# data[].attributes.body
There were many different groups that were all drawn to California because of the gold rush: "free soilers" came down from the North and were against slavery, transplanted southerns who supported slavery, plus both enslaved and free black men.

# data[].attributes.body
Main Street in downtown LA was a flourishing slave Market thanks to the state law called the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians.

Act made it possible to enslave Native people who were charged with loitering or public drinking. Native workers were even paid with alcohol a practice that encouraged public intoxication. Local lawmen performed regular sweeps, arresting natives.

Auctions reflect widespread discrimination and violence of Native Peoples who couldn't be citizens, vote or testify in court.

Between 1850 and 1870 natives population in LA dropped from 3,600 to under 220.

# data[].attributes.body
State officials applauded massacres and even funded or rewarded killers.

California Senator John B. says, "...the interest of the white man demands their extinction"

Some federal officers attempted to reduce massacres by stationing natives on farms farther away from killers.

# data[].attributes.body
In contrast to the Free Soil Party, abolitionists opposed slavery on moral grounds, they supported black suffrage and constitutional rights.

# data[].attributes.body
Main purpose: oppose expansion of slavery into western territories, arguing free men on free soil constituted a morally and economically superior system to slavery.

There reasoning behind opposing slavery was not in favor of the well being of blacks but how slavery degrades hard working white laborers.

By representing slavery as an issue of self-interest to whites they were able to make anti-slavery, for the first time, a viable political movement in the North.

# data[].attributes.body
Indian children became valuable possessions and bands of men were kidnapping Indian children and selling them as slaves. They were used as farm hands, household servants, and even concubinage(forced sexual relations). These practices continued unchecked as "apprenticeship".

# data[].attributes.headline
Indentured servitude, and apprentice law

# data[].attributes.subject
Indentured servitude, and apprentice law

# data[].attributes.body
This law was "an Act for the Government and Protection of Indians", the main principle was Native people couldn't be forced to work against their will.

But, there were three different provisions for servitude:

-Native could be declared vagrant by courts if perceived he could not support himself or was found loitering. Vagrant natives could be forced to work for whoever would pay the most.

-If natives broke a law they were required to pay a fine, and if they couldn't pay that fine they might get bailed out by a white person, and then forced to work for that person until the fine was repaid.

-A white person could bring a native child before a court official and if the parents or "friends" agreed the court would make the white person responsible for care, control, and earnings until adulthood.

# data[].attributes.body
California's first governor signed the states first laws excluding black people.

Bennett tenure in office and his successors continued to exclude blacks; for example Issac Allen brought a bill alleging that associating whites with blacks would "foster ignorant pride of the free negro, so he becomes insolent and defiant." The bill died only when California legislators began worrying about Chinese laborers instead.

# data[].attributes.body
Peaked between 1846, when Americans conquered California from Mexico, and 1873 when they killed the last group of resisting natives in the state.

Before 1846 natives had massive losses due to disease and dispossession due to Spanish colonizers and Mexican successors.

The new Americans thought of native people as menaces and should be destroyed, sooner the better.

# data[].attributes.body
Lacking firearms and greatly outnumbered by 1852, the native's were prey to roaming bands of Indian-Killers who took part in the 80% reduction of natives.

Massacres tend to be retribution for a small crime natives commit like killing cattle to feed starving mouths. Vigilante gangs also profited by kidnapping women and children to sell, primary in San Francisco.

# data[].attributes.body
As many as 5,600 native people were massacresed by officially sanctioned militias and U.S. troops from the 1840s-1870s.

Thousands more were killed by bands of vigilantes during the same period.

Killers' travel and ammunition was supported by the State of California and the Federal Government.

"California's state legislators established a state-sponsored killing machine."

# data[].attributes.body
Peter Burnett was one of many politicians and citizens who believed free black's had no right to be in California and should be expelled.

Many other organizations and legislators during the 1850's, fought to ensure that black people would be prohibited from immigrating to California.

Eventually there efforts failed and reflected the fear and racism black folks experienced in the American West.

# data[].attributes.body
Spanish missionaries originally exploited the native peoples through slave labor, this was later continued by Euro-American immigrants.

Native people were viewed as a subclass and even used as currency.

"wild Indians" were captured in combat and given to the victors and their troops

Even though African American slavery was prohibited, native people were allowed to be used as slaves.

# data[].attributes.body
When a person is held to labor in any state or territory of the united states and they escape, it's mandatory for their return to the prior owner no matter what state they're in.

# data[].attributes.body
California's Democracy was split between pro slavery group and "free soil" advocates. There was even violence between two politicians, David Broderick who was anti slavery, and David Terry who was pro slavery. This duel ended in the death of Broderick and was a reflection of the nation's larger and more violent divisions that pushed America into a civil war.

# data[].attributes.body
African Americans who came to California enslaved or as a free person were susceptible to deportation. California's black codes prohibited them from testifying against whites, so they were easily kidnapped, and deported back to the south.

# data[].attributes.body
White Miners worried black Miners would steal there riches, and they made efforts to drive blacks out of town, or segregate them in the mines.