the book i called "the american genocide: the united states and the california indian catastrophe, 1846 to 1873". the author, benjamin madley. professor madley in your book you write that between 1846 and 1870, california's native american population plunged from

perhaps 150,000 to 30,000. how did that occur? >> guest: so, there are many thing wes understand already about this story. we know that disease, exposure, starvation, those were all major factors, not only in this population decline but in the suppression of demographic rebound. what we didn't know in so much detail and with so much clarity before this book was all of the factors and how they played in. systemic unfree labor regimes, kidnapping, hundreds of homicides and over 370 separate massacres carried out by vigilantes, volunteer state militia men and elements of the united states army, all of which come together to provide a very convincing, damning argument that what took place in california between 1846 and 1873 was in fact a case of genocide according to the 1948 u.n.

genocide convention. >> host: why 1846? >> guest: 1846 is the year that the united states invade thed california and took california from mexico as part of the mexican-american war, and so the story you get there, but its also the greer which the very first major massacre of california indian people in this case, in 1846, took place at the hands of elements of the united states army under john c. fremont, a massacre of by all accounts peaceable california indian people who were gathered on the banks of the sacramento river but whom fremont and his men attacked preemptively, kills hundreds of individuals. >> host: what was the reasoning for this preemptive attack. >> guest: they'd been told by some colonists in northern sacramento river valley that this group of california indian people might pose a threat, and so they attempted through what i call in the book pedagoguic

killing to teach a lesson to other california indians to never resist white people. so kit arson and john c. fremont and their band on troopers killed as many as 800 california indian people on a single morning, thus in some ways setting the stage for what would become an american genocide. >> host: now, professor madley, 1846 is only three years before the 1849 gold rush. does gold play in a role? >> guest: gold plays a major role in the book. if we can look at the cover of the book, the others insist third be gold leaf on it in order to not so tutly hint at the crucial role that gold played. so before the gold rush again that were on 13,000 or 14,000 nonindian people living in california, but between 1846 and 1870, that population surged to hundreds and hundreds of thousands. almost 400,000 people. and so that massive demographic switch suddenly made it possible

for newcomers to entirely change their relationship to california indians, where before the gold rush, california indian people were central to the mexican economy, serving as ranch hands, as farmworkers, making wine, lassoing cattle. once the surge of white people came from europe and from the eastern united states, they were no longer so crucial to the economy, and many of the newcomers saw them as competitors in their search for the rapid acquisition of wealth, that shiny gold stuff, and so the massacres accelerated dramatically during the gold rush period, particularly against california indian communities who are engaged in gold mining. >> host: from your book, during 1849, more than 65,000 emigrantses with an e, heavily articles, with pair practice a military organizations full of fear and hatred towards indians arrived in california. >> guest: they often came

already organized with officers. they had sometimes corporations but also had military organizations, and the literature that they were reading, the print media, was telling them it was very dangerous to cross the vast interior of the united states, they were at great danger from the american indian group. so one group called a cannon from west virginia to california and didn't find any reason toite and ended up being able to sell it for only a single dollar in sacramento because nobody really saw california indians as a substantial threat. many california indians, as i said before, were part of the economy, they were working in mining industries, but because everybody came so heavily armed it made it easy to kill california indians. these massacres were done at distance so long-range weapons like rifles were used that were -- had a much longer range than california indian bows and

air rows had. that allowed the attackers to kill indian people without putting themselves in harm's i would. >> host: why focus on california. >> guest: i'm from california. i grew up in indian country in far morning california. my father was a school psychologist, so i knew lot of indian people growing up and then we moved to los angeles, and suddenly i was wearing an indian on my letterman's jacket but i was wondering, where are all of the indian people? it wasn't apparent to me at that point we're in right now on the land, the most poppous indian city in the western united states. didn't know that. so i began to wonder where aberdeen went and i began to study the history and the further i went into it, the more terrified became by what i was seeing. that it was the state of california, our very first democratically elected governor in california under u.s. rule

declare, and i quote, war of extermination will be waged until the indian race becomes extinct and at first i thought he was a rouge madman, and then i see right away the state legislature puts the power of the purse behind his words, raises money, originally to the tune of half a million dollars, and later they raise over $1.9 million to send out 24 state militia campaigns against california indians, which kill large numbers of people, but which inspired an even larger number of vigilante killings, asia got further into the story i realize that the u.s. army was donating all of the weapons and ammunition to militia shoulds, that the federal government later reimburses the state of california over $900,000 to pay for militias and then that the united states army is also involved and they actually killed more people than the california militiamen killed, and in total the numbers are staggering. well know that there's this

great population decline, but this book actually documents in almost 200 pages of apen dissees all of the killings and what we have learned is at an absolute minimum the village'll teens and militiamen and united states mayor soldiers killed at a minimum 9,400 california indian people, perhaps as many as 16,000, and probably thousands of others whose deaths were not recorded in the ledgers and the letters and journals and newspapers and official reports of the day, that i combed over for years in order to bring this material together. now, it might seem i macabre or a fetish but i wanted to present in some way a kind of memorial to all the fallen california indian people who were victims of this state sponsored mass murder. there was day when i was dying

my research, graduate student at yale, bumped literally into this print -- a rotunda with all the names of yale men and women who have fallen in and all of the wars that happened since yale was founded in 1701 and it was an ah-ha moment. i thought we need something like there is for california indian people. we need to remember. now we may not get a memorial designed by someone like miya lin but we have aappendixes and if you think about your own experience of loss, the rupture and pain when you have lost a loved 2001 your police officer and you look at the numbers, think about the magnitude of what this means for california indian communities. it's not just the political leaders were lost. is a the mother the father, the aunties, uncles, grandparents, people who knew how to make a bow perfectly, the people who knew how to weave a beautiful basket with a traditional design of that community. and yet after all of this, the

of unimaginable horror and the state's startling involvement in navigating and creating these programs you have the this dark cloud of genocide in california's history and at the same time this unbelievable story of resilience and survival. so today, there are 150,000 california indian people, 109 federally recognized tribes up and down the state, another 78 california communities who are not recognized by the federal government. so all of these people-0 the descents of folks who figure out how to survive against all but impossible. a how to resist and live and save themselves and their children in a world that wanted to destroy them with federal soldiers looking for them. militia men searching for them, bounty hunter who were paid be

the human scalp or the human head. they somehow evaded all of these forces and survived. into while it's a very dark story, it's a story of at the triumph of the human will, the triumph of our human instinct for survival against the odd that just seem impossible. use you use the term "indians" and not "native americans." >> in academia world we talk about native americans or american indians but i grew up in what's called indian country, and most indian people that i know on reservations and ranches and urban areas refer to themselves as simply indians. we know this is based on columbus' great mistake him thought the reached the east endys when in fact he only reached the caribbean basin but this term now has the kind of political and cultural resonance

that is very important, so the single biggest periodical that circulates around indian country is called "indian country today," the national journal or the national periodal periodical of the american indian people in the country. it's important to acknowledge it's a mistake. when we think of indian country -- i'm glad you raise this. it's important to remember we're in indian country right now, but anywhere you go in california, you'll be in one's ancient ancestral homeland, landses that indian people inhabited for thousands of years as many believe since time immemorial and that's true everywhere you go the united states or the hemispheres, fro straits of magellan to the shores of the arctic ocean, you're in indian country. and one of the things that happened because of this great loss of life was the eraseure of indian people in the public

consciousness, another only have all the indian names for the land forms and the rivers and the lakes and inlets been erased but have been written over, often with the very names of the people who did the killing. so we have carson peak, and numerous places named after john c. fremont, two men who we alluded to earlier who were direct genocide perpetrators. we also have many schools and institutions named after leaders in high political places who played roles in this genocidal process. for example, hastings law school in san francisco, this state's oldest law school, is named after the first supreme supremet chief justice, man who ruled in a case that released eight men who others arrested for mass murder in the napa and sonoma valleys, also a man who personally bank rolled the death squad that later became the eel

river ain't jerries. one of these california state militia units responsible for killing hundreds of indian people, over 280 by their own official reports. perhaps 400 or more according to journalists and eye witness accounts. so, the very history of this genocide is woven into our state's place name. so the way we see the cartography of california represent us it. not in terms of letting people know that here a massacre happened, here a great enslavement of california indian people happened, here on this reservation hundreds of people starved to death, but, rather, in the celebration of the very people who planned, paid for and carried out the killings, and this is one of the things i hope that this book might help change. should say that on wednesday, i had the opportunity to speak with the governor of the state of california and to present

this book in the capitol to him and to his cabinet and to an assembly of california indian leaders, and he is going to acknowledge that this was what he called an actual genocide. so it's a rare moment for an historian to actually have some impact on public discourse, and what i hope can ultimately come out of this is a wider dialogue about how we teach our youth. i hope that this history can ultimately become part of the state educational standards for what young people in california learn. you knowing are right now it's relegated -- california indian history to the fourth grade. and most of us coming up have made the sugar cube missions. me a we maked the couple of tongue depressors but that's the only time where we talk about california history today, and my hope as an historian, an activist historian issue to us put california indians not only into the educational standards

but into our public discourse. and perhaps we can have monuments that commemorate these massacres, that commemorate the victims and tell the truth about what happened and once we have a more comprehensive understanding of this mass violence, the systemic state-sponsored mass violence that took place in california, we can begin a healing process that might involved not only memorials but state mandated divers remembrance, and a real discussion about what this state of california and what the government of the united states owes to california indian people in light of this horrific criminal past. >> host: what is an activist historian? >> guest: i see myself as an activist historian in that i'm constantly thinking about how the documents that i'm uncovering and the way i tell the narrative echos into our lived experience.

the ways in which uncovering hidden pasts can change public policy, public discourse, and the way that we understand the past in order to shape our future. >> host: you spoke of the first governor of california, that your book begin thursday 1846. california came into the union in 1850. back then that was a pretty quick time frame one it? or not? >> guest: at an extraordinary thing. i'm not a subscriber to the idea of california exceptionalism as you well know. the book pushes against that pretty hard. but it is a very rapid turn-around, why? it's because of that extraordinary wealth provided by the gold rush and the extraordinary migration. so the migration to california is in fact the single largest mass migration of the united states 19th century. so, by 1850, there's already a very substantial number of people there but it's also

because the generals in charge were not activists, and they in fact encouraged this democratic process to happen very quickly. so california state constitutional convention happened in the fall of 1849. almost a year before state idaho. so they seats the day here in california to move very rapidly, and children really interesting things about this constitutional conviction they came one vote away from enfranchising california indians. so we see again and again in the story how the history of california could have gone in a very, very different direction, but for a very few people turning the tide in the direction of what ultimately became disenfranchisement and genocide. >> host: your book was reknitted i bid "the los angeles times." >> guest: this book just won the

los angeles times 2017 book award for history, which is a very exciting accolade for a book that uncovers a dark and very uncomfortable past. >> why do you end in it in 1873. >> guest: because that is when the last major organized military campaigns against california indians concluded. the book ends with the 1872-1873 war in which california indians, modoc people, hold off the combined forces of the united states army, the california state militia and the oregon state militia for months. just handful of them. when they finally surrender, the process is still not over. the united states army hangs and decapitates the four surrendered leaders before shipping their severed heads to u.s. mayor war college in washington, dc to the medical museum there so the process comes to a conclusion in terms of that being the last

major campaign against california indians but it doesn't mean that the genocide absolutely stops there. >> host: benjamin madley, an associate professor of history at ucla and the author of this book "an american genocide: the u.s. and the california indian catastrophe 1846-1873". thank you for joining us on booktv. >> guest: thank you very much. keep watching for more television for serious readers. [inaudible discussion]