In the 1850s to the 1870s, the federal government used the policy of removal when dealing
with Indians in California. The federal government and state legislature supported the
policy of removing Indians from the boundaries of California. The removal of Indians was
accompanied with the scalping of children, women, and men, kidnappings and sale of
Indians, incarcerations, enforced exile, military roundups and the massacre of entire Indian
villages. The episodes of violence against Indians in California can be described as
massacres.
For two decades after the gold rush, Anglo-Americans drove Indians from their native land
in California. They drove the Indians from their traditional food-producing areas. This
drove the Indians to starvations, and the Indians that could survive had to seize livestock
and homes belonging to the Anglo-Americans. In retaliation, Anglo-Americans enforced
the policy of removal against the Indians. This was accompanied with violent retaliation.
The escalation of the violence against Indians occurred when Governor John McDougal
asserted that Indians were organizing an armed rebellion (Bean 150). In response, the
settlers came together with the objective of exterminating the Indians. They conducted
Indian-hunting expeditions that were motivated by anti-Indian sentiments. The
Indian-hunting expeditions were funded by the state government. Indians in California
could not mount an effective resistance against the military and quasi-military campaigns
funded by the federal and state government against them.
From the 1850s to the 1870s, Indians in California were subjected to racial discrimination
and race motivated violence. The settlers in California conducted campaigns with the aim
of exterminating Indians from the state. Their removal policy was funded by state and
federal resources. The racial discrimination and associated violence against Indians led to
the decline of the Indian population by 90 percent during this period.
Works Cited
Bean, Walton. California: An Interpretive History. New York [usw.: McGraw-Hill, 1968.
Print.