Austin Cross, Libby Denkmann, A Martinez (Take Two, August 29, 2017, KPCC FM, scpr.org); Xochitl, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
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| Native Americans perform tribal ceremony before peace rally at intersection of Florence and Normandie, 25th anniversary of LA Rebellion, April 29, 2017 in LA, California. This intersection was the flashpoint for rebellion that was sparked by racist police acquittals in the Rodney King beating (Warrick Page/Getty Images/scpr.org). |
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How should California reconcile its (very) racist history?
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| We still exist in L.A. |
Two weeks ago, armed white supremacists, racist protesters, and counter-protesters converged on Charlottesville, Virginia.
What started as a rally against the removal of a Jim Crow Era Confederate statue of Robert E. Lee quickly devolved into a melee.
The violence added fuel to a national reckoning already underway -- a debate over how we as a nation remember infamous men, now on the wrong side of history.
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| Indigenous Peoples Day, Los Angeles |
Despite this, the names of those responsible for their annihilation live on, according to Prof. Benjamin Madley. Madley is an associate professor of history at UCLA and author of the book, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe.
"California's legislature convened for the first time in 1850, and one of its very first orders of business was banning all Indian people from voting, barring those with one-half of American Indian blood or more from giving evidence for or against whites in criminal cases," Madley said.
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| Racist hero and slave driver Robert E. Lee |
The legislation effectively stripped the state's Native Americans of their ability to participate in the legal system.
"This amounted to a virtual grant of impunity to those that attacked them," Madley said.
The state's early leaders did not stop there, however. Madley says they soon legalized "white custody" [forced slavery] of American Indians, leading many Natives to become "unfree" laborers and indentured servants.
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| LA Native Toypurina, San Gabriel Valley |
"Right here in Los Angeles, one lawyer recalled that: 'Los Angeles had its slave mart and thousands of honest, useful people were absolutely destroyed in this way,' " Madley said.
He adds that, between 1850 and 1870, L.A.'s American Indian population fell from 3,693 to just 219. That drop, he said, is due in large part to California's American Indian labor policies.
Infamous names live on
Prof. Benjamin Madley said the names of the men responsible for the systemic oppression and killings of California's native people continue to be "hidden in plain sight."
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| O, Great Spirit Sky God, where are you? |
"In 1878, Serranus Hastings donated $100,000 to found the Hastings College of Law in San Francisco," Madley said. "So California's oldest law school is named after a man who helped to lead the assembly, the financing, and the state sponsorship drive for the genocidal Eel River Ranger state militia expedition of 1859, which killed perhaps 500 or more California Indians," Madley said.
And there are more. Madley said names like Stanford (University), Fremont (City), Carson (Carson Pass), Kelsey (Kelseyville), each played a pivotal role in the eradication of California American Indians.
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Time for healing?
"Addressing the complex legacies of the genocide in California is an ongoing process," Madley said.
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| Native/black slaves: Jim Crow |
Governor Jerry Brown recently acknowledged Madley's book, saying, "Madley corrects the record with his gripping story of what really happened: the actual genocide of a vibrant civilization thousands of years in the making.”
Madley said acknowledging the past, as Gov. Brown has, can set a standard for other states reviewing their histories through modern eyes. But he said that's only part of the struggle -- determining the next steps will require collaboration.
"That's something that needs to happen with the joint participation of state officials, government officials at the federal level, California Indian people, and other California citizens." More + AUDIO
Host A Martinez, Take Two, KPCC FM Join Take Two each weekday at 9:00 AM where Host A Martinez translates the day’s headlines for Southern California, making sense of the news and cultural events that people are talking about, 89.3 FM KPCC (scpr.org).
- Forgotten genocide: Uncovering the systematic extermination of Native populations
- It's time to acknowledge genocide of California's Indians in LA (LA Times) ...not the unavoidable result of two civilizations coming into contact for the first time.
- California's wine industry was built on slave labor (The Daily Beast, June 24, 2017) ...from the luscious fruit of the vineyard the juice so soon to ferment into wine.” ...But of the 3,700 Native Americans in LA at the time, only 334 [survived]... Bell wrote in his book, Reminiscences of a Ranger.
- Pairing wine and weed: a California dream or nightmare?
- California Slaughter: The State-Sanctioned Genocide of Native Americans (newsweek.com, Aug. 17, 2016) What happened to California Native Americans...
History of enslavement of indigenous peoples in California (wiki) Although the Spanish Empire forbade and actively persecuted slavery of indigenous people over a century before California was settled by the Spanish, some instances of forced labor are recorded in California under their rule.- American Indian boarding schools haunt many (npr.org, May 12, 2008) Early in the history of American Indian boarding schools, the U.S. government... Children were beaten, malnourished, [raped, molested, sodomized] and forced to do heavy labor.
- VIDEO: Killing Native Americans of California, Aug. 31 2016 (c-span.org, Oct. 15, 2016) Madley talks about his book...
- VIDEO: Authors discuss slavery, Apr. 23 2017 (c-span.org) Authors Sharla Fett, Benjamin Madley, and Christina Snyder talk about slavery and genocide at the 22nd annual LA Times Festival of Books.
- Making and Remaking America: Immigration into the US (hoover.org, Sep. 15, 2003) As a country of immigrants... it is evident to most Americans that large-scale... and Pacific Islanders (3 percent) and about two million Native Americans...have helped to revive economies of LA, NY.
- Black Americans - Who they really are (realhistoryww.com) Black African slaves were introduced to substitute for Native American labor... Africans, who were taken aboard slave ships to the Americas, were primarily... Rates of natural decrease ran as high as 5 percent a year.... Well over 90 percent of African slaves were imported into the Caribbean and South America.
Yes, Native Americans were the victims of genocide (historynewsnetwork.org, May 12, 2016) Her book is An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States. Mass Grave at Wounded Knee.... populations in the SF Bay Area and LA. - FDA cracks down on stem-cell clinics selling unapproved treatments
- #MyFirstRent: I lived in a hostel for $900 a month
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