California celebrates its 175th birthday

California celebrates its 175th birthday

Historical times in 1850 California

By Lynda Carson - September 9, 2025

California celebrates 175th birthday. Click on link below…

https://news.google.com/search?q=California%20celebrates%20birthday&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

According to the propaganda on the California Parks website, reportedly in part it states, “California became the 31st state on September 9, 1850. The Golden State’s rich history has since been shaped by people of every ethnic background who traveled here seeking economic, social and educational opportunity, and a life of quality and breathtaking beauty.”

However with such colorful propaganda extolling the virtues of California, it should not be a surprise that they forgot to mention the racism of the white mans fears of the so-called yellow peril, resulting in the Chinese Exclusion Act, or the Japanese exclusion.

That’s right, from the genocidal policies against the Native Americans, the insidious Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, to the Immigration Act of 1924, or to the Japanese American internment camps during World War II, California’s rich history of racist policies that screwed over people of every ethnic background has a long history of anti-Asian, anti-Indian, and anti-immigrant racist policies.

The practice of “Hunting Indians” and scalping them in California.

According to historians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalping , in 1851, the U.S. Army displayed Indian scalps https://nickbrumbywesterns.com/scalping-in-the-old-west/ in Stanislaus County, California.

In 1851 the same year California became a state, the Tehama Massacre occurred in Tehama County, California, wherein U.S. military and citizens razed villages and scalped hundreds of men, women, and children. This attack targeted Native communities specifically, in the villages of Yana, Konkow, Nisenan, Wintu, Nomlaki, Patwin, Yuki, and Maidu.

Reportedly, “There were subtler acts of genocide committed against California Indians soon after the Americans took over. Even before the state’s admission to the Union in September 1850, California’s Legislature passed a bill — ironically called the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians — which codified the Spanish practice of forcing California Indians into slavery, though it set a few token restrictions on the practice. As many as 10,000 California Indians, especially children, were kidnapped and sold into slavery before Emancipation in 1863. Many of them were worked to death. Another clause in the Act forbade cultural burning of grasslands. A vagrancy clause made it illegal simply to be a Native Californian in public unless said Native could prove he or she was employed by a white person. Another provided that no white man could be convicted based on testimony of a California Indian.”

According to an article in the Red Bluff Beacon from Red Bluff, California, during 1857 through 1864, titled ‘Hunting Indians’, it says, “A new plan has been adopted by our neighbors opposite this place to chastise the Indians for their many depredations during the past winter. Some men are hired to hunt them, who are recompensed by receiving so much for each scalp, or some other satisfactory evidence that they have been killed. The money has been made up by subscription.”

Just try to imagine living in a time and place somewhere in California where as a way of life, “white men” that needed to figure out how to pay the rent, their doctor bills, to buy a new horse, or weapons for hunting, or food, are out on the loose hunting down their Native American neighbors and scalping them, just so they can make a few bucks to get by on.

According to historians, “In 1851, the U.S. Army displayed Indian scalps in Stanislaus County, California. In Tehama County, California, U.S. military and local volunteers razed villages and scalped hundreds of men, women, and children.

Scalping also occurred during the Sand Creek Massacre on November 29, 1864, during the American Indian Wars, when a 700-man force of U.S. Army volunteers destroyed the village of Cheyenne and Arapaho in southeastern Colorado Territory, killing and mutilating an estimated 70-163 Native Americans.

An 1867 New York Times article reported that “settlers in a small town in Colorado Territory had recently subscribed $5,000 to a fund ‘for the purpose of buying Indian scalps (with $25 each to be paid for scalps with the ears on)’ and that the market for Indian scalps ‘is not affected by age or sex’.”

The article noted this behavior was “sanctioned” by the U.S. federal government, and was modeled on patterns the U.S. had begun a century earlier in the “American East”.

From one writer’s point of view, it was a “uniquely American” innovation that the use of scalp bounties in the wars against indigenous societies “became an indiscriminate killing process that deliberately targeted Indian non-combatants (including women, children, and infants), as well as warriors.”

Some American states such as Arizona paid bounty for enemy Native American scalps.”

Additionally, reportedly, “Scalping, the removal of the scalp from the head often for use as a trophy, is usually regarded as a uniquely sanguineous Indian practice confined to America’s distant colonial past. However, little remembered today is the important role the practice played during the Revolutionary War. While traditionally seen by colonials as a symbol of Indian barbarity, the role of scalping was reimagined during the Revolution as “Englishmen scalped Englishmen in the name of liberty.” Throughout the war Patriots and Tories scalped to terrorize their foes while also claiming that their enemy’s willingness to scalp proved that their cause embodied Indian savagery.”

According to historians, reportedly, “In 1755, Massachusetts Bay Colony’s Royal Lieutenant Governor issued a scalp bounty proclamation, offering substantial cash payments to any white colonists who brought in the scalps of indigenous men, women, and children. This was just one of approximately 70 scalp bounty proclamations issued in New England in the century before the American Revolution; U.S. governments issued at least another 50 throughout the new nation in subsequent decades. These planned genocides are a profoundly painful part of American history, but are often little remembered or discussed.”

Scalping took place in the Minnesota also; https://www3.mnhs.org/usdakotawar/stories/history/aftermath/bounties .

In a short film called Bounty https://www.bountyfilm.org/ , a film about scalp hunters, they offer grim details about our bloody past. “Scalping people for cash rewards and land is a devastating idea and shocking practice, essential to how the United States became a nation, built on top of hundreds of Indigenous nations who thrived here for millennia before Europeans invaded these shores.”

Reportedly, “As settlers encroached on Ckuwaponahkik (the Dawnland) and rebranded it New England - they coveted land. So officials introduced a terrible twist to incentivize gruesome acts of violence: the government would pay settlers cash for every scalp brought to Boston and other outposts. Their reward: about $12,000 (in today’s dollars) for the scalp of a man, half that for a woman’s scalp and a bit less for a child. It was nearly as much as a soldier would earn in two years. Many bounty hunters were granted land of the people they scalped - thousands upon thousands of acres. Many scalpers founded towns named after themselves. The names are familiar today in the Dawnland: Westbrook, Maine; Shirley, Massachusetts; and Spencer, Massachusetts are just three examples.”

According to historians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_California , “The history of slavery in California began with the enslavement of Indigenous Californians under Spanish colonial rule. The arrival of the Spanish colonists introduced chattel slavery and involuntary servitude to the area. Over 90,000 Indigenous peoples were forced to stay at the Spanish missions in California between 1770 and 1834, being kept in well-guarded mission compounds. This has been described as de facto slavery,as they were forced to work on the mission's grounds amid abuse, malnourishment, overworking, and a high death rate. Indigenous girls were taken from their parents to be housed in guarded dormitories known as monjeríos for conversion to Catholicism and control over their sexuality.”

Reportedly https://project1492.org/origin-of-the-scalp-act/ , “It’s not entirely clear where or when a bounty for scalps was first offered, but it wasn’t all that rare in New England by the early 1700s. In fact, most Americans seem to have accepted the validity of the practice at the time. In April of 1756, Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor Robert Morris enacted the Scalp Act. Anyone who brought in a male scalp above age of 12 would be given 150 pieces of eight or the equivalent of  $150. For females above age of 12 or males under the age of 12, they would be paid $130. The scalp of an Indian woman earned a payment of $50. The military effectiveness of a scalp bounty wasn’t tabulated based on the number of actual scalps. The mere announcement of a bounty transformed the settlers from passive observers to active participants.”

As California celebrates it 175th birthday, and the rich history that has been shaped by people of every ethnic background who traveled here seeking economic, social and educational opportunity, it cannot escape its history of bloodshed, genocide against Native Americans, and racist policies of the past excluding many.

Now that the convicted felon President Trump has resurrected the Department of War https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2025/09/06/18879642.php , the Department of War https://news.google.com/search?q=Department%20of%20War&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen has reminded us of our bloody history that Trump is presently trying to white-wash out of our beloved Smithsonian Institution: https://news.google.com/topics/CAAqIQgKIhtDQkFTRGdvSUwyMHZNR2htZVdvU0FtVnVLQUFQAQ?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen .

Lynda Carson may be reached at newzland2 [at] gmail.com



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