Native Americans and White Men in the 1800s

As I studied Anthropology I became the most interested in Cultural Anthropology. And almost all cultures are based upon their religions or world views. This has only been changing a lot from about Francis Bacon's, Galileo's, Leonardo Da Vinci's time even though many ideas were amazing in Ancient Greece too that survived until today from Aristotle, Archimedes, Plato, and Socrates and others.

However, what happened to the Native Americans when people came from Europe was mostly that when trappers entered new areas they exposed the Native Americans to flu, Colds, smallpox and other things from Europe and 90% of local tribes died within a few years of these contacts with White Trappers.

Then another thing that happened was sometimes there was a smallpox epidemic and whole tribes (at least 90% of them died from these outbreaks too. And sometimes (knowingly or unknowingly) the blankets that some Native Americans had died laying on were given to other native Americans and other tribes without washing them. This also spread smallpox. Whether someone did this consciously or not I can't say because I wasn't there. However, it did happen.

I was trying to find a quote about this from California history: This is part of what I found regarding Northern California:
begin quote:

Vastly overestimating their power, Mexican authorities authorized an additional 762 land grants by 1847. In reality the effectiveness of Indian stock raiders increased dramatically when American and Canadian fur trappers provided a lucrative market for purloined horses by the mid 1830's. Interior Mexican ranches were increasingly abandoned in the face of economic ruin by native stock raiding activities. Even Johann A. Sutter was reduced to begging the Mexican government to buy his fort following a mauling at the hands of Miwok Indians near the Calaveras in June of 1846.

Despite these successes, a series of murderous epidemics in the twilight years of the Mexican era severely reduced the interior population. For instance, in 1833 an American party of fur trappers introduced a murderous scourge of malaria into the Sacramento and San Joaquin River drainages. While traversing the epicenter of the plague, J. J. Warner reported,

From the head of the Sacramento to the great bend and slough of the San Joaquin we did not see more than six or eight live Indians; while large numbers of their skulls and dead bodies were seen under almost every shade tree near the water, where the uninhabited and deserted villages had been converted into graveyards.

In this tragedy more than 20,000 Central Valley Miwok, Yokuts, Wintun, and Maidu Indians perished. A new outbreak of small pox devastated Coast Miwok, Pomo, Wappo, and Wintun tribes. Approximately 2000 died in this 1837 epidemic originating from Fort Ross. By 1840 these and other murderous maladies had so thoroughly saturated the Indian population of Mexican California that diseases became endemic.

Mexican forced labor and violence at the hands of the militia and paramilitary slave hunting parties account for a significant amount of the population decline suffered by California Indians. On the eve of the American take-over the aboriginal population of approximately 310,000 had been reduced to about 150,000. This gut wrenching 50% decline had occurred in just 77 years. The implications for survivors is largely a mute tale of suffering and grieving over the loss of a stunning number of children, parents and elders. What came next was worse still.

THE AMERICAN INVASION

Alta California the poorly managed and badly neglected stepchild of Mexico was rapidly overwhelmed by a combination of aggressive Indian raids and the arrival of United States Army, Navy and Marine forces in the summer of 1846. Despite a seemingly irrational murderous attack on Sacramento River Maidu Indian villages by U.S. Army forces under the command of John C. Fremont, the majority of California Indians involved in that struggle aided the Americans as scouts, warrior-soldiers and wranglers.

When Mexican resistance collapsed in January of 1847, thereafter Indian Affairs was administered by a succession of military governors. Stock raiding Indians in the interior recommenced their depredations when they learned Indian slavers such as Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo and Johann A. Sutter had been appointed as Indian sub-agents. Military government's policy was to suppress stock raiding and furthermore imposed draconian restrictions on the free movement of Indians and required Indians to carry certificates of employment.

THE GOLD RUSH

The discovery of gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada at a sawmill construction site developed by Indian Agent Johann Sutter, ushered in one of the darkest episodes of dispossession widespread sexual assault and mass murder against the native people of California. Sutter immediately negotiated a treaty with the chief of the Coloma Nisenan Tribe which would have given a three year lease to lands surrounding the gold discovery site. During those negotiations, the chief prophetically warned Sutter that the yellow metal he so eagerly sought was, "very bad medicine. It belonged to a demon who devoured all who searched for it". Eventually the military governor refused to endorse Sutter's self-serving actions.

Within a year a hoard of 100,000 adventurers from all over the world descended upon the native peoples of California with catastrophic results. The entire state was scoured by gold seekers. Thinly spread government officials were overwhelmed by this unprecedented deluge of immigrants and all effective authority collapsed. Military authorities could not prevent widespread desertion of soldiers and chaos reigned.

A virtual reign of terror enveloped tribesmen the mining districts. Wanton killings and violence against Indians resisting miners developed into a deadly pattern. An Oustemah Nisenan female named Betsy later recalled,

A life of ease and peace was interrupted when I was a little girl by the arrival of the whitemen. Each day the population increased and the Indians feared the invaders and great consternation prevailed .... as gold excitement advanced, we were moved again and again, each time in haste. Indian children.... when taken into town would blacken their faces with dirt so the newcomers would not steal them....

Numerous vigilante type paramilitary troops were established whose principal occupation seems to have been to kill Indians and kidnap their children. Groups such as the Humbolt Home Guard, the Eel River Minutemen and the Placer Blades among others terrorized local Indians and caused the premier 19th century historian Hubert Howe Bancroft to describe them as follows.

"The California valley cannot grace her annals with a single Indian war bordering on respectability. It can, however, boast a hundred or two of as brutal butchering, on the part of our honest miners and brave pioneers, as any area of equal extent in our republic......"

The handiwork of these well armed death squads combined with the widespread random killing of Indians by individual miners resulted in the death of 100,000 Indians in the first two years of the gold rush. A staggering loss of two thirds of the population. Nothing in American Indian history is even remotely comparable to this massive orgy of theft and mass murder. Stunned survivors now perhaps numbering fewer than 70,000 teetered near the brink of total annihilation.

The newcomers sometimes met organized Indian resistance. In 1850 a Cupeno chief named Antonio Garra Sr. organized local Southern California Indians to resist an illegal tax imposed upon San Diego Indians by the county sheriff. Sporadic attacks upon both Americans and some Mexicans by Garra's followers resulted in a massive crackdown on Indian communities. Soon a rival Cahuilla chief captured Garra and turned him over to the authorities who promptly hung him and several of his followers. In 1851 several mountain Miwok tribes offered armed resistance to the hoard of miners overrunning their territory. When one tribe destroyed a trading post owned by an American who kept at least 12 Indian "wives" a paramilitary militia was formed and aggressively attacked Indians throughout the southern mines area. Eventually this group calling itself the "Mariposa Battalion" breached the unknown granite fortress of the valley of Yosemite. A ruthless campaign against the Yosemite Indians resulted in the capture of their Chief Teneya and a temporary exile to the San Joaquin River "Indian Farm".

In reality these Indian campaigns were motivated by rapacious greed of the miners to gain Indian lands and provide political capitol for ambitious office seekers. Sadly both the state and federal government eventually reimbursed the vast majority of these paramilitary forays for expenses incurred. This is indeed a dreary story of subsidized murder on a scale unequaled in all of this country's Indian wars.

end partial quote from:

http://nahc.ca.gov/califindian.html

So, just the Gold Rush itself was responsible for the deaths of 100,000 Native Americans in California. However, it must be said that many people who came for the Gold Rush were pretty unbalanced risk takers to begin with so this many unbalanced people dying and killing each other (white people killing each other over claim jumping and food etc) likely greatly exceeded whatever native Americans were killed also along the way. So, this must be considered in this too.

The sad part is likely White Americans would not have been prosecuted for killing native Americans but they could have been prosecuted for killing other white people.

This is part of the sad history of the early 1800s in regard to Native American tribes here especially in Northern California.

My wife was telling me that Yosemite meant "place of Death" in the Miwok language. I looked this up and it a little different than that here is the quote:
The Ahwahneechee were a powerful tribe feared by the surrounding Miwok tribes. The surrounding tribes called them Yosemite meaning "they are killers."^[4]Others say the name is a corruption of the word "Uzumati" meaning "grizzly bear" which was the totem of the larger of the two main social subdivisions of the band.^[5] By 1851, conflicts between the non-indigenous miners and the Native Americans in the Sierra started to increase. The state of California decided to send the Natives to reservations. The Mariposa Brigade was formed to carry out the relocation. Chief Tenaya agreed to move to the Fresno Reservation, instead of the destruction of his entire band. Many of his band left Yosemite Valley instead of following Tenaya. As they approached the Fresno reservation, they fled back to the Yosemite Valley. The Brigade then re-entered the Valley, captured Tenaya's sons, and killed his youngest son. Tenaya then agreed to go back to the reservation.

end quote from:

Chief Tenaya - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Tenaya

Wikipedia

Chief Tenaya (died 1853) was a Native American chief of the Yosemite Valley people in... The surrounding tribes called them Yosemite meaning "they are killers." Others ....By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.