Read more @ the above link.
This is most interesting to me as, during the past five years, I have conducted a great deal of research into the history of California for my historical fiction series, Father Serra's Legacy. During the period of early 1769 to 1823 when Spain ruled California, no more than a dozen Indians died at the hands of Europeans and the majority of them came due to minor uprisings against the soldiers. In that same period, only 2 Franciscan friars died and the Indians consistently did everything they could to protect those friars they considered to be their fathers.
It was when Mexican gained its independence from Spain and turned California into a territory that problems with the Indians arose almost all of those from Indians not part of the missions. During this time, more and more Americans entered the territory due to the excellent weather and land able to be irrigated for farming and ranching. As the friars were removed from the missions and the Indians were forced to seek work for ranchers who treated them like slaves, more and more Americans sought land, often buying it from corrupt government officials not entitled to sell it. The Paiutes were never part of the mission system and, along with others from the east, often raided ranches for livestock.
In the above article, it states settlers and soldiers battled with the Indians. They were Americans, not Spanish or Mexican. Another example of Manifest Destiny in which the ignorant savages had no rights to the land where they had lived from beyond memory and their death was of no matter at all.
Many California textbooks claim the demise of the California Indians to be due to the Franciscan friars and their Spanish overlords totally false and another coverup of the truth of American Expansion. One of the few things of American history that truly saddens me.
