Native student challenges California professor who denies genocide

[umbertino]

by: Albert Bender

November 4 2015

 

 

 

I must preface this column with a loathsome quote from California Governor Peter W. Burnett in 1851: "That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected."

 

Recently at UC-Sacramento, history professor Maury Wiseman reportedly told his class that Native Americans in 19th century California did not face "genocide" because that "implies it was on purpose and most Native people were wiped out by disease." (In California, history bears out that Indians did not get the opportunity to die by disease because of genocidal massacres by Euro-Americans.)

 

His statement was strongly disputed by Native American (Maidu/Navajo) student Chiitaanibah Johnson, a 19-year-old sophomore. They disagreed and the conversation became heated and Wiseman dismissed the class early. Shockingly (to this writer), according to Johnson, other students defended the professor.

 

The disagreement between Johnson and Wiseman has sparked a national debate on how American Indian history is taught in general and how California Indian history is taught in particular.

                                             

But, back to Professor Wiseman-was he  aware of the statement of the sanguinary Governor Burnett, advocating genocide? Burnett announced a clear, hideous, unmistakable policy of extermination, perhaps the clearest of any state executive in American history. In fact, to my knowledge this is the most unabashed advocacy of extermination directed against Native Americans by a governor in the blood-soaked annals of U.S. racial murder. For although, the genocide train terrifyingly roared from coast to coast, with murderous, bloodthirsty conductors demagogically yelling "all aboard the Indian killing express" to a land-hungry white populace, leaving millions of dead, torn and mangled Native bodies in its historic wake, 19th century California officialdom singularly stands in a racist category by itself for its destruction of a hapless Indigenous population.   

In 1852 the California legislature paid $1.1 million to citizen militias to hunt and kill Native Americans. This mass killing was obviously "on purpose," but what part of this does "historian" Wiseman not understand? Where lies his expertise in history? Obviously not in California history, for Indian history is California history, a history covered knee-deep in blood and gore.   

 

In the Gold Rush era white American settlers began hunting and killing Native people for sport, often using dogs to pursue terror-stricken Indian families. These "hunters" wrote extensively of their murderous deeds. A poignant example is given by an Indian killer in Northern California: "Dodging and ducking through the thickets like frightened deer, I brought down one with a shot from my double-barrel, but he was up and streaking it (sic) through the brush before I could lay hands upon him. Several of us followed him for half-mile or more before we finished him."

 

Organized companies of Euro-American males often bragged of the number of Indians they had murdered. A Baptist missionary, Lee Thayer, writing in 1922, recounted atrocities:

 

"Ezekiel Merrit, Commander of the Bear Flag Party, boasted nearly one hundred notches on his tomahawk handle, his record of Indian kills. Indian villages were used as targets for rifle practice and Indians were wantonly destroyed by the wholesale."  

 

The newspapers were open advocates of genocide, as shown by the Yreka Herald of 1853:

 

"We hope that the government will render such aid as will enable the citizens of the  north to carry on a war of extermination until the last red...ns  of these tribes has been killed. Extermination is no longer a question of time - the time has arrived, the work has commenced and let the first man who says treaty or peace be regarded as a traitor."

 

In 1859, the state Superintendent for Indian Affairs reported that the mass killing of Indian people by armed militias was a daily occurrence. He warned that if this continued the Native population would soon be exterminated.  

 

These savage, yes, savage, attacks were carried out with the financial support of the state and federal governments, for the express objective of extermination-horrific genocide. Women and children were more often than not killed with clubs, hatchets and knives. One of the ringleaders of a bloodthirsty militia gang boasted that he had killed 60 infants with his own hatchet.

 

Let's take a deeper statistical look at just what the extermination meant in sheer numbers. A few examples shall suffice. In 1848, the California Indian population stood at over 150,000. A scant eight years later in 1856, the Native population had plummeted to a mere 25,000. This was the result of wholesale, nonstop, recurring mass murders of men, women, children and the elderly on a scale without parallel even taking into account what was happening, and had happened, in other parts of the country. Remember the tragic, heart-wrenching story of Ishi, captured in 1911, the last of his tribe in Northern California. The rest of his people, the Yahi, had been the victims of the genocidal massacres. He died without being able to converse with another human being who spoke his Native tongue.

 

Native Californians from 1848 Gold Rush days onward were hunted like denizens of the forest, as if they were dangerous, wild beasts. A few more examples will suffice of the Euro-American slaughter of a beleaguered Indian population. Communities such as Honeylake and Maryville townships offered bounties for Native scalps.  For some towns, scalps were not enough. Take for example, Shasta City, which paid $5 for each Indian head turned in at city hall in the same fashion that bounties were paid in other parts of the West for wolves hunted and killed. (One resident of  Shasta City wrote of seeing men bringing mule trains to town with each animal laden with 10 to 12 Indian heads). The genocidal crimes of mass murder, rape and enslavement of California Indians escalated from the Gold Rush onward.

 

In the 1850s the California legislature passed the Government and Protection of the Indians Act (what a misnomer!) which permitted the indenture of any loitering (any Indian without a job working for a white man) or drunk (rich, white landowners enticed Natives to drink, had them jailed and then indentured to work on their farms) Indians and orphaned Indian children. (In one account a settler when asked by a magistrate how could he be sure certain Indian children were orphaned, as a result of their parents being killed, callously replied, "Because,  I killed some of them myself.")

 

Moreover, thousands of Native children not killed outright were sold into servitude-virtual slavery. Prices ranged from $60 for a boy to $200 for a girl or young woman, who were used for both labor and sex.

 

Telescoping time, I have often reflected on the irony that California is now considered mostly a bastion of liberalism when it had such incredibly bloody beginnings in its unequalled genocide of Indian people.

 

While many Euro-Americans apparently feel guilty about what happened to Native Americans (although they should look at the oppression that Native people still face), others for political reasons seek refuge in a state of racist denial, and some are just unredeemable racists. Into which category does Mr. Wiseman fall? He needs to come out of the dark, retrograde recesses of falsehood and teach American history as it really happened. He and his colleagues need to teach the truth so that the country may move forward. (The latest information is that the California state Department of Education is still in denial over its state's genocide.)

 

The truth is  that the worst, most horrific genocide of Native Americans in American history was perpetrated in 19thcentury California. Nothing in American Indian history can equal this malevolent maelstrom of mass murder. The massacres are too numerous to even begin to list in this column.  

 

In the meantime, all praise to Chiitaanibah Johnson. Keep up the great work! Continue to speak up!

 

 

 

Photo: Modern day Honey Lake, California, which during the 19th century paid residents to go out and kill Native Americans.   |   City Data

 

 

http://www.peoplesworld.org/native-student-challenges-california-professor-who-denies-genocide/

[BigJake]

nd this has what to do with the IQD?

[new york kevin]

The atrocities that were laiden upon every single Native American Tribe, and there by on every Native American, is senseless . The twisted justifications that were promoted to allow these evil acts to occure under the cover of authority cannot be denied by any intelligent person. This is one of the darkest parts of The History of the United States. Along with slavery, indentured servants , and the facts that led to the need for The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. MAY THESE AND ALL ATROCITIES LIKE THEM NEVER BE FORGOTTEN, AND NEVER BE REPEATED.

May we as a united nation learn our lessons from the bad and good history of our country. May we also have the strength to stop blaming the son and daughter for the sins of the father and mother. Let's, hand in respectful hand, stop being victims of genocide. Let us stop being slaves. Let us stop being racist, of either side of the coin. Let us forgive, but never forget the events that provided all of us with cause to hate a people of another group. Again, let us go forward hand in hand and truly build a United States of America. May we build and thereby manifest the perfect dream of the great Martin Luther King Jr.

In Jesus's name I pray. Amen.

[Jim1cor13]

It was horrific what was done to the native americans. They were demonized by many and stories

were told about them that were false, and they were sought out for the purpose to be exterminated.

 

They became a 'target' because we wanted what they were living on, and took it in any fashion we

could. Does this mean that all indians were innocent of wrong doing? Of course not, but how would

most people react to being lied to, lied about, treaties being broken and blamed on them, watching

their families being wiped out "for the greater good"?

 

Does any of this sound at all familiar with what we are seeing and hearing today about certain other

"undesirables"? Of course it does, because most people buy into the stories and we see a repeat

of history with so few ever asking questions.

 

BigJake, this has nothing to do with IQD, it is in the proper category of off topic posts, did you not see

that, or just a cheap shot at Umbertino?

 

Thanks Umberto for the article

[okane]

Oddly these stories never made it to most, if any jr or high school history books.

 

Thanks bert and kevin.   

 

Jake, this was an "off topic" post.  That's where matters that don't pertain to the IQD are to be posted.

[dog53]

slavery. genocide on native Americans. Chinese labor to build the rail ways. 

All historical fact that each child should learn so like what was said in the previous post

these things do not happen again. BUT with that being said sadly this is the path that

lead us to where we are now. We are  (or was)the most powerful country in the world , and enjoy(or we did) the most

freedom in the world. So these lives were not in vain. At least for me it makes it easier to not hate.

But to blindly deny that these events never took place is a insult to the native people.

For we know the truth and it is a truth that will never be forgotten. 

It is why we will never be disarmed again no matter what laws  they may pass.

[umbertino]

Grazie all ( yes...all) for the contribution to this here thread. It's appreciated.

[Jim1cor13]

slavery. genocide on native Americans. Chinese labor to build the rail ways. 

All historical fact that each child should learn so like what was said in the previous post

these things do not happen again. BUT with that being said sadly this is the path that

lead us to where we are now. We are  (or was)the most powerful country in the world , and enjoy(or we did) the most

freedom in the world. So these lives were not in vain. At least for me it makes it easier to not hate.

But to blindly deny that these events never took place is a insult to the native people.

For we know the truth and it is a truth that will never be forgotten. 

It is why we will never be disarmed again no matter what laws  they may pass.

 

Thank you dog for your comments. Indeed you know the truth and I for one always

feel ashamed at how your people were treated. Some justify it, some deny it, but

it is still beyond criminal.

 

I hope we learn something from these examples of history, but I fear we just keep

repeating the same pattern, we just choose different targets.

[reveldog]

President Lincoln has also slaughtered hundreds of natives in his time