE MASSACRE OF INDIANS ON GOSUMNE RIVER-STATEMENT OF WM. DAYWR.-The letter below was received at our office shortly after our own prepared account had been published. In many particulars it will be found to differ materially from the one referred to. We readily give it a place. "On about the 20th ult. I left my rancho with a party of Indians in my employfor the mines. After making such arrangements as were necessary, I left them and returned. About the 26th a party of armed white men came to their camp, or where they were at work, and killed an Indian while working with a crow-bar, and on his knees; they then shot another through the arm, who tried to escape. After a run ofa short distance he was shot through the thigh, when trying to conceal himself, his brains were beat out with rocks and stones. Some white men who were about my camp, on hearing the alarm ran towards the spot and met the party coming back, who warned them not to go further, the Indians were fighting, they said. They minded them not, but proceeded to where they found the bodies of the slain Indians, the remainder of the party having fled. The company of whites now followed on the trail of the Indians, and about ten miles from my house overtook a party traveling to their home, and surrounded them without difficulty; in a few moments commenced separating the men from the women and children, when apprehending danger, the men broke and attempted to escape. Three were allowed to get off, the rest, fourteen in number, were slaughtered on the spot. The same day, or next, about noon, the party of whites arrived and encamped about 150 yards from my house. Myself, wife and cousin were about to bury a member of the family , deceased, and previous to leaving the ground, I was informed that a party ofarmed men were at the house and about to kill the Indians there. I returned with my wife, and a few moments after, the four Indians left the grave and passed within thirty steps ofthe camp when they were fired upon, and one fell dead, another passed not ten steps from my door, wounded, the remaining two escaped. The captain of the company of white men came to my house...

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