California is a contentious arena for the study of the Native American past. Some critics say genocide characterized the early conduct of Indian affairs in the state; others say humanitarian concerns. Robert F. Heizer, in the former camp, has compiled a damning collection of contemporaneous accounts that will provoke students of California history to look deeply into the state's record of race relations and to question bland generalizations about the adventuresome days of the Gold Rush. Robert F. Heizer's many works include the classic The Other Californians: Prejudice and Discrimination under Spain, Mexico, and the United States to 1920 (1971), written with Alan Almquist. In his introduction, Albert L. Hurtado sets the documents in historical context and considers Heizer's influence on scholarship as well as the advances made since his death. A professor of history at Arizona State University, Hurtado is the author of Indian Survival on the California Frontier.

The most persistent enemy of the native Californians was the firmly rooted white philosophy which preached that, one way or another, the Indian was doomed. Beyond the callous references to "Diggers" and "Poor Lo", the single most important catchword of the period was "extermination." It was used early and often and picked up by the newspapers and repeated in the army reports, letters, government documents, and journals of the time. It was a word that set the stage for slaughter. When the Great Spirit Died is a sad and tragic story that will haunt our country forever.

Looks at the Indians who survived the invasion of white settlers during the nineteenth century and integrated their lives into white society while managing to maintain their own culture

Between 1846 and 1873, California’s Indian population plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000. Benjamin Madley is the first historian to uncover the full extent of the slaughter, the involvement of state and federal officials, the taxpayer dollars that supported the violence, indigenous resistance, who did the killing, and why the killings ended. This deeply researched book is a comprehensive and chilling history of an American genocide. Madley describes pre-contact California and precursors to the genocide before explaining how the Gold Rush stirred vigilante violence against California Indians. He narrates the rise of a state-sanctioned killing machine and the broad societal, judicial, and political support for genocide. Many participated: vigilantes, volunteer state militiamen, U.S. Army soldiers, U.S. congressmen, California governors, and others. The state and federal governments spent at least $1,700,000 on campaigns against California Indians. Besides evaluating government officials’ culpability, Madley considers why the slaughter constituted genocide and how other possible genocides within and beyond the Americas might be investigated using the methods presented in this groundbreaking book.

This expos reveals unique and tragic events that occurred north of San Francisco Bay in Northwestern California primarily during the Nineteenth Century. It details a clash between the indigenous inhabitants of the area who had lived here for several millennia and White invaders from the eastern portions of the United States attracted by reports of placer gold deposits found in selected waterways as well as by the presence of land where flora and fauna grew in unprecedented profusion from the heavy rainfall sufficient to support great stands of Redwood forests, the tallest trees on earth. For American ranchers and farmers subject to drought in many parts of the United States, Northwestern California sounded like a Garden marred only by the presence of hundreds of thousands of Native Americans who occupied this Eden. What followed was a war of brutality in the 1800s between two races for possession of land ownership, an updated story that has never been presented in such detail before. White migrants committed ethnocide and genocide in removing the natives while founding Humboldt, Trinity, Mendocino and Klamath counties. This work takes the form of an historical novel blending fact with a modicum of fiction for readability.

From the award-winning author of Children of the Dustbowl comes a sobering look at two of the most frequently romanticized events in American history. For the native peoples of California, the period from 1769, when the first Spanish Mission was founded, to the 1850s, when the Gold Rush was at its height, was one of terrible violence and destruction. First, Spanish priests and soldiers sought to convert the Indians to Christianity and a civilized way of life. Yet for the Indians the story of the missions was one of hunger, disease, rebellion, and death. Then, during the Gold Rush, Indians were frequently kidnapped, murdered, and sold into slavery by white settlers. By the end of the nineteenth century, the surviving California Indians had been forced onto reservations and their way of life had been largely destroyed. With maps, a timeline, and glossaries on California's Indian tribes and mission history, Jerry Stanley tells the story of modern California from the poignant perspective of the Native American.