Editing California gold rush (section)

===Native Americans===
{{Main|California genocide|Unfree labor in California}}
[[File:"Protecting The Settlers" Illustration by JR Browne for his work "The Indians Of California" 1864.jpg|thumb|upright|''Protecting the Settlers'', an illustration by J. R. Browne for his work ''The Indians of California'' (1864)]]

The human and environmental costs of the Gold Rush were substantial. Native Americans, dependent on traditional hunting, gathering and agriculture, became the victims of starvation and disease, as gravel, silt and toxic chemicals from prospecting operations killed fish and destroyed habitats.<ref name=RawlsHyd/><ref name=RawlsGrav/> The surge in the mining population also resulted in the disappearance of game and food gathering locales as gold camps and other settlements were built amidst them. Later farming spread to supply the settlers' camps, taking more land away from the Native Americans.<ref>{{cite web |title=Focus On the West |url=https://www.apstudynotes.org/us-history/topics/focus-on-the-west/ |work=apstudynotes.org }}</ref>

In some areas, systematic attacks against tribespeople in or near mining districts occurred. [[American Indian Wars#California|Various conflicts]] were fought between natives and settlers.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nahc.ca.gov/califindian.html |title=California Indian History |year=1998 |first=Edward D. |last=Castillo |access-date=February 26, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100312042429/http://www.nahc.ca.gov/califindian.html |archive-date=March 12, 2010 }}</ref> Miners often saw Native Americans as impediments to their mining activities.<ref>{{cite web |title=Native History: California Gold Rush Begins, Devastates Native Population |url=http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/01/24/native-history-california-gold-rush-begins-devastates-native-population-153230 |website=Indian Country Today Media Network.com |date=January 24, 2014 |access-date=April 7, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150418110452/http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/01/24/native-history-california-gold-rush-begins-devastates-native-population-153230 |archive-date=April 18, 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Ed Allen, interpretive lead for Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, reported that there were times when miners would kill up to 50 or more Natives in one day.<ref name="indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com">{{cite web |url=http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/01/24/native-history-california-gold-rush-begins-devastates-native-population-153230 |title=Native History: California Gold Rush Begins, Devastates Native Population |work=Indian Country Today Media Network.com |access-date=April 7, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150418110452/http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/01/24/native-history-california-gold-rush-begins-devastates-native-population-153230 |archive-date=April 18, 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Retribution attacks on solitary miners could result in larger scale attacks against Native populations, at times tribes or villages not involved in the original act.<ref name="bim">While the [[Bloody Island Massacre]] occurred during this time period, it did not occur in the Gold Rush era mining districts.</ref> During the 1852 [[Bridge Gulch Massacre]], a group of settlers attacked a band of [[Wintu]] Indians in response to the killing of a citizen named J. R. Anderson. After his killing, the sheriff led a group of men to track down the Indians, whom the men then attacked, killing more than 150 Wintu people. Only three children survived the massacre that was against a different band of Wintu than the one that had killed Anderson.<ref>{{cite web |title=Trinity County California |url=http://visittrinity.com/explore-history/natural-bridge/ |website=visittrinity.com |date=August 10, 2013 |access-date=April 7, 2015 |archive-date=October 16, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016100128/http://visittrinity.com/explore-history/natural-bridge/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Historian Benjamin Madley recorded the numbers of killings of California Indians between 1846 and 1873 and estimated that during this period at least 9,400 to 16,000 California Indians were killed by non-Indians, mostly occurring in more than 370 massacres (defined as the "intentional killing of five or more disarmed combatants or largely unarmed noncombatants, including women, children, and prisoners, whether in the context of a battle or otherwise").{{sfnb|Madley|2016|pp=11, 351}} According to demographer [[Russell Thornton]], between 1849 and 1890, the Indigenous population of California fell below 20,000 – primarily because of the killings.{{sfnb|Thornton|1987|pp = [https://archive.org/details/americanindianho00thor_0/page/107 107–109]}} According to the government of California, some 4,500 Native Americans suffered violent deaths between 1849 and 1870.<ref name="casecretaryofstate">{{cite web |url=http://www2.learncalifornia.org/doc.asp?id=1933 |title=Minorities During the Gold Rush |publisher=[[California Secretary of State]] |access-date=March 23, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201074206/http://www2.learncalifornia.org/doc.asp?id=1933 |archive-date=February 1, 2014 }}</ref> Furthermore, California stood in opposition of ratifying the eighteen treaties signed between tribal leaders and federal agents in 1851.{{sfnb|Norton|1979|pp=[https://archive.org/details/genocideinnorthw00nort/page/70 70–73]}} The state government, in support of miner activities, funded and supported [[death squads]], appropriating over 1&nbsp;million dollars towards the funding and operation of the paramilitary organizations.<ref>{{cite web |last=Smith |first=Chuck |work=Cabrillo College |url=http://www.cabrillo.edu/~crsmith/anth6_americanperiod.html |title=Indians of California – American Period (Anthropology Class 6) |date=1999 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181101135439/http://www.cabrillo.edu/~crsmith/anth6_americanperiod.html |archive-date=November 1, 2018 |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[Peter Burnett]], California's first governor declared that California was a battleground between the races and that there were only two options towards California Indians, extermination or removal. "That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected. While we cannot anticipate the result with but painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power and wisdom of man to avert." For Burnett, like many of his contemporaries, the genocide was part of God's plan, and it was necessary for Burnett's constituency to move forward in California.{{sfnb|Lindsay|2012|p=[https://archive.org/details/murderstatecalif0000lind/page/231 231]}} The [[Act for the Government and Protection of Indians]], passed on April 22, 1850, by the [[California Legislature]], allowed settlers to capture and use Native people as bonded workers, prohibited Native peoples' testimony against settlers, and allowed the adoption of Native children by settlers, often for labor purposes.{{sfnb|Lindsay|2012|p=[https://archive.org/details/murderstatecalif0000lind/page/148 148]}}

After the initial boom had ended, explicitly anti-foreign and racist attacks, laws and confiscatory taxes sought to drive out foreigners—in addition to Native Americans—from the mines, especially the Chinese and Latin American immigrants mostly from [[Sonora, Mexico]], and Chile.<ref name="Out of"/><ref name=StarrRace>{{harvb|Starr|Orsi|2000|pp=56–79}}</ref> The toll on the American immigrants was severe as well: one in twelve forty-niners perished, as the death and crime rates during the Gold Rush were extraordinarily high, and the resulting [[vigilantism]] also took its toll.<ref name=StarrDeath>{{harvb|Starr|2005|pp=[https://archive.org/details/californiahistor00star_0/page/84 84–87]}}</ref><ref>Cossley-Batt, Jill (1928), [http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/california_rangers/california_banditti.html ch. 16: "California Banditti"] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110513161925/http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/california_rangers/california_banditti.html |date=May 13, 2011 }}. [[Joaquin Murrieta]] was a famous Mexican [[outlaw|bandit]] during the Gold Rush of the 1850s.</ref>