Judgment at Alcatraz

chapter in American history, this time in California. In the twenty years following California’s admission into the Union, 80 percent of the state’s indigenous population was wiped out in what has been called California’s little-known genocide.3 During the first session of the state legislature, laws were passed, allowing whites to enslave indigenous children. Backed by the power of the legislature, Peter Hardeman Burnett, first governor of California, began to arm militias and citizens alike, and pay a bounty for scalps. It was the beginning of more than two decades of terror, the goal of which was the extermination of California’s native inhabitants.

The latter half of the nineteenth century was marked by numerous massacres of Native Americans, usually women, children, and elderly. The last major defeat of Native Americans in armed conflict occurred in 1890, at the Battle of Wounded Knee. Far from a battle, it was another massacre of unarmed women, children, and elders.

The American Indian Movement (AIM) is factually accurate as portrayed in this story, as is the history of the Modoc War, which straddled President Grant’s first and second terms. I find it remarkable that so little is heard of the AIM these days.

Two of our bank notes carry the portraits of Grant and Jackson, both notorious for deceitful and treacherous treatment of American Indians. And then there is Mount Rushmore. Construction began in 1927, on sacred land illegally taken from the Lakota Sioux. Carved into the granite are the sculptures of four white presidents of the United States, a government with a notorious history of breaking treaties with the native tribes, forcibly evicting them onto reservations. Such a monument could not be more insulting and hurtful to all Native Americans.

We would do well as a nation to reflect on our treatment of the American Indian Nations, and seek to right our historical wrongs.

—DE

1 Guenter, Lewy, “Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide?”, History News Network, September 2004, https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/7302.

2 Robert McNamara, “Indian Removal and the Trail of Tears”, Thought Company, December 12, 2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/the-trail-of-tears-1773597.

3 Erin Blakemore, “California’s Little-Known Genocide,” History Stories, first published November 16, 2017, updated July 1, 2019, https://www.history.com/news/californias-little-known-genocide.

About the Author

Dave Edlund is the USA Today bestselling author of the award-winning Peter Savage novels, and a graduate of the University of Oregon, with a doctoral degree in chemistry. He resides in Bend, Oregon, with his wife, son, and three dogs—Lucy Liu, Dude, and Tenshi.

Raised in the California Central Valley, Dave completed his undergraduate studies at California State University, Sacramento. In addition to authoring several technical articles and books on alternative energy, he is an inventor on 114 US patents.

An avid outdoorsman and shooter, Edlund has hunted North America for big game, ranging from wild boar to moose to bear. He has traveled extensively throughout China, Japan, Europe, and North America.

www.PeterSavageNovels.com

The Peter Savage Series

by Dave Edlund

Peter Savage Boxed Set

Guarding Savage

Lethal Savage

Valiant Savage

Nicole Graves Mysteries

by Nancy Boyarsky

Nicole Graves Mysteries Boxed Set

The Ransom

The Entitled