'The bulk of Californian's Indians were conquered, and died, in innumerable little episodes of cruel leaders or a few squads of rough soldiers, but in effect, an entire people; for the conquest of the Native Californian was above all else a popular, mass enterprise.'-Jack Forbes, contemporary Native Historian. ' Gold's a devilish sort of thing. You lose your sense of values and character changes entirely. Your soul stops being the same as it was before.'-The Treasure of Sierra Madre. 'The attacking party rushed upon them, blowing out their brains and splitting their heads with tomahawks. Little children in baskets, even babies had their heads smashed to pieces or cut open. Mothers and infants shared the same phenomenon...many of the fugitives were chased and shot as they ran...The children, scarcely able to run, toddled towards the squaw for protection, crying with fright, but were overtaken, slaughtered like wild animals, and thrown into piles... One woman got into a pond hole ,where she hid herself under the grass, 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.'-Captain Jarboe among the Achomawi people of the North-east. The Indians were probably the happiest and most peaceful race on the continent until they were forced and twisted into depressed and desperate people with their lands stolen.
Some Indians, in fact, surprisingly almost half the miners were Indians, they were called "diggers", because of this they created complications as it brought some against their own people and they chose to believe that the savage white men were their friends who saw that they could use them to get more gold. When taken advantage of and it was obvious to the Indians, brought even more complications as this left many of the Indians in situations where they didn't know where to turn, having left their people and being turned down by the settlers who cared nothing of them and killed them afterwards. Consequently, some of these Indians struck gold, sending white settlers in and taking the the gold and the area away from them and killing anyone who protested against them. The settlers believed this not to be wrong and it wasn't considered a crime for stealing their claim. What fueled the settlers to do their crimes was that in a nine year period(1848-1852) an estimated 24.3 million ounces of gold was prospected during the California Gold Rush; the value of the is around $6.9 billion worth of the precious metal. ($285 an ounce) The Indians were taken advantage of by the settlers, the settlers saw that Indians saw little value in gold and much more interest in things the settlers could get easily, so the Indians were cheated out in unfair trades for things like glass beads. Some Indians though discovered how much gold was valued to the prospectors and started to demand for more valuable things. Some earlier conflicts between the Indians and the whites made later settlers believe they cold take over the Native Americans too. One example of one of these earlier conflicts was when the first arrival of Europeans forced over sixteen-thousand Natives to be baptized, over nine thousand of them died. A problem that seemed to make it's way through history was that the Indians took so long to become immune to the whites lies and their tendency to break their promise or treaty. There was a total of thirteen peace treaties, all which failed to yield to the Indians rights and the numerous times when a settler would trade unfairly.
Many miners and ranchers came together for the cause and purpose of killing off the Indians. The men who were involved in such acts hit especially hard on the Native Americans living in or near the heart of the Mother Lode, mostly these people were from the Nisenan Maidu and Miwok tribes. The following are some examples of this mini holocaust. Clear Lake Massacre ended in disaster as more than a hundred Indians, women, and children were murdered,1852. The Hayforlk Massacre ended up in even more disaster, following the killing of a white settler, more than one-hundred and fifty Indians were killed, with that they took the three last remaining survivors, most likely to have been a woman and her two children who were sold as slaves. In 1854 Indian Agent R. McKee plead to the troops to keep peace between the Indians and the settlers, after the Massacre of Klamath River which was the result of forty or fifty brutal Native's deaths. Any Indians who attempted to seek justice and made amends for their mistakes were rejected by the whites who depended on genocide, or the death to the pleading Indians as the solution to the problem. The Fresno Massacre of 1854, began when white settlers attempted to bring perpetrators to justice, they invaded and killed an unspecified number of Native Americans, this was the effect of the invasions failure for justice. Klamath County citizens resolved by killing all Indians carrying guns, which most Indians were armed.
When mercury got into water near the mine sights it would form with other bacteria and become an even more toxic substance which poisoned the environment and the Indians themselves. the mercury would usually end up in insects first, when the fish ate the insects they too became infected with the toxin, and then it was finally passed on to the Indians, who developed dangerous symptoms and in most cases they died. Mercury was used in mining to separate the precious metal from other debris. When the white prospectors left the areas they had surface mined treeless, it often created floods which wiped out even more plant life and wildlife, which in return was killing a lot of the Indians main food sources. The main reason for Indians deaths were obviously that the killing of Indians was not considered a crime, in fact, it was promoted. What drove some settlers to extreme hatred towards the Indians was that most were giving and receiving false information and rumors of Indians crimes and brutal acts towards whites.
The Native Americans were deeply scarred from the California Gold rush more than anyone could imagine other than the people who lived the nightmare. The population of Indians was an estimated 150,000 in 1845; 25 years later and 22 years after the beginning of the Goldrush an estimated number of only 30,000 Indians were living. The estimated number of Indians killed by new diseases passed on by settlers is around 60% of all the Natives living combined. The white settlers killed and sold the scalps and severed heads of Native Americans, at 25 cents for the scalps, and at more than $5 for the severed heads. $1,000,000 were recovered to the government for the selling of these items. An estimated 4,000 Native children were sold as slaves to settlers. The prices the enslaved children were up to $60 for the young boys and up to $200 for young girls. By 1900, 16,000 Native Californians were all that survived. The treaty of Guadalupe surprisingly had a huge effect on the Indians, as this sent Mexican ranchos with new property rights pouring into California, covering some thirteen-million acres of the Natives land. They later would play a huge role in the California Gold rush. Before 1769, the year the Spanish began to colonizing there was more than 300,000 Natives living in California. The 300,000 represented more than 100 tribes, all with there own diverse and distinctive traditions and cultures, which many were completely lost by the arrival of settlers. When other people came to the land, most didn't refer to the natural beauty, but the wealth it held within.
8th American History
Rossville Jr. High
Plains History Project
2004
Indians Views Links-www.historynet.com/WildWest
http://www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/motherlode/gold/native.html
Settlers Views Links- http://www.moles.com/ProjectUnderground/motherlode/gold/native.html
http://www.californiahistory.net/text_only/6.3_1/html
Massacres and Genocides Links- http://www.notfrisco.com/almanac/timeline/goldrush.html
Other Hazards Links-http://www.calgoldrush.com
Facts Links-
http://museumca.org/goldrush/silver-native.html
http://www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/motherlode/gold/native.html
http://www.california history.net/text_only/6_3_1.html
http://www.museumca.org/goldrush/fever04.html