Joining with tribal leaders beneath an Oak tree along the Sacramento River, Governer Gavin Newsom formally apologized Tuesday for California’s role in the “systemic slaughter” of Native Americans.
“It’s called a genocide. That’s what it was: a genocide. No other way to describe it. And that’s the way it needs to be described in the history books,” Newsom said. “So I am here to say the following: I’m sorry on behalf of the state of California.
California’s first governor, Peter Burnett, told the Legislature that “a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct.” The state spent $1.3 million subsidizing dozens of militia campaigns against Native Americans over the next decade.
From SF Chronicle
On Friday June 21, representatives of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and the UC Santa Cruz administration will assemble on campus with interested community members to witness the removal of the El Camino Real bell marker.
“The true history of the California mission system has never been told. It is shameful that these places where our ancestors were enslaved, whipped, raped, tortured and exposed to fatal diseases have been whitewashed and converted into tourist attractions.”
For the Indians who toiled in California’s mission compounds the ringing of the bell regimented an iron-clad schedule of forced prayer and compulsory labor. The bell was a potent symbol of the domination of the Catholic Church and the Spanish state over all aspects of the lives of the indigenous people who were forced to live “under the bell.”
From IndyBay
