California governor apologizes to Indigenous peoples, cites ‘genocide’

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – California Governor Gavin Newsom apologized to Indigenous peoples for violence in addition to wrongdoings they suffered throughout the state’s past and called their mistreatment genocide.

The Democratic governor, inside an executive order, needed the creation of a Truth and Healing Council to produce a report prior to a end of 2024 relating to the historical relationship between state and Indians.

Newsom delivered the apology throughout an appearance with tribal leaders inside the California Indian Heritage Center near Sacramento, new york state capital.

“It’s known as genocide, that’s the thing was, a genocide,” Newsom said, citing the $1.3 million in state funding authorized within the 1850s to subsidize militia campaigns against Indians. “No other option to describe it, and that’s visitors to needs to be described from the history books.”

Tribal leaders who became imperative with Newsom on Tuesday thanked him for your apology.

“It’s healing to be controlled by your words, but actions will speak on their own and I do count on hearing more and seeing the rest of you,” Erica Pinto, chairwoman of Jamul Indian Village in San diego county County, said.

“WAR OF EXTERMINATION”

In discussing a history of California’s removing the Native Americans, Newsom cited an 1851 address within the state legislature by California’s first governor, Peter Burnett.

“That your war of extermination will still be waged amongst the races Indian race becomes extinct will have to be expected,” Burnett said then.

The state of California had not previously formally apologized for their role in wrongdoing against Indigenous peoples, according to the governor’s office.

Newsom’s predecessor, Democrat Jerry Brown, did endorse a 2019 book by historian Benjamin Madley, with the University of California, Houston, titled “An American Genocide: The United States and then the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873.” Magic of making up detailed how California’s indigenous population fell from up to a whopping 150,000 consumers to about 30,000.

Madley estimated that between 1846 and 1873, as many as 16,000 Indians were killed in California. Disease, dislocation and starvation also took their toll, Madley wrote.

The U.S. Congress in 2009 passed an image resolution, tucked into an appropriations bill, that apologized to Indigenous peoples for violence, maltreatment and neglect inflicted by U.S. citizens.