California Indian Wars

The California Indian Wars were a series of wars, battles, and massacres between the United States Army (or often the California State Militia, especially during the early 1850s), and the Indigenous peoples of California. The wars lasted from 1850, immediately after Alta California, acquired during the Mexican–American War, became the state of California, to 1880 when the last minor military operation on the Colorado River ended the Calloway Affair of 1880.

For the acts of massacres and forced abductions during the settlement of California, see California Genocide.

Following the acquisition of the Mexican Cession in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican–American War, the small Federal garrison west of the Rocky Mountains was spread out over that vast territory. Shortly afterward, the economic effects of the California Gold Rush encouraged desertions that further weakened the garrisons within the territory of California. Following statehood, the California State Militia engaged in most of the early conflicts with the Indians within its boundaries before the American Civil War. The state sought compensation from the United States federal government for the cost of the operations and for the "depredations" of the Indians, claims that would not be settled for decades. Often, a number of miners or other settlers, who were impatient at the bureaucratic delay or political opposition involved with organizing militia companies, organized themselves to violently engage local Indian tribes, at times murdering several of its members, indiscriminately.

Later during the American Civil War, California and Oregon State Volunteers replaced Federal troops west of the Rocky Mountains and engaged in many conflicts with the Indians in that region including in California, Nevada and Utah, New Mexico and Arizona Territories. Within California they fought in the ongoing 1858-1864 Bald Hills War and in the 1862-1863 Owens Valley Indian War. Minor skirmishes occurred between local militias or volunteers and the Yahi, Yana and Paiute in northeastern California into the 1870s. Following the Civil War, most hostilities in California were over except for a few minor skirmishes in the Owens Valley and in the Mojave Desert against the Timbisha and Chemehuevi. Federal troops replaced the volunteers between late 1865 and early 1866 and again engaged in military actions in the remote regions of the Mojave Desert, Owens Valley and the northeast of the state against the Snakes and later the Modoc in the next two decades.

List of California Indian Wars, massacres, battles, skirmishes and events

1850–1858

1858–1871

1872–1880
  • Modoc War, or Modoc Campaign (1872–1873): 53 Modoc warriors under Captain Jack held off 675 men of the U.S. Army for 13 months. Major General Edward Canby was killed during a peace conference.
  • Calloway Affair of 1880 War between the U. S. Army and the Chemehuevi was averted following the murder of Oliver P. Calloway near what is now Blythe, California.

See also

References
  1. Compiled laws of the State of California: containing all the acts of the Legislature of a public and general nature, now in force, passed at the sessions of 1850-51-52-53, Benicia, S. Garfeilde, 1853. pp. 822-825 An Act for the Government and Protection of Indians
  2. Heizer, Robert F. The destruction of California Indians. Lincoln and London: Univ. of Nebraska Press, (1974).
  3. David Rich Lewis, Neither wolf nor dog: American Indians, environment, and agrarian change, Oxford University Press US, 1994, pg. 86
  4. Heizer, Robert F., The Destruction of California Indians, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1993, 321 pages, ISBN 978-0-8032-7262-0 pp. 35–36.
  5. Eugene L. Menefee and Fred A. Dodge, History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California, Historic, Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1913. CHAPTER II INDIAN WAR OF '56
  6. California and the Indian Wars; The Tule River War by William Gorenfield
  7. The war of the rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies, Series I, Volume L, Washington, Govt. Print. Off., 1902. pp 25-27
  8. David Rich Lewis, Neither wolf nor dog: American Indians, environment, and agrarian change, Oxford University Press US, 1994. pp.85–88
  9. The Mendocino War of 1859–1860, The California State Military Museum
  10. The war of the rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies, Series I, Volume L, Washington, Govt. Print. Off., 1902. pp 21-23
  11. The California Military Museum; California and the Indian Wars, The Owens Valley Indian War, 1861–1865.

Further reading
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