California and Race

This complex ethnic character--and the complex ethnic politics that stems from it--is by no means peculiar to present-day California. California once had the densest Native American population--about 300,000 people--of any part of the present United States. The first "racial" confrontation was between Spanish missionaries and these Indians. The first Anglo-American settlers intermarried into an existing Hispanic society (the modern term "Latino" is misleading in this context), before annexation and the great influx of the Gold Rush era overwhelmed that society. A century ago, the great racial issue in California revolved around Asians, or as they were then called, "Orientals." Half a century ago, during the Second World War, race riots erupted in Los Angeles, the chief victims being Mexican-Americans. At the same time, the Japanese

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a's racial divisions. The tax originally designed to eliminate Mexican competition from the gold fields was equally effective at limiting Chinese competition. The first generation of Anglo-Californian history also saw the final precipitate decline of the California Indians. From a pre-settlement population of about 300,000, the Indian population had already been cut about in half by 1845. By 1870, only some thirty thousand were left, and by 1900, only sixteen thousand. Although the "Indian threat" was periodically promoted, and there were several massacres of Indians, there was never in fact any significant Indian resistance, and Indians never played the part in the mythos of California that they did in the Great Plains and the Southwest. The decline of the Indian population was largely due to disease, and perhaps, more subtly, to demoralization. From the first, California had been a "free" state, and there was thus no influx of black slaves brought by their owners. In one case, a Southern returning to the South after several years in California secured a court decision that he could force a black servant to return, but political pressure reversed this decision. The African-American presence in California remained small a
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2364
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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