Read More About the Sacramento River Massacre

Between 1846 and 1873, California’s Indian population plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000. Benjamin Madley is the first historian to uncover the full extent of the slaughter, the involvement of state and federal officials, the taxpayer dollars that supported the violence, indigenous resistance, who did the killing, and why the killings ended. It has one of the most comprehensive re-tellings of the Sacramento River Massacre

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.

This volume is part of the Smithsonian Institution’s Handbook of North American Indians series, the ultimate resource for Native American history across various regions of North America. Volume 8 summarizes what is known of the aboriginal culture forms and practices of about 60 California tribes, including the Wintu.

In Oh What a Slaughter, Larry McMurtry has written a unique, brilliant, and searing history of the bloody massacres that marked—and marred—the settling of the American West in the nineteenth century, and which still provoke immense controversy today.

Well known local Shasta historian Dottie Smith authored this work in the mid 1990's

The authors are anthropologists Robert F. Heizer and Alan J. Almquist. The savage story is told largely by documentation from newspaper articles and editorials, war Department reports. records of legislative debates, personal correspondence and transcripts of legal proceedings