![]() The conflicts between Indians and whites helped many people recognize the need for governmental regulations of white and Indian interaction.Most whites, even those sympathetic to the plight of Native Americans, considered themselves better or more civilized than Indians and were very condescending toward Native Americans.Things to remember while reading the excerpts from Exterminate Them: Although these accounts are limited to the white perspective, some newspaper journalists were sympathetic to the Indians' plight and advocated more humane solutions to what was often referred to as "the Indian problem." The following excerpts provide examples of the interactions between Indians and whites that eventually led to the utter destruction of most Indian tribes in California. Newspaper accounts and government documents detail the hostile interactions of Indians and whites. The gold rush, the entire Indian population was devastated-it had declined to just thirty thousand people, down from three hundred thousand before European contact. As hundreds of thousands of emigrants arrived, the Indians became terribly hostile to the miners, and trouble stirred in the hills of California. The influx of eighty thousand miners in 1849 alone provided a small glimpse of the change that was about to occur. When California became part of the United States in 1847 and less than one thousand Americans lived there, the native inhabitants could not have foreseen the impending destruction of their way of life. The Indians received little from the breakup of the missions and remained subject to the control of the wealthy landowners. In 1834 the Mexican government ended the dominance of the missions and granted large tracts of land to the Californios (descendants of the original Spanish settlers). In 1821 Mexico declared its independence from Spain. By 1817, 90 percent of the mission Indians had died due to disease or abuse. Of the sixteen thousand Indians baptized by missionaries in their first decade, more than nine thousand died. Yet for the majority of the Indians, abuse at the hands of missionaries and diseases brought by the Spaniards destroyed their way of life. Other Indians living in remote mountain valleys had little contact with the Spaniards. The baptized Indians could not leave the missions, and they were severely disciplined for misbehavior. But they did so against their will, becoming slaves to their supposed saviors. They learned to be weavers, brick makers, farmers, and vaqueros (cattle drivers, or cowboys). Neophytes (newly baptized Indians) were taught a variety of skills in the missions. ![]() Not only did they convert the natives to Christianity they also sought to convert them to a European way of life. It was the missionaries who truly changed Indian life. By the turn of the century they had gathered nearly the entire population of native Californians south of San Francisco Bay into their missions. According to Father Francisco Palou, "We rejoiced to find so many pagans upon whom the light of our holy faith was about to dawn." Dawn it did, as missionaries baptized nearly fifty-four thousand Indians in the first decades of their work. Missionaries who occupied the twenty-one missions in California was to convert the natives to Christianity. They began building missions (churchbased districts), pueblos (villages), and presidios (forts) in the southern territory around San Diego extending all the way to San Francisco Bay. The Spanish sought to extend their empire northward into California. This peaceful life began to change in 1769, when Spanish missionaries arrived on the California coast and set out to convert the native population to Christianity. Each of these groups had distinct cultures and traditions, and all benefited from an environment that provided them with the best diet of any native population.īlessed with ample land and food, California's indigenous peoples found little reason to come into conflict with one another. These Indians organized themselves into more than one hundred different tribes. Historians estimate that before contact with the Europeans some three hundred thousand native people lived in the territory known as California. ![]() With its mild climate, its vast and fertile interior valleys, and an abundance of game, the region we now know as California once supported a large native population. Native Americans and the California Gold RushĮxcerpts from Exterminate Them: Written Accounts of the Murder, Rape, and Slavery of Native Americansĭuring the California Gold Rush, 1848–1868Įdited by Clifford E. ![]()
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