Northwestern California Genocide Project

The Northwestern California Genocide Project is a Digital Archive put together and presented by Humboldt State University students.This project is the first digital source to present to the public and future scholars a collection of items on genocidal atrocities and mass extermination events committed against Northwestern California native peoples perpetrated by white pioneers and settlers around the mid and late 19th century.

While this archive is representing just a fraction of the genocide committed against the native peoples of the Americas, it is critical to recognize and analyze these events that have taken place in Northern California during this time period, where an influx of white settlers was occurring into the state for gold and other resources to exploit and make profit. With them, they brought ideologies of divine right and title of the land, racial superiority, and extermination of native nations. Along with the ideologies of the settlers and the federal government, systematic legislation that was passed during this era limited interaction between whites and tribes, native peoples access to resources, forced relocation, legal buying and selling of native children, and more dehumanizing practices.

With the combination of racial superiority ideology and legislation passed by the federal government, this led to land and resource disputes between whites and native tribes. These altercations gave rise to hysteria, anxiety, and fear that native tribes would retaliate against the whites. In response to that fear, many militia and vigilante groups formed within Northwestern California counties. In some of the atrocities covered in these collections, these groups, along with volunteers, were the main perpetrators of the slaughtering of native men, women and children.

Featured Exhibit

Indian Island Massacre of 1860

In the early morning of February 26th, 1860, Wiyot tribal elders, women and children were sleeping on the island of Tuluwat,...

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FROM CALIFORNIA.; The Humboldt Butchery of Indian Infants and Women-Jacob Elyea Hanged Bogus Mining Stories A Solid Ledge of Gold at Jacksonville Items About Town, & c.

This is a newspaper article from the New York Times from San Francisco, Friday, March 16, 1860. It details the events of the Indian Island massacre…

Island of Tears

The Times Standard article detailing massacre of 1860 and picturing a group of cypress trees.

On the way to Orleans

Harsh terrain traveling to Orleans

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