John Sutter Enslaved Native Americans...

[5fish]

Sutter Mills where gold was found in California and cause a great Gold Rush. Its owner John Sutter enslaved the local Native Americans and even had a harem of Native American women. We all know we were never told this in school...

The Enslaved Native Americans Who Made The Gold Rush Possible

Native Californians were treated abominably in the area where gold was first discovered.

www.google.com

 

[5fish]

Here some more horrors endorer ...

Native Americans

At the beginning of the Gold Rush, many Native Americans participated in mining for gold. In fact, a 1848 government report estimated that one half of the gold diggers in California were...

califgoldrush.weebly.com

 

[diane]

Check out the California 1850 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. Under that law, anybody could seize any Indian and either sell them or keep them for labor. Slavery, starvation, the harem...all legal under California law.

 

[rittmeister]

Check out the California 1850 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. Under that law, anybody could seize any Indian and either sell them or keep them for labor. Slavery, starvation, the harem...all legal under California law.

is it still on the books?

 

[rittmeister]

Act for the Government and Protection of Indians | American Experience | PBS

In 1850 the California legislature passed and act that essentially forced many Native Americans into servitude.

www.pbs.org

Act for the Government and Protection of Indians - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/IB.pdf

came into force april 22nd

 

[diane]

is it still on the books?

No, that one was repealed in the 1870s. The bounties were still being offered into the 20th century, and - at least around here - up until the 30s it was still legal to kill a group of 3 or more Indians. That was considered a war party. So...me, the hubby, and a kid could be walking down the street and legally get killed for being a war party.

 

[rittmeister]

No, that one was repealed in the 1870s. The bounties were still being offered into the 20th century, and - at least around here - up until the 30s it was still legal to kill a group of 3 or more Indians. That was considered a war party. So...me, the hubby, and a kid could be walking down the street and legally get killed for being a war party.

a woman, a kid and a viking - i can see reason to off the viking the other two however

got a title for that law?

 

[diane]

No title yet - it's one of the things we're working on finding. The law did exist as there are newspaper articles referencing it. The Sundown Law was another hotly contested one - nobody could find such a law on the books. (Indians and blacks had to leave town by sundown.) Finally found it in a dusty moldy file in the courthouse basement...and it was still in effect in 2011! (The really embarrassed city council held a special session to rescind it.)

 

[rittmeister]

No title yet - it's one of the things we're working on finding. The law did exist as there are newspaper articles referencing it. The Sundown Law was another hotly contested one - nobody could find such a law on the books. (Indians and blacks had to leave town by sundown.) Finally found it in a dusty moldy file in the courthouse basement...and it was still in effect in 2011! (The really embarrassed city council held a special session to rescind it.)

which city?

 

[diane]

Yreka was the county seat, having beat out Deadwood, so bounty hunters came in to the court house to collect - there are boxes of these kinds of things there. There's no article about the repeal of this law however - I might try to see if it is in the city council minutes. There are articles regarding the Shasta around Yreka and Frogtown (now Hawkinsville) during this time. Nothing good, mind! The paper was always joyous to see an Indian come a cropper... Things are a lot better now, I must say!

This book gives a good flavor of the times then - lots of news articles:

History of Siskiyou County, Calif., 1881: Wells, Harry L.: Amazon.com: Books

History of Siskiyou County, Calif., 1881 [Wells, Harry L.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. History of Siskiyou County, Calif., 1881

www.amazon.com

 

[rittmeister]

Yreka was the county seat, having beat out Deadwood, so bounty hunters came in to the court house to collect - there are boxes of these kinds of things there. There's no article about the repeal of this law however - I might try to see if it is in the city council minutes. There are articles regarding the Shasta around Yreka and Frogtown (now Hawkinsville) during this time. Nothing good, mind! The paper was always joyous to see an Indian come a cropper... Things are a lot better now, I must say!

This book gives a good flavor of the times then - lots of news articles:

History of Siskiyou County, Calif., 1881: Wells, Harry L.: Amazon.com: Books

History of Siskiyou County, Calif., 1881 [Wells, Harry L.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. History of Siskiyou County, Calif., 1881

www.amazon.com

free download

History of Siskiyou County, California : Wells, Harry Laurenz, 1854-1940 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Reprinted 1971 by Siskiyou Historical Society

archive.org

 

[diane]

Oooh! Thanks. If you get it, you'll find it interesting reading.

 

[rittmeister]

Oooh! Thanks. If you get it, you'll find it interesting reading.

i already have it (download was about 3 seconds) - i now need to read it

author has german ancestors - laurenz (or lorenz) is the german form of lawrence

 

[diane]

i already have it (download was about 3 seconds) - i now need to read it

author has german ancestors - laurenz (or lorenz) is the german form of lawrence

There were a lot of German immigrants in this county, like Charles Kappler. He brought his beer recipes from home and made a good pile of real money selling beer to miners. Iunker, a Bavarian, ran the Union Bella - classy joint for this place - and John (Johann) Foll was the butcher who made the sausages to go with it. Butcher Hill is so named because that's where he did his butchering. The Germans didn't do any mining - their gold mine was beer!

 

[5fish]

Those native peoples presented both a threat and an opportunity to Sutter. Sutter initially forged an amicable relationship with local Nisenan people, and turned them into a militia, outfitting them with uniforms and weapons and training them to defend his land.

Here is this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisenan

Boundary of their land...

https://www.nisenan.org/

 

[diane]

Sutter's relationship with the Nisenan wasn't amicable - it was to keep from being thoroughly destroyed - and it didn't last long. Their territory was smack dab in the dead center of Gold Country - Placer, El Dorado, Nevada, Calaveras, and more. This was the Mother Lode, stretching from the Sierra Nevadas to the Sacramento Valley. The other gold belt runs from Southern Oregon to the Sacramento Valley. It is richer than the one hit at Sutter's Mill.

Nothing good happened to a tribe sitting on all the gold in California. Trust me on this one!

 

[diane]

@5fish - here's some of the Nisenan tribal history as told by them:

https://colfaxrancheria.com/home-page

 

[Wehrkraftzersetzer]

btw Sutter(er) is also a German name, often in Switzerland

 

[5fish]

btw Sutter(er) is also a German name, often in Switzerland

Form Post 1# link...

Before John Sutter became a land baron, he was Johann Suter, a debt-ridden shop owner in Switzerland. Rather than serve jail time for his debts, the 31-year-old left his home country—and his wife and five children—behind

Sutter's relationship with the Nisenan wasn't amicable -

He was a baster... from post one link... if you read the link you see how horrible the man was...

Without Native Americans, John Sutter—owner of the mill where gold was discovered and the area’s most influential landowners—would never have become so powerful. Sutter, a shrewd businessman, enslaved hundreds of Native Americans and used them as a free source of labor and a makeshift militia with which he defended his territory. He also set the stage for their genocide.

 

[5fish]

John A Suter. Jr. , he did the Founding and Planning the City of Sacramento, California...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Augustus_Sutter_Jr.

Dad's statue is gone...

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article243555567.html