One of the topics covered in class was the Yuki Genocide for the Wednesday readings. It stuck with me pretty intently because of the horrific conditions that the Yuki people were put through. It is quite shocking that a state that claimed at the time of its founding that it was a ‘Free’ state would pass laws that would put people into forced indentured servitude.
One of the things that suck out to me, was that in 1855 Superintendent Henley asked for intervention to stop the slave raiders kidnapping Yuki and other tribe member’s children. The Secretary of War one Jefferson Davis declined intervention. The same man who would end up leading the Confederate States of America during the Civil War over Slavery, per his own states secession decree.
That the Genocide was reported on, with the wording in the papers and in the documents at the time being Extermination, should have been more recognized at the time. I know that news traveled slowly back in the mid 1800s, but the government should have realized that the laws being passed by the State Legislature and signed by the Governor were part of a larger scale extermination. It is frankly embarrassing that such a disaster happened in our most populated state.
Ian Nieland