The California Indian Wars were a series of wars, battles, and massacres between the United States Army (or often the California State Militia, especially during the early 1850s), and the Indigenous peoples of California. The wars lasted from 1850, immediately after Alta California, acquired during the Mexican–American War, became the state of California, to 1880 when the last minor military operation on the Colorado River ended the Calloway Affair of 1880.
Following the acquisition of the Mexican Cession in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican–American War, the small Federal garrison west of the Rocky Mountains was spread out over that vast territory. Shortly afterward, the economic effects of the California Gold Rush encouraged desertions that further weakened the garrisons within the territory of California. Following statehood, the California State Militia engaged in most of the early conflicts with the Indians within its boundaries before the American Civil War. The state sought compensation from the United States federal government for the cost of the operations and for the "depredations" of the Indians, claims that would not be settled for decades. Often, a number of miners or other settlers, who were impatient at the bureaucratic delay or political opposition involved with organizing militia companies, organized themselves to violently engage local Indian tribes, at times murdering several of its members, indiscriminately.
Later during the American Civil War, California and Oregon State Volunteers replaced Federal troops west of the Rocky Mountains and engaged in many conflicts with the Indians in that region including in California, Nevada and Utah, New Mexico and Arizona Territories. Within California they fought in the ongoing 1858-1864 Bald Hills War and in the 1862-1863 Owens Valley Indian War. Minor skirmishes occurred between local militias or volunteers and the Yahi, Yana and Paiute in northeastern California into the 1870s. Following the Civil War, most hostilities in California were over except for a few minor skirmishes in the Owens Valley and in the Mojave Desert against the Timbisha and Chemehuevi. Federal troops replaced the volunteers between late 1865 and early 1866 and again engaged in military actions in the remote regions of the Mojave Desert, Owens Valley and the northeast of the state against the Snakes and later the Modoc in the next two decades.
List of California Indian Wars, massacres, battles, skirmishes and events[edit]
Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, April 22, 1850.[1] Passed by the legislature of California, it allowed settlers to continue to the Californio practice of capturing and using Native people as forced workers. It also provided the basis for the enslavement and trafficking in Native American Native labor, particularly that of young women and children, which was carried on as a legal business enterprise. Raids on villages were made to supply the demand, the young women and children were carried off to be sold, the men and remaining people often being killed. This practice did much to destroy Native tribes during the California Gold Rush.[2]
Gila Expedition April to September 13, 1850. A costly failure by California Militia to punish the Yuma for the Glanton Massacre, that nearly bankrupted the state.
Yuma War 1850–1853, triggered by the Glanton Gang's abuse of the Yuma on the lower Colorado River. After the failure of California's 1850 Gila Expedition to quell the rising, Major Samuel P. Heintzelman, led Federal troops against the Yuma in the Yuma Expedition, establishing Fort Yuma and making a peace with the Yuma in October 1852.
Commissioners McKee, Wozencraft, and Barbour negotiated eighteen treaties with California native peoples at various ranches and army posts, mainly in southern and central California. (March 1851 - January 1852)
Bridge Gulch Massacre April 23, 1852, more than 150 Wintu people were killed by about 70 American men led by William H. Dixon, the Trinity County sheriff. The massacre of this band was in response to the killing of Colonel John Anderson by another band of Wintu.
U.S. Senate rejected the 18 treaties negotiated with California native peoples on July 7, 1852 in a secret vote. For the next 50 years the documents remained classified. Also see California Indian Reservations and Cessions.
Klamath River Massacres (January 22, 1855). Whites in Klamath County, California, commenced a "war of extermination against the Indians", in retaliation for the murder of six settlers and the theft of some cattle.[4]
Klamath River Reservation established November 16, 1855, "a strip of territory commencing at the Pacific Ocean and extending one mile in width on each side of the Klamath River, for a distance of 20 miles."
Smith River Reservation (1862–1868), acted as a replacement for the flooded Klamath River Reservation and as a POW camp for the natives captured in the Bald Hills War.
Modoc War, or Modoc Campaign (1872–1873): 53 Modoc warriors under Captain Jack held off 675 men of the U.S. Army for 13 months. Major General Edward Canby was killed during a peace conference.
^Heizer, Robert F., The Destruction of California Indians, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1993, 321 pages, ISBN978-0-8032-7262-0 pp. 35–36.
Theodore H. Hittell, The general laws of the State of California, from 1850 to 1864, inclusive: being a compilation of all acts of a general nature now in force, with full references to repealed acts, special and local legislation, and statutory constructions of the Supreme Court. To which are prefixed the Declaration of Independence, Constitution of the United States, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, proclamations to the people of California, Constitution of the State of California, Act of Admission, and United States naturalization laws, with notes of California decisions thereon, Vol. I, H. H. BANCROFT AND COMPANY, SAN FRANCISCO, 1865.
Media related to Wars involving the indigenous peoples of North America in California at Wikimedia Commons
