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

the author, benjamin madley. professor madley in your book you write that between 1846 and 1870, california's native american

. >> 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] [inaudible discussion] >> good afternoon, welcome to the heritage foundation and our lewis layman auditorium. we join white house join us on the heritage.org web site and those chinaing us on c-span booktv in the future. those here inhouse we ask that courtty heck that our mobile devices of various sort have been silenced or turned off. those watching online, you're welcome to send questions or commentses at any time. simply e-mail us as speaker@heritage.org and we will post the program on the heritage home page for your future reference as well. welcoming our guests today and leading our program is dakotawoods, senior research fellow for defense programs and our center for national seps defense, mr. wood served our nation for two deck they'd u.s. marine concerned,