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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."