California Genocide

In this episode, we focus on the California genocide, a devastating period from 1846 to 1873 in which Indigenous communities faced mass killing, forced labor, kidnapping, starvation, disease, and systemic dispossession after the American conquest of California. Driven by settler colonial expansion and the Gold Rush, state and federal authorities supported militias and policies that helped reduce the Native population from roughly 150,000 to 30,000, reshaping the region’s demographic and cultural landscape. The episode explores how legalized servitude and state-sanctioned violence targeted diverse tribal nations, why contemporary leaders have formally recognized these atrocities as genocide, and how truth, healing, and historical accountability remain central to understanding California’s past and the broader legacy of violence in the American West.