Case Studies
(a few of the tribes; there are over 80 tribes! ["American Indians in California"])
Wintu / Winnemem Tribe
The Wintu tribe's numbers fell drastically from roughly 5,300-14,250 to approximately 120 enrolled members, through contact with Europeans in the 1820s. This contact led to disease, killings funded by the government, work in mining and ranching violating their human rights. But what greatly impacted them was the flooding over 20 miles of land during the Great Depression when Congress approved of building the Shasta Dam. This submerged many of their villages and sacred sites and prevented their culturally and nutritionally important salmon from going through the blocked river. This still impacts them today, as the Shasta Dam is currently being scheduled to be raised about 20 feet and ultimately will drown out many more of their sacred land and sites. (Johnston) This very clearly falls into physical and cultural genocide.
(a few of the tribes; there are over 80 tribes! ["American Indians in California"])
Wintu / Winnemem Tribe
The Wintu tribe's numbers fell drastically from roughly 5,300-14,250 to approximately 120 enrolled members, through contact with Europeans in the 1820s. This contact led to disease, killings funded by the government, work in mining and ranching violating their human rights. But what greatly impacted them was the flooding over 20 miles of land during the Great Depression when Congress approved of building the Shasta Dam. This submerged many of their villages and sacred sites and prevented their culturally and nutritionally important salmon from going through the blocked river. This still impacts them today, as the Shasta Dam is currently being scheduled to be raised about 20 feet and ultimately will drown out many more of their sacred land and sites. (Johnston) This very clearly falls into physical and cultural genocide.
Please visit their website and support them in their struggles to survive: http://www.winnememwintu.us/
Maidu Tribe
The life of the Maidu of Sacramento Valley were pulled into the depths of massacre and clearly genocide. In 1833, 60 to 90 percent of the Maidu had been killed by malaria and smallpox. their numbers drastically plummeting from about 76,000 before European settlers arrived to about 1,000 by 1900. The upcoming Gold Rush had them enslaved as "indentured servants", having to work in order to live and be supplied food. Hydraulic river mining had killed most the salmon; a major food source for the Maidu. This resulted in them having to steal livestock, making a domino effect into making the settlers very upset and driving them into making posses to kill Maidu people in the mid 1800s and sell babies for cash. Hunts against the Maidu were funded, and the state of California paid for the ears and scalps of the tribe. Treaties were made for promised land to the Maidu as to prevent more of this trouble from happening and to instill peace, but it was never given to them. (MacDonald) One thing leads to another...
The life of the Maidu of Sacramento Valley were pulled into the depths of massacre and clearly genocide. In 1833, 60 to 90 percent of the Maidu had been killed by malaria and smallpox. their numbers drastically plummeting from about 76,000 before European settlers arrived to about 1,000 by 1900. The upcoming Gold Rush had them enslaved as "indentured servants", having to work in order to live and be supplied food. Hydraulic river mining had killed most the salmon; a major food source for the Maidu. This resulted in them having to steal livestock, making a domino effect into making the settlers very upset and driving them into making posses to kill Maidu people in the mid 1800s and sell babies for cash. Hunts against the Maidu were funded, and the state of California paid for the ears and scalps of the tribe. Treaties were made for promised land to the Maidu as to prevent more of this trouble from happening and to instill peace, but it was never given to them. (MacDonald) One thing leads to another...
Miwok Tribe
The Miwok tribe already had had tension with the Europeans in the 1700's, but it wasn't up until the Gold Rush in 1849 were they critically affected by genocide; as you may have read, the Gold Rush had devastating impacts on many of the indigenous peoples of California. Very similarly to the Maidu, the Miwok were also promised land by making treaties, but were left homeless, the U.S. government failing them. Regardless of their federal recognition, to this day because they don't have any land of their own *possession*; this does not help them and their tribal government at measuring their effectiveness in what they are trying to accomplish and their power in the midst of all of their haunting troubles. ("Miwok- California Indians")