University of Massachusetts Boston ScholarWorks at UMass Boston Graduate Masters Theses Doctoral Dissertations and Masters Theses 5-1993 Genocide and the Indians of California, 1769-1873 Margaret A. Field University of Massachusetts Boston Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.umb.edu/masters_theses Part of the Native American Studies Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Field, Margaret A., "Genocide and the Indians of California, 1769-1873" (1993). Graduate Masters Theses. Paper 141. This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Doctoral Dissertations and Masters Theses at ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. For more information, please contact [email protected]. GENOCIDE AND THE INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA , 1769-1873 A Thesis Presented by MARGARET A. FIELD Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies and Research of the Un1versity of Massachusetts at Boston in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS MAY 1993 HISTCRY PROGRAM GENOCIDE AND THE I NDIAN S OF CALIFORNIA, 1769-187 3 A Thesis P resented by MARGARET A. FIELD Approved as to style and content by : Clive Foss , Professor Co - Chairperson of Committee mes M. O'Too le , Assistant Professor -Chairpers on o f Committee Memb e r Ma rshall S. Shatz, Pr og~am Director Department of History ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank professors Foss , O'Toole, and Buckley f or their assistance in preparing this manuscri pt and for their encouragement throughout the project . I also wish t o express appreciation to my family and friends--espec ially Kevin P. Jones--for their patience and s upport. i ii ABSTRACT GENOCIDE AND THE INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA, 1769-1873 MAY, 1993 MARGARET A. FIELD, A.B., HAMILTON COLLEGE M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AT BOSTON Directed by: Professor Clive Foss and Professor James M. O'Toole This study is an effort to determine whether the phenomenon of genocide, as defined in the UN Convention on Genocide cf 1948, played a distinguishable role in the sharp decline of the California Indian population during the period 1769 to 1873. Through examination of such resources as memoirs, newspaper accounts of the time, anthropological and demographic studies, government documents, and works on genocide theory, it considers key issues of intent and action on the part of the Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans who arrived in California during the period. The evidence indicates that genoc~de of indigenous peoples occurred in California in the later years of the period under examination, and that its perpetrators were primarily miners and settlers who had recently arrived from the East. Although genocide was not a primary cause of the indigenous population collapse in California, it had a decisive impact on the survival of some of the state's lV Indian groups. Numerous contemporary accounts provide details of indiscriminate killing of Indians by American settlers. The Indians of California experienced massive depopulation when California was ~nder Spanish and Mexican authority as well, but the decline cannot be attributed to genocide because of a lack of intent and an absence of widespread, sustained, one-sided attacks on the part of the Spanish and Mexicans. v TABLE OF CONTENTS l'.CKNOWLEDGMENTS. iii ABSTRACT. i v LIST OF FIGURES ................................. vii Chapter INTRODUCTION ............................. l 1"; POPULll.. TION ESTIMll.TES ..................... 9 I I I . GENOCIDE THEORY .......................... 17 IV. SPANISH PERIOD, 1769-1821 ................ 23 V. MEX:CAN ?ERIOD, 1821-1846 ................ 38 VI. AMERICAN PERIOD, 1846-1873 ............... 4~. ' VI 1. EVIDENCE ................................. 64 Spanish period: Conversion, civilization, colonization .......... 67 Mexican period: Absorption ............ 73 American period: Isolation and extermination ................... VIII .ANALYSIS ................................. 10 3 IX. CONCLUSION................................ 126 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure l. Key t o tribal territories ...... .. .............. 6 Figure 2. Estimated aboriginal popul ation by regional subdivision . ..... ... ..... .......... 13 Figure 3. Missions established in Alta Ca l ifornia ....... 24 vi i C H A P T E R I INTRODUCTION The Indians of what is today the state of California, like many indigenous groups around the world, experienced a sharp population decline following contact with people from different lands. Researchers have estimated the Indian population of California before the arrival of the Spanish m1ssions in 1769 to have been as high as 700,000, although the figure most widely accepted today is a m1n1mum of 310,000. The population declined to about 100,000 in 1849, during the Gold Rush, and to about 30,000 in 1870. It subsequently reached a nadir of 15,000 to 25,000 during the decade 1890-1900. The main cause of indigenous population decline in California, as in the rest of the United States, is generally considered to have been disease. To varying extents throughout the country, however, indigenous groups were also subject to violence and destruction of their way of life. 1 Since the UN adopted its Convention on Genocide in 1948, the term genocide has been applied to the experiences of American Indians, as well as to the experiences of other indigenous and minority populations. The Convention defines genocide as specific acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Acts of ethnocide, defined as 1 deliberate and systematic attempts to destroy a group's culture, religion, or ethnic identity, can be interrelated with genocide. Some who have written about American Indians view the plight of indigenous peoples as a mass genocide starting with the first European contact. Other authors single out specific segments of the Indian population as victims of genocide, while still others either raise the subject to dismiss it or do not refer to it at all when discussing American Indian population decline. In the 1990 standard work The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analyses and Case Studies, Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn devote two chapters to the experiences of the Indians of the Americas. They write: The part played by genocide in the destruction and crippling of so many societies spread over a vast area and colonized by settlers of many different nationalities and social systems is complex and still poorly understood. The opinion of many experts is that genocide was one of five major factors that undermined Indian civilizations; the others were disease, warfare, geographic removals and relocati~ns, and the destruction of traditional ways.~ Several authors have used the term genocide in relation to experiences of the Indians of California. 3 So far, however, little effort has been directed at examining precisely how the experiences of California Indian groups can be identified as genocide using a specific definition, as expressed in the 1948 UN convention. In their work, Chalk and Jonassohn briefly discuss the case of the Yuki 2 Indians o f the Round Valley reservation in northern California, describing it as a government sanctioned genocide. While Chalk and Jonassohn consider specific acts that indicate genocidal intent, other writers view genocide 1n a more general way . In an article in The Indian Historian, William E. Co ffer recount s e vents of the 19th century and writes , "In 1975, the genocidal treatment of the Ca lifornia Indian continues."4 In contrast, Albert L. Hur tado, like other writers who f ocus on Indian resistance and s urvival , expresses skeptici sm about applying the label t o the experiences of the Indians of California. In Indian Survival on the Ca l ifornia Front ier, Hurtado discusses popul ation studies of t h e Ca l i forni a Indians conducted by Sherburne F. Cook and wonders wh y later writers have not questioned portrayal s of Ca l iforni a Indians as passi ve vi c tims: "Ins tead, subsequent writers have a ccepted [Cook ' s] a nal ysi s and con c entrated on the grossest aspects of popul ation dec line. Indeed, two recent books use t he word genocide in their titles. " 5 There is a need to review evidence of the particular experiences of Indian groups in an effort to put genoc ide, along with ethnoci de, into perspective wh en c onsidering the impact of migration and co l onization on indigenous peoples . Blanket statements tha t all American Indians, or even al l Ca l ifornia I ndians, were v i ctims of genocide represent 3 extreme views; distinctions are necessary if the concept of genocide is to have any value as a tool in efforts to comprehend the past. In the other extreme, assertions that genocide or mass killings were not significant factors in American Indian population decline are also not very helpful. The American Indian experience, though complex and diverse, presents many parallels to the experiences of other populations that have declined following contact with outsiders. Consideration of the impact of genocide in specific cases is of significant value in understanding both the phenomenon of genocide itself and what happened in a particular place and time. This study is an effort to determine whether genocide played a distinguishable role in the population decline of the Indians of California. Specifically, I examine the purposes