Exterminate Them: Written Accounts of the Murder, Rape, and Enslavement of Native Americans during the California Gold Rush - Softcover

Clifford E. Trafzer (editor) & Joel R. Hyer (editor)

 
9780870135019: Exterminate Them: Written Accounts of the Murder, Rape, and Enslavement of Native Americans during the California Gold Rush
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0870135015 ISBN 13: 9780870135019
Publisher: Michigan State University Press, 1999

Synopsis

Popular media depict miners as a rough-and-tumble lot who diligently worked the placers along scenic rushing rivers while living in roaring mining camps in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Trafzer and Hyer destroy this mythic image by offering a collection of original newspaper articles that describe in detail the murder, rape, and enslavement perpetrated by those who participated in the infamous gold rush. "It is a mercy to the Red Devils," wrote an editor of the Chico Courier, "to exterminate them." Newspaper accounts of the era depict both the barbarity and the nobility in human nature, but while some protested the inhumane treatment of Native Americans, they were not able to end the violence. Native Americans fought back, resisting the invasion, but they could not stop the tide of white miners and settlers. They became "strangers in a stolen land."

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Clifford Trafzer is Director of American Indian Studies at University of California, Riverside. Joel R. Hyer is Visiting Faculty Fellow of History at California State University, San Marcos.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Michigan State University Press
Publication date
1999
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0870135015
ISBN 13 
9780870135019
Binding
Paperback
Number of pages
177