I BE RO ... AM E RICA,N A: 23 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE CALIFORNIA INDIAN AND WHITE CIVILIZATION:III S. F. COOK -c - THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE CALIFORNIA INDIAN AND' WHITE CIVILIZATION III. THE AMERICAN INVASION, 1848-1870 BY S. F. COOK UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES 1943 CONTENTS IBERO-AMERICANA: 23 EDITORS: C. O. SAUER, LAWRENCE KINNAIRD, L. B. SIMPSON PART THREE. THE AMERICAN INVASION, 1848-1870 II5 pages PAGE Submitted by editors February 13, 1942 Introduction. I Issued April 20, 1943 Price, $1.25 Military Casualties, 1848-1865 . Social Homicide Disease. Food and Nutrition UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY AND Los ANGELES Labor . CALIFORNIA Sex and Family Relations Summary and Comparisons CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON,ENGLAND APPENDIX Table 1. Indian Population from the End of the Mission Period to Modern Times . Table 2. Estimated Population in 1848, 1852, and 1880 . Koupi od ~ Table 3. Indian Losses from Military Operations, 1847- Darem od u ~:ij3.A 1865 ............... 106 V Table 4. Population Decline due to Military Casualties, 1848-1880. III IllV b Table 5. Social Homicide, 1852-1865 II2 . C' . ",I PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA The American Invasion, 1848-1870 INTRODUCTION HEN THE CALIFORNIA INDIAN was confronted with the prob­ lem of contact and competition with the white race, his suc­ W cess was much less marked with the Anglo-American than with the Ibero-American branch. To be sure, his success against the latter had been far from noteworthy; both in the missions and in the native habitat the aboriginal population'had declined, and the Indian had been forced to give ground politically and racially before the advance of Spanish colonization. However, the nonmission Indian had demonstrated a certain power of resilience and, in the realm of physical activity, had been able to evolve a new behavior pattern which, if he had been left alone, might have permitted him to cope on fairly even terms with the invading race. The valley and northern tribes were evincing a fair capacity for adaptation, in the strictly material sense, to the new environment imposed by the entrance of a new biological group. Furthermore, the native culture had by no means utterly col­ lapsed. To a certain extent in the missions and predominantly in the aboriginal habitat the Indian had retained his primitive social and religious character and, indeed, had appropriated a few features of the white- civilization, modifying them and incorporating them into his own system. When the Indian was forced to withstand the shock and impact of the Anglo-Saxon invasion, his failure in all these respects was vir­ tually complete. In the physical and demographic spheres his com­ petitive inferiority was such as to come very close to bringing about his literal extermination. His social structure was not only utterly dis­ organized, but almost completely wiped out. Culturally, he has been forced to make a slow, painful adjustment, ending with the adoption of the alien system, and he has now lost all but fragments of the abo­ riginal pattern. The present study undertakes to describe some of the processes involved in this racial failure and some of the factors deter­ mining its extent. Without embarking upon any attempt to analyze the differences 2 The California Indian and White Civilization' The American Invasion, 1848-1870 3 between the Anglo-American and Ibero-American personality, social predator-prey relationships, and it holds similarly for human beings. order, or culture, certain points of divergence between the two groups The Spanish type of colonization was such that the invading and rul­ may be mentioned briefly in so far as they affected Indian relations in ing caste or race was always small in numbers. In California, for California. Perhaps these points may be allocated to two prime cate­ example, the whole coastal strip was taken and held by little more gories: differences in mode of colonization and differences in economic than one hundred persons. By r845 the entire population of the gente and social attitude toward the aborigine. de razon did not exceed 4,000. Against this may be set the native popu­ The divergent Indian reaction to Spanish clerical authority, as dem­ lation of over IOO,OOO. The Americans, on the other hand, entered the onstrated by the mission neophytes, and to Spanish civil authority, region'in great numbers. Undoubtedly they would have continued as shown by the unconverted interior tribes, is clear evidence that the to do so, for by r848 they were already coming in by the hundreds. two modes of interracial contact were fundamentally different. The Owing to the fortuitous discovery of gold in that year, however, they opinion may be advanced that the determining factor was aggregation poured in by thousands to flood the country. Furthermore, because versus dissemination. The fatal effects of the altruistic mission lay, of the nature of mining, they swarmed in hordes into those hill and first, in the removal of the native from his original habitat and, second, mountain retreats which the Spaniards had never even penetrated. in his subjection to continuous close association with the foreign en­ The Indians, therefore, were overwhelmed by tremendous numbers vironment and race. The relative preservation of the gentile element of aliens at all points and at much the same time. The conversion of was due to the failure of the Spanish actually to occupy the territory their vast primitive range and habitat into a group of civilized com­ of the Indian. This same distinction in the type of interracial contact munities was thus accomplished in an incredibly short period. appears when the Spanish system as a whole is contrasted with the Both branches of the white race arrived on the Pacific Coast with American. a heritage of long experience with the Indian; both had developed a The great interior of the state was penetrated many times by the well-formulated mental attitude and a definite policy with respect to Spaniards. Repeatedly they entered the lands of the Indians, but they the natives. But these attitudes and policies were conditioned by the did not settle and stay on these lands. Between the frequent but still widely differing pioneering and colonial experience of the two temporary foreign incursions the natives were able to maintain their branches in the preceding centuries. Both Anglo-Saxons and Span­ life and social order more or less unaltered. At least they were not ish had pursued an avowed course of exploitation of New World called upon to make any continuous and permanent adjustment to resources. The Spanish, however, had systematically availed them­ a change in their own environment. When the Americans arrived, selves of human resources, wherea~ the English had tapped only they took over the Indian habitat and made it their own. The aborig­ material wealth. Whatever the causes of the divergence, by the nine­ ines were forced, therefore, to adapt themselves, on their own ground, teenth century the Ibero-Americans consistently followed the pro­ to a new environment. The final effect was precisely the same as if they cedure of utilizing the natives and incorporating them in their social had been bodily removed and set down in a strange region. They and economic structure, whereas the Anglo-Americans rigidly ex­ were subjected not to invasion but to inundation. cluded them from their own social order. It followed, therefore, that Another factor of significance here is that of numbers. Other things in opening up California the Spanish system undertook as far as being equal, the intensity of conflict and the weight thrown against possible to employ the Indians, even by force, in useful pursuits. This the primitive group will roughly follow the numerical strength of in turn meant that the aboriginal race was an economic asset and the new or invading species. This general principle has been demon­ as such was to be conserved. Destruction of individual life occurred strated repeatedly with the lower organisms in their parasite-host or only when and if the Indian actively resisted the process of amal- 4 The California Indian and White Civilizatio~ The American Invasion, 1848-1870 5 gamation or definitely failed to conform to the conqueror's scheme the red race, which mad~ no discrimination between tribes or indi­ of existence. Wholesale slaughter or annihilation was definitely viduals. All Indians were vermin, to be treated as such. It is therefore undesirable. not surprising that physical violence was the rule rather than the excep­ The Anglo-American system, on the other hand, had no place for tion. The native's life was worthless, for no American could even be the Indian. If the latter could of his own initiative find subsistence brought to trial for killing an Indian. What little property the Indian within its framework, there was a priori nothing to prevent such ad­ possessed could be taken or destroyed at the slightest provocation. He justment. But if there was any conflict whatsoever with the system, had no civil or legal rights whatever. Finally, since the quickest and the native was to be eliminated ruthlessly, either by outright extermi­ easiest way to get rid of his troublesome presence was to kill him off, nation or the slower method of segregation in ghetto like reservations. this procedure was adopted as standard for some years. Thus was car­ Accompanying this economic difference was another divergence of ried on the policy which had wiped out en masse tribe after tribe across great social significance. The Spanish colonial system always envisaged the continent. the retention of the native as the basis of the population and simul­ In comparing the objective effects wrought by the Ibero-American taneously encouraged racial mixture.