The first full account of the government-sanctioned genocide of
California Indians under United States rule
Winner of the
2016 Los Angeles Times Book Award for History and a New York Times
Book Review Editors' Choice
"Gruesomely
thorough. . . . Others have described some of these campaigns, but
never in such strong terms and with so much blame placed directly on
the United States government."--Alexander Nazaryan, Newsweek
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.
