![]() ![]() ![]() For the state and federal government, it was imperative both to make room for new settlers and to lay claim to gold on traditional tribal lands. In 1848, California became the property of the United States as one of the spoils of the Mexican-American War. But before any of that, one of the new state’s first priorities was to rid itself of its sizeable Native American population, and it did so with a vengeance.Ĭalifornia’s native peoples had a long and rich history hundreds of thousands of Native Americans speaking up to 80 languages populated the area for thousands of years. Today, California’s genocide is one of the most heinous chapters in the state’s troubled racial history, which also includes forced sterilizations of people of Mexican descent and discrimination and internment of up to 120,000 people of Japanese descent during World War II. Sutter’s Mill, California, where John Augustus Sutter struck gold and accidentally started the gold rush. ![]()
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