Fair Share: The History of What Is Owed The Native Peoples of California

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By : Steve Newcomb
Winter 2003, Vol. 20, No. 4,

Originally published in “Native Americas” magazine,
Steven Newcomb
Indigenous Law Research Coordinator
Kumeyaay Community College

Introduction

Indian land is one key factor that has fueled the economy of the United States for the more than two hundred years since the end of the Revolutionary War. The revolutionaries who founded the United States saw the sale of Indian lands as the primary means of paying off the huge debt that the Confederacy had accumulated during the war for independence.1 Indeed, to the extent that the United States has been considered a political experiment, it has been an experiment predicated upon the dispossession of Native nations and the violent appropriation of their lands. The American motto “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” could have been more correctly written, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of Indian land.”

From a cynical point of view, we might say that U.S. policy makers considered it appropriate to dispossess the Indian nations and take their lands in order to make those Indigenous nations “pay their fair share” to the “progress” and expansion of the American empire.2 The Indians had millions of acres of land that the United States wanted, and, from the white peoples’ point of view, the Indians ought to be paying their “fair share” of lands and resources to the future development of the United States, regardless of the fact this would necessarily involve the destruction of their traditional Native economy and way of life.

During his successful 2003 campaign for Governor of California, then gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger followed this long tradition of expecting Indian nations to fuel the economy of the dominant society. He did so by putting a tremendous amount of money into television ads claiming that Indian “gaming tribes” are not paying their “fair share” of gaming revenues to the State of California, a state now wracked by record deficits. Apparently, Schwarzenegger saw the revenues realized by Indian nations and peoples in California as promising to offset a major part of California’s current fiscal crisis.

To put it mildly, it is highly ironic for Native peoples to be accused of not being “fair” to a state historically responsible for destructive, even genocidal policies against them. This article will attempt to put Mr. Schwarzenegger’s charge against the Indian peoples of California into the historical context of the horrendously damaging policies that the Native peoples of California have been subjected to over the generations.

One meaning of the word “fair” is “free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice,” such as “a fair decision” or “a fair judge.” A “share” is “the full or proper portion or part allotted, belonging to, contributed by, or owed by an individual or group.” Key terms here are “belonging to” and “owed by an individual or group.” This article argues that to claim Indian gaming revenues actually “belong” to California, or that a portion of those monies are “owed” by Native peoples to California, is to defy logic, history, and historical accountability, not to mention the political identity of sovereign Indian nations and peoples.

Given that roughly 73,340,000 acres of ancestral lands and ecosystems have been historically torn away from the Native peoples of California; given the history of abuse, genocide, enslavement, and injustice that Native peoples experienced during the colonization of California; and given the way Native peoples were stripped of their free and independent way of life, along with a vast amount of the thousands of years of accumulated cultural wisdom and understanding; I find it inconceivable that Native peoples “owe” anything to the state of California, or that any portion of Indian gaming revenues rightfully “belongs” to the state.

An Overview

California is a geographic area encompassing some 75 million acres, or 155,650 square miles. Today, according to the Sacramento office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the amount of Indian land in California is some 660,000 acres. This means that Indian peoples have been deprived of some 74,340,000 acres of land in California, lands and ecosystems which include coastlines and beaches, deserts, mountains, rivers and other waterways such as springs and aquifers, as well as forests and scenic places of breathtaking beauty such as Yosemite, the giant Sequoias, and the Redwoods. Prior to the European invasion, virtually all the lands and natural resources that now serve as the foundation of the world’s sixth largest economy were in the possession of and utilized by the Native peoples of California.

For thousands and thousands of years prior to European arrival to the Americas, Indigenous peoples had been living free and independent in the region of North America now called California. Over millenia, the Native peoples evolved and accumulated a degree of knowledge and wisdom that enabled them to maintain a viable existence even in difficult climates that experienced periodic droughts that would sometimes last for more than a decade. Over the course of eons, the Native peoples of California clearly demonstrated a genius for adaptation to the different climes, terrains, and ecosystems found in their region of the planet.

There are also many other discrete time frames to consider since the advent of colonization. 460 years have passed since October 7, 1542, when the Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo made landfall at Point Loma at the San Diego harbor. This is a period of more than four and a half centuries marked by Native resistance to disease, Catholic “missions”, massacres, enslavement, unratified treaties, formed assimilation, and acculturation. As a direct result, the population of Native peoples declined precipitously during this period.

To give the reader some sense of the magnitude of population decline, one estimate places the Native population in California at over 300,000 in 1769.1 By 1900 the combined population of Native people in California is estimated to have amounted to roughly 17,000, with 100,000 (if not more) having perished in the twenty-year period between 1848 and 1868.2 This precipitous drop of the Native population from 300,000 to 17,000 is an overall loss of some 283,00 people in one hundred thirty one years, or the loss of roughly 94% of the original 300,000 in thirteen decades. But if we were to take the initial estimate of 300,000 Native people, and postulate an ordinary birth rate, think of what the Native population would have been under ordinary conditions and circumstances absent this massive death rate.

Indigenous Science and Land Management Systems

One of the most common folk-lies that the dominant society has perpetuated about Native peoples generally is that they merely “wandered and roamed” the land. The implication seems to be that prior to Europeans arriving to the region, the Indigenous peoples merely foraged the land in a way that required no particular degree of intelligence. Of course, this presumption is patently false, and completely overlooks the brilliant adaptation skills of the Native peoples.

Anthropologist Florence Shipek interviewed Kumeyaay elders and plant specialists from 1959 to 1965. The people she interviewed were between 80 and 110 years of age. From these interviews, Mrs. Shipek determined that the Europeans who first wandered into Kemayaay territory were mistaken in their impression that they were “dealing with a ‘wild natural land’.”3 In point of fact, the Kumeyaay possessed a prodigious knowledge of the land and of the plant life in the area. They had gained this knowledge through what could only be described as a scientific attention to detail. As Mrs. Shipeck noted:

Kumeyaay plant specialists experimented with all plants, testing them for subsistence, medicinal, or technical purposes, and trying seeds, vegetative cuttings, or transplants in every location. Whenever a plant was useful or successful, its numbers were increased. This specifically applied to emergency food plants, which sprouted only in the unusually timed rainfalls of drought years. Some might sprout only once in twenty years and produce vegetable and seed foods when the regular staples were reduced by drought.4

For thousands of years prior to Europeans first voyaging to the hemisphere west of Europe, Indigenous peoples evolved their own unique linguistic and cultural systems, accumulating an intimate knowledge of the life forms in their respective territorial areas. According to Shipek:

The most damaging misconception that Europeans brought with them to California—as well as to the rest of the continent—was the belief that they were entering a “natural wilderness.” In Southern California, the Spanish saw—but failed to recognize—a system of planting,harvesting, and managing the environment that was very different from that practiced in Europe; they therefore claimed that the native peoples only gathered what ‘nature’ produced. The replacement of the knowledgeable and effective Kumeyaay system of total environ-mental management by one that mistakenly incorporates the European concept of ‘wilderness’ has resulted in a loss of valuable water resources, massive erosion, insect and parasite infestations, destructive wildfires, and a severe depletion of plant and animal species.5

Gregory Cajete has written: “In Native science, all relationships are related to other relationships. There is a vertical and a horizontal process, and these processes are constantly intertwining with each other to create reality.”6 Unfortunately, even to this day the dominant society has very little appreciation of the richness of Native cultural traditions, and the depth of their ecological understanding.

As the massive influx of Europeans overran traditional Indigenous territories, the Native peoples were stripped of the ability to keep their economies operating in the ways they had previously been able to do. European sheep and cattle devoured much of the Indigenous managed plant life, eating down to and destroying the roots. As a result, many indigenous plants were not replenished. For example, a type of grass that produced a grain similar to but half the size a grain of wheat used to be grown by the Kumeyaay people throughout the San Diego region. Today this Kumeyaay grain is evidently extinct, having last been grown in the 1880’s.7

As the Native peoples of California were slaughtered or driven off their lands, they were no longer able to maintain the spiritual and cultural practices that had maintained a viable ecosystem management. However, the people now claiming that Indigenous peoples are not paying their “fair share” to California don’t take such considerations into account.

How does one place an economic value on cultural and scientific knowledge that took thousands of years to accumulate, so much of which is now destroyed? It is as if the dominating society had taken a wrecking ball to a hundreds of huge glass cathedrals that took thousands of years to build, with no conscious regard for the resulting devastation. Yet the mass consciousness of the dominating society of California is practiced at the art of self-deception, and very skilled at pretending that its supplanting of Indigenous societies had no real dire consequence upon the Native peoples of California, and that nothing of any real value was lost. Most present day members of the dominating society see no reason to solemnly reflect on how much their colonial past has destroyed in the respective ‘worlds’ of the Indigenous peoples.

An example of the way Native peoples are so often shut out of the consciousness of the dominant society in California is found at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona. The cross cut of a giant Sequoia tree is on permanent display not far from one of the exhibit buildings. The cross cut is massive. When the tree’s rings were counted it was estimated that the tree was some 2,000 years old at the time it was cut down. To give visitors a sense of the tree’s great antiquity, a timeline is posted alongside the cross cut. Yet not once does the timeline mention the Native peoples of California to remind fairgoers of the history of Indigenous peoples in this region of the world, a history that predates that giant Sequoia tree by many thousands of years.

The Catholic Missions

“Ask of me and I shall give to thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” These words from Psalms 2:8 of the Old Testament, sum up the Christian attitude toward the Native peoples of California. Officials of the Catholic Church believed that “God” had “given” the Native peoples to the Church as an “inheritance” in the same way property is inherited. According to this view, the Dominicans and the Franciscans believed themselves to be responsible for re-forming the Indians by re-creating them in the church’s idealized image of how the Indians ought to live and what they ought to believe. This involved an intensive effort to conquer and destroy Native culture and spiritual traditions.

In a joint statement by the Dominican and Franciscan orders, dated May 17, 1775, we find the two Catholic orders referring to “finding ourselves in this corner of the world of Old and New California, occupied with the spiritual conquest and conversion of the infidels…” 8 Naming Native peoples “infidels” and forming the intention to “spiritually” conquer them, is an expression of a Catholic desire to overthrow, vanquish, or subjugate the Indigenous peoples of California. Indeed, this was the mission of the Catholic mission system.

The Catholic mission system existed from 1769 to 1834. In 1769 “a Spanish military and religious expedition founded a series of Catholic missions, presidios (forts), and pueblos in Alta, California.”9 It was the goal of this system to convince the Indians to give up their traditional way of life and to live within the confinement of the mission.

Diseases never previously experienced by the Indians rode in on the heels of the mission system, and, in a stunning downward spiral, the Native population was decimated. Indian slave labor system built the missions. It is worth noting that at Mission San Juan Capistrano, the Catholic Church continues to make money from the legacy of Indian slave labor by charging tourists an admission fee to enter the mission grounds. Not one penny of this money goes to the Native peoples whose ancestors actually built the mission.

Following the desire to spiritually conquer the Indians, mission rule was harsh. Below is a firsthand account of what Indian people endured under the mission system:

Corporeal punishments are inflicted on Indians of both sexes who fail in their religious duties, and several sins which in Europe are left to divine justice are punished by irons or the bloc. To complete the comparison with religious houses, from the moment a neophyte is baptized it is as though he had pronounced eternal vows. If he escapes to return to the home of his relatives in the independent villages he is summoned three times to return. If he refuses the missionaries appeal to the authority of the government which sends soldiers to tear him from the midst of his family and lead him back to the mission, where he is condemned to receive a certain number of blows of the lash.10

Genocide in California History

The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, between the United States and the Republic of Mexico, brought and end to the Mexican-American War and brought the territory of California under U.S. control. Shortly thereafter, the madness of the California gold rush began, bringing thousands of immigrants pouring into California. Many of the gold crazed men made it their sworn vow to utterly destroy Indian people. In his book “A Little Matter of Genocide,” Ward Churchill, provides an excerpt from a study of the extermination of the Indians of northern California:

“The Yuki [were] victims of one of the most organized and intense [private] genodical campaigns in the state,” observes researcher Virginia P. Miller.
The most illuminating statement on the number of Yuki murdered comes from Dryden Laycock, one of the settlers in Round Valley. Laycock claimed
that beginning in 1856, the first year whites moved into the valley, and continuing through February 1860, parties of Round Valley settlers would …go out “two or three times as week” and kill “on an average, fifty to sixty Indians on a trip.” Taking the lower of Laycock’s figures, even if only two such trips were made each week and only fifty Indians killed on each trip, then the settlers would have killed 5,200 Indians in one year. And Laycock claimed that settlers’ raids went on for five years.11

Such figures, while certainly shocking, provide no graphic context for understanding just how horrible these actions were in terms of human terror, flesh, blood, and bone. What follows is an account of a massacre of Pit River Indians under the command of one Lieutenant Langley, of the “Pit River Rangers.” This disturbing description will provide the reader with a graphic picture of the kinds of events that marked the distinctive way in which the movement to “settle” California left in its wake a carpet of Indian corpses:

The attacking party rushed upon them, blowing out their brains and splitting open their skulls with tomahawks. Little children in baskets, and even babes, had their heads smashed to pieces or cut open. Mothers and infants shared the common fate. The screams and cries of the victims were frightful to hear, but no supplications could avail to avert the work of devilish butchery. It will be scarcely be credited that this horrible scene occurred in Christian California, within a few days’ travel on the State capital. Humanity sickens at the thought of it. Many of the fugitives were chased and shot as they ran. Where whole families had been butchered was indicated by heaps of bodies composed of the mother and her little ones. The children, scarcely able to run, toddled towards the squaws for protection, crying with fright, but were overtaken, slaughtered like wild animals, and thrown into piles. From under some haycocks, where some of them had taken refuge, they were dragged out and slain. One woman got into a pond hole, where she hid herself under the grass, with her head above water, and concealed her papoose on the bank in a basket. She was discovered, and her head blown to pieces, the muzzle of the gun being placed against her skull, and the child was drowned in the pond. The ground was covered with blood, and the brushwood ranches of which there were fifty or sixty, were filled with dead bodies. Old decrepit squaws, young girls, and infants, none were spared. Guns, knives, and hatchets were used; but the favorite method appears to have been staving in the head with tomahawks. The blush of dawn shone upon this fearful spectacle, and still the massacre went on.14

In light of such gruesome events, present day talk of contemporary Native peoples paying “their fare share” to the State of California rings hollow. We ought to ask, what has the State of California ever done to compensate the Native peoples for the genocidal actions visited upon their ancestors by the non-Indian colonizers of California? The answer instantly comes back, “nothing.”

The Callous Treatment of Indian Land Rights

In the early 1850’s, United States treaty commissioners made 18 proposed treaties with the Indians of California.15 I say “proposed treaties” because, from the U.S.’s viewpoint, the documents that were drawn up and signed by Indian representatives and U.S. treaty commissioners would become full-fledged treaties only upon ratification by the United States Senate. Bowing to intensive lobbying by the State of California, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the eighteen treaties. If ratified, the proposed treaties would have established 18 permanent reservation land bases for the Native peoples of
California. Those documents were subsequently hidden away under an injunction of secrecy until January 18,1905.16 The issue of California Indian land rights has been something of an open question ever since the 1850’s.

In 1986, two Deputy Attorney Generals for the State of California published a law review article about California Indian land rights that begins with the following sentence: “….and then one day a white man came and he had the right paper so we had to go.”17 This statement sums up the overall sentiment of the article. The above quote seems to posit that “the white man” considers himself capable of performing a kind of “word magic;” for once he appears on the scene, having created the “right” words on paper, the Indigenous peoples become (according to the white man’s point of view) obligated to up and leave, or to live forever in subjection to the dictates of the dominating society.

Or, stated differently, because of the white man’s words on paper—backed with sufficient coercive and lethal force—the Indigenous peoples are viewed as having “slipped under” the authority of the white man’s ‘reality.’ According to that ‘reality,’ the Indians have no “right” to stand in the way of, or otherwise interfere with, the white man’s ability to exploit and profit from Native lands. According to this conceptual framework, “white society” has a perfect right to tell American Indians what their land rights shall be, or even whether they have any land rights. The law review article is clearly written from this point of view.

As the authors of the article state, “The History of the treatment of Indians in California by the federal government is perhaps more deplorable than the treatment accorded Indians in any other part of the nation.”18 The conclusion is therefore certainly “inevitable,” say the authors, “that the claims of California Indians to their aboriginal lands are not longer viable in California.”19

To what are we to attribute this conclusion that the Indians of California have no remaining aboriginal title to lands in California? The authors respond: “the doctrine of aboriginal title itself.”

This doctrine has accorded the federal government the unilateral and unreviewable power to terminate the aboriginal possession of Indian homelands for whatever reason, by whatever means, and with no compensation whatsoever required. Nowhere is the extent of this power more evident than the manner in which the power was exercised in California.20

Thus, according to the “doctrine of aboriginal title,” whether the Indians of California have land rights is not for them to decide. In a most dehumanizing manner, the Native peoples of California are considered to have no right to decide what their land rights shall be. Instead, it is up to the United States government to decide, as part of its supposed “unilateral and unreviewable power,” whether the Indians of California have any land rights, and, if so, what kind of land rights they have. Although it is left unstated, presumably the authors would have us believe that this most undemocratic and unjust arrangement is nonetheless fully in keeping with values the United States commonly espouses: freedom, democracy, and justice.

It is worth noting that at the outset of their article, the authors find “the doctrine of aboriginal title” to be rooted in the Supreme Court ruling Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. McIntosh.21 I have previously documented that the Johnson ruling is premised on the so-called discovery of the North American continent, and the Court’s distinction between “Christian people” and “natives, who were heathens.”22 The authors of the law review article the following excerpt from the Johnson ruling:

While the different nations of Europe respected the right of the natives, as occupants, they asserted the ultimate dominion to be in themselves; and claimed, and exercised, as a consequence of this ultimate dominion, a power to grant the soil, while [is was] yet in the possession of the natives.23

In the above quote we find a specific distinction between the “ultimate dominion” of the “nations of Europe,” and “the right of the natives, as occupants.” This distinction, infer the authors of the law review article, gives rise to a position “later described by the Court, [that] Indian title means ‘a mere possession not specifically recognized by ownership by Congress…This is not a property right but amounts to a right of occupancy which the sovereign grants…”24 Furthermore, this “right of occupancy may be terminated and such lands fully disposed of by the sovereign itself without any legally enforceable obligation to compensate the Indians.”25

This theory matches the perspective described previously as the white man’s (the U.S.’s) “word magic.” Possessing the power and the prerogative of using words on paper to depict ‘reality’, the white man is able to portray himself and Indigenous peoples on paper however he desires, and then call his portrayal “the law.” Thus, he is able to imagine and describe himself into the primary position on the continent as the possessor of “ultimate dominion” (thus making him, in his own mind, the ultimate, or supreme sovereign), which simply means that white society always “calls the shots.”

From this self-assigned primary position of ultimate authority, not surprisingly, the white man is able to declare himself the have the unquestionable authority to “give” the Indigenous peoples “permission” to continue to “occupy” (but not “own”) the land. This framework, gives rise to the statement that, “Aboriginal title or Indian title is a permissive right of occupancy recognized by the sovereign in the original possessors of the land.”26

What do the authors of the law review article conclude? They find that in the case of California the federal government undertook “an unstated but undeniable policy of prompt removal of Indians from their lands to avoid conflicts and interference with the Gold Rush,” and that “[t]his policy was fully within the power of the United States.”27 Therefore, say the authors, “Given this extraordinary power and the willingness to exercise the power, the conclusion that aboriginal title has been extinguished is not remarkable.”28 This extinguishment was accomplished, they say, “by the ‘century-long course of conduct’ by the Federal Government repugnant to Indian occupancy, as well as by the general acquiescence of the government in the Indians’ loss of their aboriginal lands.”29

The authors entertain no question as to the morality of this position. No question arises as to whether this treatment of the Indians of California and their land rights comports with the professed values of the United States. We are simply expected to believe that this explanation of California Indian land rights is “legal,” unobjectionable, and “makes sense.” In a most dehumanizing manner, the authors give no consideration as to the viewpoint of the Indians of California. The Indians’ viewpoint simply doesn’t “count” since, from the perspective of the authors, the Indians are not the ones in charge of deciding what their status is or what their land rights shall be. That’s for the
dominating society to decide.

In 1944, the U.S. Court of Claims decided that the Indians of California were entitled to financial compensation for the failure of the United States to ratify the eighteen treaties. However, the Court of Claims also decided that the Indians of California were not entitled to compensation for the land, because, according to the white man’s point of view, the lands in California never belonged to the Indians to begin with.30

The Indian Claims Commission later held that the Indians of California were entitled to compensation for the loss of “original Indian title” to the lands of California, as of 1853.31 Accordingly, the Indians of California eventually received what amounted to an insulting pittance of 47 cents per acre. This was the federal government’s estimated value of the lands of California as of 1853 when the ICC claimed that the original Indian title in California had been extinguished. In 1963, at the time of the 47 cents per acre “award,” some lands in Northern California were said to be worth as much as $5,000 per acre. Some individual trees in the Northern California area were said to be valued at from $2,000 to $3,000. Farm lands were said to be valued at from $300 to $1,000 per acre.32 To give the reader an even greater sense of perspective of the profits made from Indian lands, in just one year (1968) the federal government realized $36,336,621 in timber sales from Indian lands designated as “national forests” in California.33

Conclusion

Any historical account of the Indians of California will necessarily be only a partial picture of what took place in the past. There is so much we cannot possibly know because of the amount of first hand information lost in the past as Indian people died of diseases or massacres, without any means of recording their knowledge for posterity. Anyone inclined to doubt this statement has only to think of the vast amount of Native oral history that was carried to the grave and never recorded in a written form. Although there are many Native people alive today who carry some degree of oral history, none are likely to deny that much has been lost. What is most readily available to us now is the written record of the past, which, until fairly recently, was generally filtered through the non-Indian consciousness and cultural biases.

One conclusion we can state unequivocally, however, is that Natives peoples existed in the geographical region now called California for many thousands of years prior to the appearance of Christian Europeans to the region. They continue to exist. Having said this, it is also beyond dispute that non-Indian colonization of the region has had an incredibly destructive effect on every conceivable aspect of the way of life of the Native peoples.

The colonizing peoples of Western Christendom (as Europe was referred to when Cabrillo, sailing under the Spanish flag, first made landfall in what is now called San Diego harbor) believed themselves to possess a divine right to take over and rule the lands of the entire hemisphere and to transform, remake, or destroy the Native peoples. Miraculously, the Native peoples of California have survived several waves of colonization, and are now thriving to an extent not possible even twenty years ago. Native communities, while still beset with their share of the problems every human community deals with, are nonetheless experiencing a resurgence of languages, songs, basketry, and spiritual traditions. Economically, many Native peoples are thriving as a result of casino revenues. However, it is also important to keep in mind that not all Native communities in California have gaming institutions. Many are still having a hard time economically, having been historically beaten down and deprived of a viable economic base in their own ancestral lands.

In any event, the idea that the Indians of California “owe” the State of California a portion of their gaming revenues is preposterous, particularly in light of what the Native peoples of California have been subjected to by the dominant society. Each distinct Native nation, people, tribe, or rancheria, is a sovereign body politic that predates and is politically separate from the State of California. The Indigenous peoples of California do not, therefore, “owe” the State of California any of its gaming proceeds, anymore than Mexico “owes” a portion of its lottery proceeds to the United States. Phrased differently, no part of Indian gaming proceeds rightfully “belong” as a “fair share” to, the State of California.

Nonetheless, political agreements known as “gaming compacts” have been and will continue to be worked out between Native nations and the State of California, pursuant to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. What we ought to never lose sight of, however, is the fact that the broader context for such political agreements is the historical oppression and dispossession that Native nations have been subjected to in their own ard W. Van Alstyne, The Rising American Empire, New York: W. W. Norton &Co., 1960, p. 82.
2 Ibid. Based on original source materials, Van Alstyne makes the case that the United States was founded as “an imperium—a dominion, state or sovereignty, that would expand in population and territory, and increase in strength and power.” The Roman quotation, “wheresoever the Roman conquers, he inhabits,” said Van Alstyne, applies “with equal truth to the American nation,” particularly in relation to Indian nations.
3 This estimate is made by Albert L. Hurtado in his Introduction to Robert F. Hiezer’s book The Destruction of California Indians, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books Edition, 1994, p. v.
4 Exterminate Them: Written Accounts of the Murder, Rape, and Slavery of Native Americans During the California Gold Rush, 1848-1868, Edited by Clifford E. Trafzer and Joel R. Hyer, East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 1999, p. xiii.
5 Florence Shipek, “Kumeyaay Plant Husbandry: Fire, Water, and Erosion Management Systems,” in Before the Wilderness: Environmental Management by Native Californians, Compiled and Edited by Thomas C. Blackburn and Kat Anderson, A Ballena Press Publication, 1993, p. 379.
6 Ibid., at p. 381.
7 Ibid., at p. 388.
8 Gregory Cajete, Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence, Santa Fe, New Mexico: Clear Light Publishers, (2000), p. 41.
9 Shipek, op. cit. p. 380.
10 Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt, O.F.M., The Missions and Missionaries of California, Vol. I, Santa Barbara, California: Mission Santa Barbara, 1929, p. 524.
11 Albert L. Hurtado, op. cit., p. v.
12 Kenneth M. Johnson, K-344 or the Indians of California vs. The United States, Los Angeles: Dawson’s Book Shop, 1966, p. 13.
13 Ward Churchill, A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present, San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997, pp. 187-88.
14 Federal Concern about Conditions of California Indians 1853 to 1913: Eight Documents, Selected and Edited by Robert F. Heizer, Socorro, New Mexico: Ballena Press, 1979, p.35.
15 Robert Heizer, The Eighteen Unratified Treaties of 1851-52 Between the California Indians and the United States Government, Berkley: Archaeological Research Facility Department of Anthropology University of California, 1972, p. 1.
16 Ibid.
17 Bruce S. Flushman and Joe Barbieri, “Aboriginal Title: The Special Case of California,” Pacific Law Review, Vol. 17, p. 391.
18 Ibid., at 459.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid. It is certainly telling that the term “aboriginal title” (sometimes phrased, “original title,” and “original Indian title”), which would seem to suggest an affirmation of Indian land rights, is used instead as semantic devices to “prove” or “show” why Indian land rights are, allegedly, “no longer viable in California.”
21 Ibid., at 392.
22 Steven T. Newcomb, “The Evidence of Christian Nationalism in Federal Indian Law: Johnson v. McIntosh, the Doctrine of Discovery, and Plenary Power,” New York University Review of Law & Social Change, Vol. 20., No. 2, 1993, pp. 303-341.
23 Flushman and Barbieri, op. cit., at 392.
24 Ibid., at 393.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid., at 392.
27 Ibid., at 459.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Indians of California v. United States, 319 U.S. 764 (1944).
31 See Clyde F. Thompson, 8 Ind. Cl. Comm. 1-39; 13 Ind. Cl. Comm. at 369-543.
32 See Thompson 13 Ind. Cl. Comm. at 482.
33 Jack Forbes, Native Americans of California and Nevada, Happy Camp, California: Naturegraph Publishers, Inc., (1982 edition), p. 134. homelands ever since the peoples of Europe first arrived from Western Christendom.
1 Richard W. Van Alstyne, The Rising American Empire, New York: W. W. Norton &Co., 1960, p. 82.
2 Ibid. Based on original source materials, Van Alstyne makes the case that the United States was founded as “an imperium—a dominion, state or sovereignty, that would expand in population and territory, and increase in strength and power.” The Roman quotation, “wheresoever the Roman conquers, he inhabits,” said Van Alstyne, applies “with equal truth to the American nation,” particularly in relation to Indian nations.
3 This estimate is made by Albert L. Hurtado in his Introduction to Robert F. Hiezer’s book The Destruction of California Indians, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books Edition, 1994, p. v.
4 Exterminate Them: Written Accounts of the Murder, Rape, and Slavery of Native Americans During the California Gold Rush, 1848-1868, Edited by Clifford E. Trafzer and Joel R. Hyer, East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 1999, p. xiii.
5 Florence Shipek, “Kumeyaay Plant Husbandry: Fire, Water, and Erosion Management Systems,” in Before the Wilderness: Environmental Management by Native Californians, Compiled and Edited by Thomas C. Blackburn and Kat Anderson, A Ballena Press Publication, 1993, p. 379.
6 Ibid., at p. 381.
7 Ibid., at p. 388.
8 Gregory Cajete, Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence, Santa Fe, New Mexico: Clear Light Publishers, (2000), p. 41.
9 Shipek, op. cit. p. 380.
10 Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt, O.F.M., The Missions and Missionaries of California, Vol. I, Santa Barbara, California: Mission Santa Barbara, 1929, p. 524.
11 Albert L. Hurtado, op. cit., p. v.
12 Kenneth M. Johnson, K-344 or the Indians of California vs. The United States, Los Angeles: Dawson’s Book Shop, 1966, p. 13.
13 Ward Churchill, A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present, San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997, pp. 187-88.
14 Federal Concern about Conditions of California Indians 1853 to 1913: Eight Documents, Selected and Edited by Robert F. Heizer, Socorro, New Mexico: Ballena Press, 1979, p.35.
15 Robert Heizer, The Eighteen Unratified Treaties of 1851-52 Between the California Indians and the United States Government, Berkley: Archaeological Research Facility Department of Anthropology University of California, 1972, p. 1.
16 Ibid.
17 Bruce S. Flushman and Joe Barbieri, “Aboriginal Title: The Special Case of California,” Pacific Law Review, Vol. 17, p. 391.
18 Ibid., at 459.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid. It is certainly telling that the term “aboriginal title” (sometimes phrased, “original title,” and “original Indian title”), which would seem to suggest an affirmation of Indian land rights, is used instead as semantic devices to “prove” or “show” why Indian land rights are, allegedly, “no longer viable in California.”
21 Ibid., at 392.
22 Steven T. Newcomb, “The Evidence of Christian Nationalism in Federal Indian Law: Johnson v. McIntosh, the Doctrine of Discovery, and Plenary Power,” New York University Review of Law & Social Change, Vol. 20., No. 2, 1993, pp. 303-341.
23 Flushman and Barbieri, op. cit., at 392.
24 Ibid., at 393.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid., at 392.
27 Ibid., at 459.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Indians of California v. United States, 319 U.S. 764 (1944).
31 See Clyde F. Thompson, 8 Ind. Cl. Comm. 1-39; 13 Ind. Cl. Comm. at 369-543.
32 See Thompson 13 Ind. Cl. Comm. at 482.
33 Jack Forbes, Native Americans of California and Nevada, Happy Camp, California: Naturegraph Publishers, Inc., (1982 edition), p. 134.