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Murder State: California's Native American Genocide, 1846-1873
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Euro-American citizenry of California carried out mass genocide against the Native population of their state, using the processes and mechanisms of democracy to secure land and resources for themselves and their private interests. The murder, rape, and enslavement of thousands of Native people were legitimized by notions of democracy—in this case mob rule—through a discreetly organized and brutally effective series of petitions, referenda, town hall meetings, and votes at every level of California government.
Murder State is a comprehensive examination of these events and their early legacy. Preconceptions about Native Americans as shaped by the popular press and by immigrants’ experiences on the Overland Trail to California were used to further justify the elimination of Native people in the newcomers’ quest for land. The allegedly “violent nature” of Native people was often merely their reaction to the atrocities committed against them as they were driven from their ancestral lands and alienated from their traditional resources.
In this narrative history employing numerous primary sources and the latest interdisciplinary scholarship on genocide, Brendan C. Lindsay examines the darker side of California history, one rarely studied in detail, and the motives of both Native Americans and Euro-Americans at the time. Murder State calls attention to the misuse of democracy to justify and commit genocide.
Murder State is a comprehensive examination of these events and their early legacy. Preconceptions about Native Americans as shaped by the popular press and by immigrants’ experiences on the Overland Trail to California were used to further justify the elimination of Native people in the newcomers’ quest for land. The allegedly “violent nature” of Native people was often merely their reaction to the atrocities committed against them as they were driven from their ancestral lands and alienated from their traditional resources.
In this narrative history employing numerous primary sources and the latest interdisciplinary scholarship on genocide, Brendan C. Lindsay examines the darker side of California history, one rarely studied in detail, and the motives of both Native Americans and Euro-Americans at the time. Murder State calls attention to the misuse of democracy to justify and commit genocide.
456 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2012
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January 25, 2014
Although various authors have chronicled genocidal episodes in the Golden State, this work is different in two ways. First, it lays a solid base of theory in genocide studies. Second, it considers the subject with the scope of a state, a large state with a large genocidal history.
"Genocide" is a word that makes people nervous, and so it is good that Lindsay parses it through a review of literature. In fact, this early part of the book will be found of significant value to many scholars of Indian-white conflict and relations in various parts of the world. Lindsay is particularly good when he discusses the dynamics of genocide as it plays out on the ground, with different parties splintering in different directions. I can apply this readily to areas with which I am familiar--Colorado Territory in the 1860s, for instance, or Minnesota at the same time.
As the author goes through the sad details of mid-19th Century, there are certain aspects of the narrative and argument that ring tinny. Lindsay is at pains to conclude that overland emigrants to California had resoundingly negative ideas about natives before they ever got to California - despite the verdicts of historical authorities that emigrants on the rail suffered almost no violence at the hands of natives. He fails to consider seriously the positive, although perhaps naïve, ideas held by Americans at the same time. He also overlooks the problem that the same authorities he cites about the lack of Indian violence on the trails also describe positive interactions of white travelers with natives - which could not have happened if the emigrants were wholly fearful and hateful. As for the direct recounting of events in California, Lindsay is sometimes a little too eager to tell us what to think about them. It is as if every now and then he needs to interject, "See what I'm talking about? This is genocide." Occasionally, too, he presumes too much as to the motivations of individuals. You might say, at times he fails to recognize in historical events the sort of nuance he perceives in the theoretical literature.
"Genocide" is a word that makes people nervous, and so it is good that Lindsay parses it through a review of literature. In fact, this early part of the book will be found of significant value to many scholars of Indian-white conflict and relations in various parts of the world. Lindsay is particularly good when he discusses the dynamics of genocide as it plays out on the ground, with different parties splintering in different directions. I can apply this readily to areas with which I am familiar--Colorado Territory in the 1860s, for instance, or Minnesota at the same time.
As the author goes through the sad details of mid-19th Century, there are certain aspects of the narrative and argument that ring tinny. Lindsay is at pains to conclude that overland emigrants to California had resoundingly negative ideas about natives before they ever got to California - despite the verdicts of historical authorities that emigrants on the rail suffered almost no violence at the hands of natives. He fails to consider seriously the positive, although perhaps naïve, ideas held by Americans at the same time. He also overlooks the problem that the same authorities he cites about the lack of Indian violence on the trails also describe positive interactions of white travelers with natives - which could not have happened if the emigrants were wholly fearful and hateful. As for the direct recounting of events in California, Lindsay is sometimes a little too eager to tell us what to think about them. It is as if every now and then he needs to interject, "See what I'm talking about? This is genocide." Occasionally, too, he presumes too much as to the motivations of individuals. You might say, at times he fails to recognize in historical events the sort of nuance he perceives in the theoretical literature.
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May 19, 2023a fun book to throw at anyone who thinks california is a liberal utopia. having grown up in a gold rush town, i feel so familiar with hunky-dory approach to california's gold rush history. i remember panning for gold in the 4th grade, learning to churn butter, and watching a blacksmith forge an axe, and thinking 1848 must have been great, exciting fun. noticeably absent from these dominating narratives was the reality that california is the site of one of the most intentional and consequential cultural genocides in human history. this book is dense, painstakingly researched, and (admittedly) a huge bummer to read. but honestly, it feels irresponsible for white californians to go any longer without critically examining our collective history at hand for the death of thousands of indigenous people. i also felt this book did a good job of emphasizing the resiliency of different indigenous communities throughout california -- and how this triumph has been accomplished without any help and often in spite of the california government. indigenous people are often, even in critical historical texts, framed as people of the past, and this perpetuates our complicity in ongoing genocidal practices.
December 6, 2016
This is a well-written, powerful volume that places the misfortunes including murder of most of California's Native American population within 20 years of the former Spanish possession becoming part of the US, within the context of today's internationally accepted definition of genocide.
What took 200 years in the Eastern and Trans-Mississippi portion of the US, was accomplished in only 20 years in California, as the Native American population experienced a complete demographic collapse - a 90% reduction - between the time of the Gold Rush in the 1840s up to the 1860s. By the time the white settlers were finished, the Native Americans had been robbed of all of their land - except for a few reservations, and later, allotments that were designed to destroy their culture by making it impossible to live in villages and so forth. Eventually, the remaining Indians became knowledgeable enough to form associations and make demands.
The greed of the settlers knew no bounds - many of the first settlers arrived on hearing news of the discovery of gold. When their golden dreams did not pan out, they turned to other ways of getting rich, such as agriculture or ranching. Basically, both pursuits destroyed the Indians way of life and subsistence style of survival; large number of livestock were put into valleys are allowed to roam free, thereby destroying plants the Indians relied on for food. Deer and elk were considered competition for cattle and other domesticated livestock, so the whites hunted them - much like the bison were hunted. Unfortunately, the removal of wildlife meant the Indians lost the animals they depended on for food. When the Indians finally were forced to rustle livestock to survive, the whites would launch murderous retaliatory expeditions. The settlers used democratic methods - the tyranny of the majority - circulating petitions, and sending letters to legislators - to get compensation for the posses they mustered for the death squads. The State of California eventually was reimbursed for the expense of the extermination squads by the Federal government. The loss of life on the settler side was minimal - although late in the 19th Century a costly action was fought by the US Army vs. the Modocs in the lava fields of the NE corner of California.
The book traces in detail the democratic nature of the extermination program as well as proves that the effort, which had the support of the white population, and was authorized by the State of California, and funded by the State, Federal government as well as occasionally private subscriptions to pay for extermination expeditions, represents genocide. Finally, starving demoralized Indians were herded into reservations - where the mistreatment usually continued since the State typically would not vote enough money to fund the facilities. Occasionally, only the Indians that would work for no wages (slavery) on the reservation land would get fed; those that did not work (children and the elderly) would receive no food. The reservations were yet another way to diminish the population of Indians in California. Other methods the whites employed to kill California Native Americans included deliberate poisoning with strychnine and inoculation with small-pox. It is easy for a researcher to find out about the genocide of the California Indians because the whites felt no shame in enslaving, mistreating or killing the Indians, whom they considered sub human, and kept a record of their extermination actions as part of the reports they needed to file with the State of California. As well, numerous letters, memoirs, and newspaper articles from the time describe hundreds of actions vs. the Indians from one end of the State to the other. The wanton killing of Indians finally led to local laws forbidding Indians from entering various localities. In the 19th C, the white man was at the top of the pyramid of power, and any non-White was pushed around, or worse. Indians were lynched countless times, and there was a regular slave mart in Los Angeles for many years. As well, abductions of Native American women and children were wide-spread - these victims were then pressed into service in households, with the objective of not only getting absolutely free labor, but also removing the Indian culture/ethos from the Indians. Forbidding the use of Indian languages at Indian schools that were later set up, was standard, inasmuch as the object of the schools was ethnocide that is the killing of the culture of the Indians (mirroring the prior physical murder of Indians). The pattern of Indian American genocide in California, though easily documented, was largely omitted from history books, and what is taught in school - and the usual "line" of the evil Indian invariably presented in films since the 20th Century, although the truth is, in California, the troubles were really a function of the settlers' hunger for land, and the inconvenience of the Indians having been on the land before them. Basically, all the Indians had to be killed, and their cultures extirpated, so that there would be no one left to make any claims afterwards: This was the thinking of the white settlers in the State of California, and explains why the wholesale slaughter occurred.
The list of mistreatment by white settlers, many of whom migrated to California from the South, is lengthy but most times, the whites could get away with murder if it was an Indian that was killed because the criminal justice was set up in such a way that there was a separate criminal justice system for Indians, and the only justice the Indians could get under the system, was scant. An Indian could not complain about anything a white might do, for example. There was no system of a trial by jury, as only special justices of the peace were authorized to hear Indian complaints. Many times, missing cattle - having wandered off from the herd - were blamed on Indians and innocent Indians were summarily shot. This would start the cycle of retaliation and retribution, often ending in the complete extermination of villages or even tribes. In this way, the whites eventually "cleaned out" the Indian from the entire State of California.
My review does not fully capture the sweep of this book, which traces the origins of the bigotry which led to the genocide, to not only the prior years in the US, which were marked by Indian Wars, broken treaties, and continual relocations of Indians, but also the trail guides and newspaper articles of the era, which constantly depicted Indians as dangers, primitive, sub human, and whipped up paranoia in the settlers traveling to the new territory although most wagon trains made the journey West having experienced no Indian attacks and very often with Indians trading and helping the settlers.
The frightening reality of the book, similar to the reality of Nazi Germany, is that the whites were fully supportive of the genocide, even proud of it, because the genocide enabled them to seize land and resources of the Native Americans. The patina of "legality" was applied to the extermination of the Native Americans, because votes were held at the village level, petitions sent to Sacramento requesting authorization and funding for the death squads, and following successful expeditions, the returning menfolk were hailed as heroes, and often proudly displayed Indian scalps and even heads on their return. In other words, the settlers were on the one hand, acting in a "lawful" democratic manner in applying for permission/authorization for the murders, and felt like loyal law-abiding US citizens, and on the other, they felt no compunction in carrying out horrendous massacres, including the killing of elderly, infants, and sick, because they were in the way of the white populations' greed, and the whites could never feel secure with Indians around who might seek retribution or make future claims on the land. Government authorized & funded the killing, many other mistreatments including rape, abductions, burning entire villages down, were not prosecuted as an Indian could not testify/complain about a white man's actions. Once the Indians were eliminated, they were "romanticized" as noble savages; by the time Ishi ventured out of the mountains in the early 20th C, he was studied by scientists, but nothing was said about why he and his family had been hiding in the mountains for 40 years, somehow surviving the harsh winters.
The sickening lesson of the almost total extermination of the California Indian in the space of about 20 years, is that once again, just as in Nazi Germany, greed/prejudice/bigotry, when authorized and funded by the State, can lead to genocide - killing of thousands of people in a category by another group with absolutely no penalty, no guilt. Needless to say, not a single white person who participated in the killing or funded it, ever faced justice, since the State officials supported the overwhelming wishes of their constituents and had already set up the separate justice system for Indians and many other laws that would systematically disenfranchise the Indians. Treaties that would have recognized the tribes were negotiated but never ratified - but that was only revealed many years later.
In short, the treatment of the Native Americans of California pretty much mirrors the treatment of Native Americans throughout North America except that the killing, disruption of ecosystem, subsistence way of life, and destruction of cultures, was much more rapid.
What took 200 years in the Eastern and Trans-Mississippi portion of the US, was accomplished in only 20 years in California, as the Native American population experienced a complete demographic collapse - a 90% reduction - between the time of the Gold Rush in the 1840s up to the 1860s. By the time the white settlers were finished, the Native Americans had been robbed of all of their land - except for a few reservations, and later, allotments that were designed to destroy their culture by making it impossible to live in villages and so forth. Eventually, the remaining Indians became knowledgeable enough to form associations and make demands.
The greed of the settlers knew no bounds - many of the first settlers arrived on hearing news of the discovery of gold. When their golden dreams did not pan out, they turned to other ways of getting rich, such as agriculture or ranching. Basically, both pursuits destroyed the Indians way of life and subsistence style of survival; large number of livestock were put into valleys are allowed to roam free, thereby destroying plants the Indians relied on for food. Deer and elk were considered competition for cattle and other domesticated livestock, so the whites hunted them - much like the bison were hunted. Unfortunately, the removal of wildlife meant the Indians lost the animals they depended on for food. When the Indians finally were forced to rustle livestock to survive, the whites would launch murderous retaliatory expeditions. The settlers used democratic methods - the tyranny of the majority - circulating petitions, and sending letters to legislators - to get compensation for the posses they mustered for the death squads. The State of California eventually was reimbursed for the expense of the extermination squads by the Federal government. The loss of life on the settler side was minimal - although late in the 19th Century a costly action was fought by the US Army vs. the Modocs in the lava fields of the NE corner of California.
The book traces in detail the democratic nature of the extermination program as well as proves that the effort, which had the support of the white population, and was authorized by the State of California, and funded by the State, Federal government as well as occasionally private subscriptions to pay for extermination expeditions, represents genocide. Finally, starving demoralized Indians were herded into reservations - where the mistreatment usually continued since the State typically would not vote enough money to fund the facilities. Occasionally, only the Indians that would work for no wages (slavery) on the reservation land would get fed; those that did not work (children and the elderly) would receive no food. The reservations were yet another way to diminish the population of Indians in California. Other methods the whites employed to kill California Native Americans included deliberate poisoning with strychnine and inoculation with small-pox. It is easy for a researcher to find out about the genocide of the California Indians because the whites felt no shame in enslaving, mistreating or killing the Indians, whom they considered sub human, and kept a record of their extermination actions as part of the reports they needed to file with the State of California. As well, numerous letters, memoirs, and newspaper articles from the time describe hundreds of actions vs. the Indians from one end of the State to the other. The wanton killing of Indians finally led to local laws forbidding Indians from entering various localities. In the 19th C, the white man was at the top of the pyramid of power, and any non-White was pushed around, or worse. Indians were lynched countless times, and there was a regular slave mart in Los Angeles for many years. As well, abductions of Native American women and children were wide-spread - these victims were then pressed into service in households, with the objective of not only getting absolutely free labor, but also removing the Indian culture/ethos from the Indians. Forbidding the use of Indian languages at Indian schools that were later set up, was standard, inasmuch as the object of the schools was ethnocide that is the killing of the culture of the Indians (mirroring the prior physical murder of Indians). The pattern of Indian American genocide in California, though easily documented, was largely omitted from history books, and what is taught in school - and the usual "line" of the evil Indian invariably presented in films since the 20th Century, although the truth is, in California, the troubles were really a function of the settlers' hunger for land, and the inconvenience of the Indians having been on the land before them. Basically, all the Indians had to be killed, and their cultures extirpated, so that there would be no one left to make any claims afterwards: This was the thinking of the white settlers in the State of California, and explains why the wholesale slaughter occurred.
The list of mistreatment by white settlers, many of whom migrated to California from the South, is lengthy but most times, the whites could get away with murder if it was an Indian that was killed because the criminal justice was set up in such a way that there was a separate criminal justice system for Indians, and the only justice the Indians could get under the system, was scant. An Indian could not complain about anything a white might do, for example. There was no system of a trial by jury, as only special justices of the peace were authorized to hear Indian complaints. Many times, missing cattle - having wandered off from the herd - were blamed on Indians and innocent Indians were summarily shot. This would start the cycle of retaliation and retribution, often ending in the complete extermination of villages or even tribes. In this way, the whites eventually "cleaned out" the Indian from the entire State of California.
My review does not fully capture the sweep of this book, which traces the origins of the bigotry which led to the genocide, to not only the prior years in the US, which were marked by Indian Wars, broken treaties, and continual relocations of Indians, but also the trail guides and newspaper articles of the era, which constantly depicted Indians as dangers, primitive, sub human, and whipped up paranoia in the settlers traveling to the new territory although most wagon trains made the journey West having experienced no Indian attacks and very often with Indians trading and helping the settlers.
The frightening reality of the book, similar to the reality of Nazi Germany, is that the whites were fully supportive of the genocide, even proud of it, because the genocide enabled them to seize land and resources of the Native Americans. The patina of "legality" was applied to the extermination of the Native Americans, because votes were held at the village level, petitions sent to Sacramento requesting authorization and funding for the death squads, and following successful expeditions, the returning menfolk were hailed as heroes, and often proudly displayed Indian scalps and even heads on their return. In other words, the settlers were on the one hand, acting in a "lawful" democratic manner in applying for permission/authorization for the murders, and felt like loyal law-abiding US citizens, and on the other, they felt no compunction in carrying out horrendous massacres, including the killing of elderly, infants, and sick, because they were in the way of the white populations' greed, and the whites could never feel secure with Indians around who might seek retribution or make future claims on the land. Government authorized & funded the killing, many other mistreatments including rape, abductions, burning entire villages down, were not prosecuted as an Indian could not testify/complain about a white man's actions. Once the Indians were eliminated, they were "romanticized" as noble savages; by the time Ishi ventured out of the mountains in the early 20th C, he was studied by scientists, but nothing was said about why he and his family had been hiding in the mountains for 40 years, somehow surviving the harsh winters.
The sickening lesson of the almost total extermination of the California Indian in the space of about 20 years, is that once again, just as in Nazi Germany, greed/prejudice/bigotry, when authorized and funded by the State, can lead to genocide - killing of thousands of people in a category by another group with absolutely no penalty, no guilt. Needless to say, not a single white person who participated in the killing or funded it, ever faced justice, since the State officials supported the overwhelming wishes of their constituents and had already set up the separate justice system for Indians and many other laws that would systematically disenfranchise the Indians. Treaties that would have recognized the tribes were negotiated but never ratified - but that was only revealed many years later.
In short, the treatment of the Native Americans of California pretty much mirrors the treatment of Native Americans throughout North America except that the killing, disruption of ecosystem, subsistence way of life, and destruction of cultures, was much more rapid.
July 11, 2022
One of the best books that I have ever read on a topic almost completely unknown to the citizens of the United States. BTW, just another case of genocide in the dispossession of Native Americans. The settlers, their democratic notions, the government elected by the Euro-Americans, and the press all colluded to exterminate both physically and culturally. And the press! As hateful as their publications were, thanks to them, we have an entire written record of genocide.
Think twice before you use terms like "In country" or "off the reservation" again.
So. Fucking. Grim.
Think twice before you use terms like "In country" or "off the reservation" again.
So. Fucking. Grim.
April 13, 2021
Settler-colonialism's bloody past and present is brought into horrifying focus when you zoom into the particulars of a part of the country you're familiar with and get deeper into specific crimes and atrocities than at the level of the entire genocidal project of the so-called United States.
That said, a bit tedious.
That said, a bit tedious.
June 20, 2017
Excellent work. One of many horrors committed against indigenous peoples. All non natives in California should read.
February 14, 2022
an amazing read, well documented and shows how the democratic processes of euro americans led to the genocide of native peoples in california
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May 20, 2025Pretty brutal. The ways in which state forces wanted to commit far more genocidal actions than the federal gov't wanted to allow was particularly harrowing.
August 24, 2016
Tragic overlooked history. If what the European-American immigrants to California did to the native populations wasn't genocide, then that term is meaningless. Utterly despicable. We who live in California owe the survivors the bare minimum of educating ourselves about how we came to dominate this landscape.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews