The California Indian Wars were a series of massacres, wars, and battles between the California State Militia, the US Army, and the Native American peoples of California which occurred from 1850 to 1872, when the last major "Indian war", the Modoc War, came to an end.
History[]
In 1848, the Mexican province of Alta California was acquired by the United States under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War, and the California Gold Rush of 1849 led to mass migration to California both from within the United States and from overseas and California's rapid achievement of statehood. On 22 April 1850, the California legislature passed the "Act for the Government and Protection of Indians", which continued the Mexican practice of enslaving Native Americans for labor, and raids on villages were made to supply the demand, initiating the extermination of the native tribes in the "California Genocide". Because the small Federal garrison west of the Rockies was spread out across the West Coast, and because of frequent desertions of soldiers to take part in the Gold Rush, miners and settlers took it upon themselves to murder local Indians, and the state formed the California State Militia to fight against the Natives with the expectation that the government would repay the state's debts caused by Indian "depredations". The Gila Expedition of September 1850, launched against the Yuma of the lower Colorado River, nearly bankrupted the state and set off the Yuma War in California and Arizona. At the same time, Antonio Garra united the tribes of southern California in revolt against the Americans, but it was put down by Major Samuel P. Heintzelman in 1851. 1850 also saw Nathaniel P. Banks massacre 200 Pomo natives at Clear Lake after they killed two American settlers who had been killing and enslaving them; an Army expedition up the Pitt River to establish diplomatic relations with the Achomawi, Atsugewi, and Modoc; a war with the Indians of El Dorado County; and the Mariposa War with the Yosemites and Chowchillas. In 1852, the Wintu tribe's killing of Colonel John Anderson led to 70 Americans under Trinity County Sheriff William H. Dixon massacring 150 Wintus at Bridge Gulch. That same year, five Federal military reservations were established in California, and, that July, the US Senate rejected the state's treaties with the 18 local Native tribes. Over the next several years, several massacres of Native Americans continued in retaliation for Native resistance to enslavement.
California State Militia troops in Leggett, Mendocino County in 1864
From 1858 to 1871, a series of wars broke out between the local settler parties of northeast California and the Yana and Achomawi peoples, and 1865 saw the separate massacres of 40 and 30 Yahi by settler posses at Mill Creek and Silva, followed by the 1866 Three Knolls massacre (40 Yahi killed), the 1867 Camp Seco massacre (45 Yahi killed), and the 1871 Kingsley Cave massacre (30 Yahi killed). The Bald Hills War of 1858-1864 saw the California Militia, then volunteers, and then the US Army war with the Chilula, Lassik, Hupa, Mattole, Nongatl, Sinkyone, Tsnungwe, Wailaki, Whilkut, and Wiyot peoples. During the American Civil War of 1861-1865, California and Oregon state volunteers replaced Federal troops in the American West and engaged in conflicts with the natives of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. By the end of the Civil War in 1865, most of the California Indian Wars had come to an end, although hostilities continued between local militias or volunteers and the Yahi, Yana, and Paiute natives of northeastern California into the 1870s. Federal troops replaced the volunteers from late 1865 to 1866, conquering the Mojave Desert, Owens Valley, and Northeast California in the Snake War and the bloody 13-month Modoc War, in which Major-General Edward Canby was killed. The murder of Oliver P. Calloway in Blythe, California in 1880 was the last notable instance of violence between the United States and the natives of California, who had largely been exterminated after years of massacres and warfare.