Gold Rush Era
Despite your Dec. 28 editorial’s sunny call for a celebration of the state’s Gold Rush era, for Native Americans this slice of California history was no happy hike in the Sierra. For them, I would suspect, your call is like asking Tibetans to applaud the Chinese takeover of their lands. But in fact, the American Indian experience during the Gold Rush days was far, far worse.
Even conservative historians concede that what happened to California’s Indian population in the 1848-60 period deserves that overused term: genocide. These people died from disease and famine or they were killed by U.S. soldiers or by ordinary citizens out on sanctioned weekend Indian hunts. During the main decade of your exalted Gold Rush, the number of the state’s natives declined from an estimated 100,000 Indians in 1849 to about 35,000 by 1860.
PETER NABOKOV
American Indian Studies Program
and Department of World Arts
and Cultures, UCLA
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