 Hello and welcome. Thank you for joining us for our Mechanics Institute online program. California's hidden history of Indian slavery, a panel discussion with Attorney John Briscoe, trial judge, Abby Abinanti, and Professor George Bisharat, who will moderate our discussion today. I'm Laura Shepherd, director of events at the Mechanics Institute. We are proud to co-sponsor this event with the California Institute for Community, Art and Nature, and also with the San Francisco Historical Society. This program and programming for civil rights, artistic diversity, historical reckoning, exploring the film literature and lives of marginalized communities has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Mechanics Institute was founded in 1854 and is one of the San Francisco's most vital literary and cultural centers in the heart of the city. We feature a general interest library, an international chess club ongoing author and literary events, and our cinema lit film series. So please visit our website and join us for our programs either online or in person at 57 post street in San Francisco. Again, I'd like to invite Claire Greensfelder to talk about the programs and wonderful events that are happening at the California Institute for Community, Art and Nature so please welcome Claire first. Thank you so much. And thank you for inviting us to co-sponsor this truly important program that all of our listeners and members are very excited either to hear live tonight or to catch later on the recording. The Institute for Community Art and Nature was founded by Malcolm Margolan, he's on this call, I am sure, about six years ago, to create after he finished many years, 40 years and eight day books. The purpose of the Institute is to create programming. The primary which is to support president preservation of California Indian sovereignty, culture and arts. We have a number of programs, we produce an annual California Indian Arts and Culture Festival. We have a program that is funded by the National Delta Humanities to support the preservation of the archives of California Indian artists. We began the program about together with the Nature Conservancy and Cal Humanities on helping to create maps and important community events around California, re-indigenizing California sites to get with that we're working with a number of tribes around the state to bring areas of importance that they wish to share with the community highlighted in community events and publications. We have two other programs we work on supporting the unique social, political and cultural contribution of the city of Berkeley, where we are based, and with that we produce the annual Berkeley bird festival together with the Delta Gate Audubon Society, coming up in October. The California Arts and Culture Festival just happened, and we'll come again next June, which is curated by Jennifer Bates, our dear friend in California Indian New York, that's what we work on. We have a program in combining art and environment, the intersection, how that works in our culture and communities, and how that can enrich our lives generally. But we're particularly honored to be sponsoring this event today at the Planet Institute, about this incredibly important topic, and to welcome both our dear, longtime friend John Bristow and to meet the family of Anati and George Bisharat and hear very important the stories that they're going to share with us today. So thank you everyone from California ICANN who joined, and we look forward to bringing more programs together with the Mechanics Institute in the future. Thanks. Thank you, Claire. And so today, you know, we're very proud to bring together experts and historians in the field to really discuss California's history to bring these issues to light, to illuminate our past, the good, the bad, the ugly, and its impact on the community past, present, and future. So I'd like to introduce our guests. Abby Abinanti is a UROC chief judge, is an enrolled UROC tribal member, and she holds a doctor of jurisprudence from the University of New Mexico School of Law, and was the first American tribal woman to be admitted to the State Bar of California. She was a state judicial officer, commissioner for the San Francisco Superior Court for over 17 years and assigned to the Unified Family Court. She retired from the Superior Court in September 2011, and on July 31, 2014 was reappointed as a part-time commissioner for San Francisco assigned on to dependency and duty judge for that court where she served until 2015. She was a UROC tribal court judge since 1997, and was appointed chief tribal court judge in 2007, a position she has held in conjunction with her Superior Court assignment until 2015. We're very pleased to welcome her to our program. Professor George E. Bisharat is the Honorable Raymond L. Sullivan Professor of Law at UC Hastings College of Law. He is a trial lawyer for the Office of the Public Defender in San Francisco before joining the Hastings faculty in 1991. Professor Bisharat studied law, anthropology, and Middle Eastern studies at Harvard and wrote a book on with about Palestinian lawyers working under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank. He writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East, both for academic audiences and for major media sources in the US and abroad. He is a singer, a songwriter and blues harmonica player specializing in the chromatic harmonica. And as Big Harp George has recorded five albums that earned award nominations and critical acclaim. So welcome Professor Bisharat and thank you for moderating. I hope that you'll bring out the harmonica one of these days for us. And also our dear friend, longtime life member at Mechanics Institute, poet, writer, historian, attorney, John Briscoe. John has tried and argued cases of Aboriginal land laws, the law of war and the law of the sea and international courts, the US Supreme Court and other tribunals for over 50 years with his office and with his from his offices in San Francisco. He is a distinguished fellow at the University of California Berkeley School of Law, and has received recognition for his poetry and history, and is the co owner of the famous Sam's Grill in San Francisco, the fifth oldest restaurant in the country. So please welcome our distinguished guests, and please turn over the floor to Professor Bisharat. Well thank you so much and good evening everybody it's really a treat to be here with my two friends John Briscoe and Justice Abinanti, and under the auspices of these three esteemed organizations really appreciate the attendance of all of you, and all of the neighbors that went into organizing the event. So, as the moderator, I'm looking forward to us, you know, a fairly open, free flowing discussion with our two experts. While I may address particular questions to one of them the other of course is always invited to chime in. But I would also like the audience to know in particular that we have agreed on five themes or questions that we will address more or less sequentially. And of course, at the end of that you audience members will also have an opportunity to pose questions. Let me just give you kind of a brief roadmap of the ground that that we plan to cover. So we're going to first ask some questions about what was native California like pre contact. How did native Americans impacted then by Spanish and Mexican colonialism. How did things shift with statehood. What were the legal structures that enabled forced labor of native peoples here in California. And then what was the impact of the gold rush on the enslavement of native Californians. Finally, we want to make sure that we talk about the lasting effects of native enslavement and land dispossession today, both on native communities and also on California's economy in society, more generally. So, if I may, I'm going to begin with Justice Abinanti. And if I can ask you, would you do what you can to paint a picture for the audience of what native California was like in the in the period, immediately prior to European contact and of course, we can talk about what contact really actually meant in in concrete terms. I think it's important to understand you know that we had lived here for thousands of years, and we had a way of life and a way of approaching the place and each other. That was materially disturbed by the invasion by people who had did not share the same value system that we had. Specifically, we are people who for primarily have a value system of interrelatedness. So we have systems that are responsibility based and the responsibilities are interlocking. They're interlocking with each other with the beings who we coexist with, and with the place we coexist with. So we think we're all one big family, and the people who came here had a very different idea and value system. And their practices when you have different value systems than the practices that evolve from those value systems are materially different. So their approach to place and to us was much different than our approach to them and place. And that that became the discord, you know, and part of what we're trying to do now, you know, a couple hundred years later is look back on that and say, Okay, for thousands of years we were in this place, and we managed it very well. And then these people came a couple hundred years ago, and basically have really made a mess. And we need to come out and help them understand how to live in this place with each other and with us, because our value system will make us all survive. Their value system frankly is pushing us all to the brink. And that's, I guess the primary difference, you know, and how we've related and I also want to say that I think that many of the people who came here had very similar value systems. You know where they came from, but as they came in and joined the melting pot, they lost their value systems. And they assumed a value system, which was based on, I see it I take it. It's mine. And that really is goddess into a really bad spot here. Sort of the brief answer. So I take it that that what you were part of what you're saying, particularly at the end there is that there was a different mentality, a kind of a frontier mentality that was neither native, nor was it really reflective of the places of origin from which people came. No, I think that, you know, part of for them they need to go back in their value system memory to that, because they were encouraged to take take take use use use. It's mine mine mine if I see it. And that's, that's not okay. You know, and it's not, it's not going to work. And it hasn't worked and we're, we're really creating a lot of damage now. And so we have to come back out and go, look, let's try this again. We have to share our ways. They have to look at us. We have to look at them and go, you know, there's a better way of doing this. And interlocking responsibilities is better than I have the right to do whatever I make up is my right. And, may I chime in a bit on Abby's very eloquent comments. Please. This is the word George contact and I think it helps. It may help our listeners is certainly helped me to realize we really have three points of contact contact means by Europeans by others. What the Irish called the strangers, those people from England who came and colonized them 1542 was what the history books, you know the ones that back when history was taught in the school. 1542 was normally spoken of as contact when Cabrillo flying under the flag of the king of Spain landed in San Diego and claimed it all for claimed all of what we call California was then called Alter California for Spain so 1542, but Spain did nothing to colonize California until 1769. When they thought the Russians were coming the Russians weren't coming they came later but that's when the mission system. And there's a great movie about what did not happen in 1769 the Russians are coming the Russians are coming. But that's the beginning of the mission system 21 missions built from San Diego. And that's what we call San Diego, all the way up to San Francisco, which is not San Francisco. It's Yalamu was Yalamu for thousands of years, or before anybody had the audacity to paste a new name on it. And to Sonoma. There was a revolution in Mexico in 1821. The Mexicans overthrew the spandex. So now California is nominally under the hegemony of Mexico. But not a whole heck of a lot changed until 1834, when the Mexican government sees virtually all of the lands of the missions from the Catholic Church. And began granting those lands in the private ownership 600 massive land grants are very few Spanish they're mostly all Mexican. So you have 1542 contact you have 1769 contact. And then you have 1848. When the President of the United States. So by now. The United States of America has stolen fair and square to quote this I high a cow. California Utah, Nevada, Arizona, first of all of Arizona, New Mexico and large chunks of Colorado and Wyoming from Mexico and a pardon the expression trumped up war. Then that formal treaty was signed nine days after gold was discovered in California. The October of 1848 present poll probably speaking from the ellipse said to the world in his state of the state address that rumor of discovery of gold in California is actually true so all you find upstanding people go to California and take it. There were no laws in California. There were no laws governing the public lands the public water. So that was contact that was big contact so thinking in terms of three contacts I think is helpful. Thanks john. So, let, let me ask you or or Justice Avenancie either of you. How were native Californians impacted by Spanish and Mexican colonialism and since we're talking specifically about the history of enslavement of native Californians. What were the mechanisms for appropriating forced labor in California before statehood. Do you want to start with that. I think you know the missions were the first place that they needed to conscript the workforce. And they created famine and they created. Here's your only source of eating and you can come here. And basically, they were a workforce. And that was a lot of how it happened, and people were enslaved in those areas. And having been attacked and having then trying to survive. That's what happened they went to, to the missions and, and were basically forced labor. I think that's the first step and each, each of these junctures, they were needed to do the work that other people didn't want to do, where there weren't enough people to do or it's better if you have them do it because we don't have to pay them. We don't have work, you know, and that's, and that's was the model used in California. With a workforce. Right. Let me just also ask, was there regional variation within what we now, you know, today call the state of California. I mean the missions were only confined in certain geographic areas. I mean, if, you know, how, how was that impact differential across the state or throughout the state or was it. Well, I think you can look at the missions and their placement and, and kind of figure that out because as john mentioned, they didn't come north of Sonoma. You know, as missions and john knows more about them. Yeah, yeah, that's right the 21 missions extend from San Diego in the south to Sonoma in the north. And there wasn't much. There wasn't much colonization colonization. Other than the missions until Mexico. That quote secularized the missions. That's a fancy legal term for having confiscated the lands that belong, so called to the Catholic Church to the Franciscan priests. They confiscated those and then created these land grants but the land grants were mainly in the same area along the coast. On the coast, the northern most land grant is just south of Fort Ross, which is where the Russians did come, ultimately. And there are a lot of land grants in the Central Valley, particularly the Sacramento but not in the Sierras is one in Mariposa, but think of the Sierras as still being occupied by the indigenous people. And not many settlers until the gold rush. And the gold rush is really impossible for us to comprehend. I understand great Brecken is in the audience colleague of his at Berkeley Jim holiday spent the better part of his career, trying to get his arms around what the gold rush was like I mean it was the president of the United States saying the gold in this country that we've just stolen from Mexico which stole it from the Spanish, which stole it from the native people who have been here for 1000 years. Go get it. Go get it. The only thing he didn't say was I'm marching with you. I mean he left office. But and they came. And holiday came up with a title for his masterwork, the world rushed in the population of San Francisco before the gold rush. A census was taken in 1847. The population was fewer than 500 people. By the end of 1849. The population of San Francisco alone was something on the order of 35 or 40 or 45 or maybe even 50,000 people. Nobody knows. That's how fast they came in. So, again, turning to the specific issue of enslavement. So there had been enslavement of native Californians under the Spanish and Mexican colonialism. And this shift with statehood, what were in particular what were the legal structures or the legal architecture that enabled continued Indian enslavement during California's early years, despite the fact that we entered the, the union, nominally as a free state, not as a slave owning state. Would you like me to take that one Abby or do you want to start. You've got the. I can never remember the, the right name of the legislation I just caught, which is probably not appropriate for this venue so it's commonly known as the Indian slavery act I've got the, I've got the formal name in front of me. In fact, I have the book, the Journal of the Assembly and, or what it was called the house. The complete history of that statute is in that book. California so the gold rush happens in 1849. Gold was discovered in 1848 but the gold rush didn't happen until President Polk said, free gold, go take it, knowing there's no law. There is no civil law. And there are no civil legal systems under the Constitution. Only Congress can provide for this is article for you want people who want to look it up. Article four section three clause two of the Constitution only Congress can make quote all lawful rules and regulations for the territories of the United States Congress never did that. Until it admitted California as a state on September 19, 1850. So what happens at the end of 1849 roughly at almost exactly a year after President Polk made his statement free gold go get it. A bunch of white men met in Monterey. These include the general they a who considered himself white. He was ethnically Spanish. And they drafted a constitution for the state of California. They wanted Congress to admit California as a state, because that brought a lot of nice things. They drafted a constitution and it had a provision that for bad slavery. Now if you think about it, these people have no authority whatsoever to do anything. Congress could confer that authority. So they enact the Constitution, wholly without any legal authority. The Constitution provides no slavery. It provides for a governor of legislature and a judicial branch. It passes overwhelmingly at an election, which of course is illegal, because Congress did not provide for that election, and only Congress could. And in March of 1850, the same white men meet again in Monterey as the legislature. They're not all the same. It's a little bit of difference. A fellow named Peter Hardiman Burnett. What was named the first governor of California, a man named Seronis Hastings, who later founded Hastings College of the law was named Chief Justice of the newly created California Supreme Court. And the legislature started passing bills. They think about all this stuff is totally illegal. Congress has not yet taken up the bill to admit California as a state, but California is doing all this stuff anyway. The Seronis Hastings is California Supreme Court convened in March of 1850. We're not even a state yet that won't happen until September 9. Convene a September 9 1850 and decided its first case, people versus Smith. A bunch of white thugs had attacked an Indian village, killed a bunch of people and burned their grain stores and their homes and whatnot. They were arrested and were being held for trial. The case that reached the California Supreme Court was a petition to just let him go before trial. This is the first case ever decided by the California Supreme Court and Seronis Hastings his court. Let them all go the following month. The legislature starts passing laws. Here's the book. Right here. It's quite thick. They were very busy. The 133rd law that the state legislature passed was for the eight hearings. It underwent called a bill for the protection punishment and government of Indians. It passed, but was given the name act for the government and protection of Indians. I invite anybody to look it up. Chapter 133 statutes of California 1850 past April 22 1850. Look at section 20. It provides for the enslavement of an Indian or Indians on the petition of any white man to any judge in the state. Indian of course can't go to court. Can't oppose this. Then, Governor Burnett gives his first state of the state address on get this, get this address, get this date, January 6 1851. 170 years before January 6 2021. The state of his speech were these words. This is the first state of the state address by the first governor, a war of extermination against the Indian peoples will be waged until they are extinct. So that was the policy of California a little bit antithetical to the policy of enslaving them right. They're not much used to you if they're dead. The first state of California got started then in September 9 1850 Congress, having been told by the officials in California that California was a free state look at our 1849 Constitution. They have a big debate. And John C Calhoun was opposed to admitting California, because he said all the stuff that they did was illegal. They have no authority to adopt a constitution. Daniel Webster carried that day. And the state was admitted if John C Calhoun had actually known that California was already a slave territory. How much more powerful his argument might have been. Too long. I'm, I'm curious about a couple of things. So you, you mentioned that the, the word punishment was omitted from the final version of this draft law. And I'm curious whether you think that whether you and or you justice of an auntie, what you think that signifies if anything, maybe, maybe it doesn't mean anything, but I wonder if it doesn't indicate a certain awareness about what the law, what the actual intention of the law was, and a desire not to have that. That was obvious to people. And I asked this question in particular, because it strikes me that law has been the handmaiden of settler colonialism in a variety of different circumstances in a variety of different places around the world. And that it's, you know, function is to, in a way, sanitize or whitewash the dispossession of native and indigenous peoples. Now, don't, you know, don't, don't permit me to impose my cynicism on you if you don't agree. But, but I am curious, really, from both of you, how you see the role of law generally unfolding in, in, in this kind of circumstance. Abby, why don't you, you are very first on this particular topic. You know, it's, it's difficult because the law is being used to obscure what is being done. And it's still happening today. It's still happening with the Supreme Court, you know, as they rule on Indian law issues. And if they make up things out of, from what my position would be sort of whole cloth, you know, it isn't precedent if you say, blah, blah, blah, and then I come back a day later and say blah, blah, blah. Oh, that makes a precedent. No, I made up the first blah, blah, blah, you know, and that's, that's what is happening. And were they, did they know what they were doing. Yes, I think they did. You know, they, they weren't idiots. They knew the whole issue about slavery. They knew what might happen to them if they were found out. And it was in a time and place where you could do this and it'd be months or years before anybody noticed, because it wouldn't make it back to DC it would make it to Congress. That's basically it. You know, and they, we did not have the ability or know how to communicate with them and to say this is what's really going on. Now, and here's what they were doing is finding anybody they could find and if they didn't find them on the streets and they went to the villages and stole them and got, you know, the courts to certify that they needed to be indentured for whatever so it was pretty clear that's what was going on, but they also wanted to protect themselves and they're what they were grasping for and getting, you know, and from somebody like Calhoun who might say no wait, this isn't, you know, this isn't right this isn't okay. This is really slavery this is really indentured servitude this is really whatever, and they didn't want the truth out there, and so they used their words to, to make over it. And I think that's pretty clear, you know, and one of the projects I would like to eventually do I actually was talking with one of my clerks on the way out of the building today. I would like to look at all those records of when they did some of those hearings, you know when the courts did him and see what they said, and see, you know, how many of us were taken in that, what our family members were, you know, and try to track that back because of the records of it. Right. Top of it all they you know they made made this part of their history that they indentured these people, and we know how they felt. You know, when they would escape and come home we know what their stories were when they came home. I think I think it's worth the audience understanding the kind of the mechanics of this law, how it actually worked, because I think justice of an auntie as you've mentioned it ties into this question of records and history, and my mind, when I hear these things goes to the question of reparations and and and and current, you know, actions actions that we can take currently to to, you know, to uncover identify, and then do something about. I think I think the truth is really important and we're, we have our method of the truth is storytelling. So when you obscure the story, then we don't have the truth. And that is robbing from us that. And, you know, that's why we were talking about boy would really like to do this project so we could find this out, because we want our ancestors to know that we cared that we went back and we looked, and that, because we believe we still have a relationship with them, you know, and that this is in their honor to do that. You know you don't let people be treated like that, and then have them disappear from your conscious memory. That's not okay in our world. You know, and so that that's the difference you have to look at it. And so part of it is seeking the truth, having the historians pulling those records looking at that. See if we can tell which families. We won't be able to track them all but we'll have some of them, you know, and be able to say this is what happened, and also to be able to say, you know, as we come forward and we look at behaviors. And where did we get some of these bad behaviors that we never had before the invasion and the invaders. Some of it may have come from if you're raised as a slave, you don't really get much parenting, or much work on how you live in community the way we do, you know, and that's not an excuse you still have to face up to it, that it happened, but it is an explanation, and it does change how you move forward. It makes you go, I need to look back and I need to look at that, because I was talking to a group of social workers one day and they were talking about poor parenting skills. And I said, Well, did you ask any of them how many of their grandparents had been indentured slaves and they said, Well, no. And I said, Well, maybe you should, because then you'd figure out how many of them had these lack of parenting skills passed down. And not to mention, we're all Europe women in here. So you tell me exactly how somebody's going to come into your house and take your children, which they preferred because they were younger, and they could keep them under control. How is that going to happen. There's only one way, they said, Yes, and I say exactly. So some of those kids got to watch their mothers get killed. And that is not something that helps you move forward. You know, the whole question of what we do to fix that is different than the whole question of what we do to articulate it. You know, at first for us, I mean, you know, this is somebody who's a paralegal who's young and who's studying and that we were having this conversation, not in relationship to this at all, saying boy I've always wanted to look at those. I've always wanted to find those records. You know, and I said, Well, you know, we raise the money will try to raise the money to do that, because we need to do it, just to honor, because we never had a time when we didn't have our stories. This is a gap. I'm reading some of the questions in the in the chat, and, and people will have an opportunity to ask their questions directly fairly soon. But one of the questions is asking me that I ask you justice Abinanti. How did Native Americans, Native Californians resist these processes. What did they, you know, what, what did they do to fight against these laws by whatever means. You can see it today in terms of like, we're the largest surviving tribe in the state. And how did we manage that we had geography on our favor, and we ran and we hid. You know, using that to our advantage. It's not to our advantage now because we need to come back out and help each other and the people who came here. But did we resist. Yes, did we fight back. Yes, were we horrifically outnumbered. Yes. You know, and so you do it on a daily basis you do what you can to survive you. You know, you have to feed people you have to move your villages you have to do these things. You know when they didn't want the dances and the ceremonies to happen. Did we bury over the sites. Yes. When we took the action, then we could say okay then this family this dance family still has its regalia. This dance family knows where their dance area is. And we're going to get it back. And we're going to get it back because we didn't forget those stories because we had control of that part of the story. We knew where the sites were. You know, and those kinds of things. So that's, that's the difference when we had, when we took the action. And this dance family knows where their dance area is, and we're going to bring it back alive again, because to us, these are all living things. You know, and that's a big difference. And so that's how we survived and we knew that we still had that, you know, and now the languages is coming back, you know, one of the biggest sadnesses of my life is that I don't have my language. And, but many of the younger people do and before the epidemic I hired a seventh grader and she was my tutor and she would come in. But I couldn't keep her because I didn't want her to be out and about, you know, so that those things are really important and the stories are coming back. You know, and now the language the universities are accepting our languages as part of meeting their language requirements. And more of our young people are speaking. And that's important because most native languages are not noun based, which is what English is very living words that describe you know their adjectives. And that is a very different thing. You know, one of the projects that we want to do and I was talking to our language, the head of our language program and I said look, I read about this tribe in the Midwest. And what they're doing is they're translating all their words related to the justice system into English, so that we can then develop practices from those words, because they were so different from what these other people do. You know, and our system is way different the way we operate it up here. But if we had those words that would help guide us and help us form practices that were consistent with that. And when you have words that describe a whole series of actions that's way different. Right. John, can I ask you to elaborate a little bit on on the actual function of the law, and maybe also if you know, you know, we're native Californians able to testify on their own behalf. So they're, you know, at what point did we begin to have native American lawyers who might have represented native interests in a different way. And, and, and, you know, just, and if you can tell us a little bit more about the records that have been left behind that might be a source of further research. When John begins, I just want to say, George, that was kind of undermining to say how old I was, that was not fine, but I did catch it. If I'm the first, I'm really not as old as I seem. Tricky. Go ahead, John, sorry. I couldn't help myself. I am far away the oldest person on this panel. First, a couple of points for context. One is, how big did the slavery business get. Now anybody who knows downtown Los Angeles think of that massive federal courthouse on an entire city block. For years, that was the biggest slave market in California, big open air slave market, an entire city block. There were many, many others in the state. But it was the Walmart of slave markets, Indian slave markets in California. The Indian Slavery Act, or the act for the protection and government of Indians. State on the books, this is the act that authorized the enslavement of Indians stayed on the books for 87 years. It was not repealed until 1937. And the repealer is one of these anodyne statements that only the law can make. Instead of saying the horrific act of April 22 1850 providing for the enslavement of Indians is repealed. It simply reads chapter 133 of the start of 1850 is here by repeal. All right. Nobody picked it up in the press. Everybody attending this, this lecture this panel discussion, who learned about this in school, learned about Peter Burnett declaring a war of extermination against the Indian people in the first state of the state address that I don't think California history has taught anymore but I know when I look at these things were taught. But to your point George as near as I can figure out. I'm reading the text of section 20 of the back of April 22 1850 it's section 20 that provides for the enslaved. It worked like this. You're a white man. Okay, that's the only person who could go to court, a white man. You went to court. And you filed a petition to have some so you know that young buck, or this is if you did it legally. I mean there was a lot of just kidnapping of Indians, especially Indian children, but if you did it legally. You filed a petition and you took it to a justice of the peace or a judge. And it was signed over. I mean there's no opposition. Can't be. So here's a judicial order authorized by the state of California providing for the enslavement of one or more people. I haven't done any original research in the county clerks records, but what do we have 57 counties in California. Is that the right number. I always have to look it up. 58. Thank you. I always forget San Francisco. You go to the county clerks records and you start just going through every filing, and you're looking for probably the shortest file. You know, for that day or week or whatever, one page, maybe two, I don't know how this. The one page would be a petition. You know, I Seronis Hastings would like. You know that young Indian buck over there or that the pretty 14 year old girl over there as my slave, and the judge signs it over. And that's all that you'll find in the court files. And these were judicial decrees of indentured servitude slavery. And like Abby, I would love to see now since this was done under the auspices, this was authorized by the state of California. The legislature appropriate some money to have a an independent third party researcher. There are plenty of qualified organizations do this. But one thing I think that we shouldn't lose sight of at the same time this is going on that war of extermination is going on. Sadly, and Joe Jaby and I are going to be on a program with Ben in a month or two or whatever. The author of an American genocide, which was his PhD thesis at Yale. He did the heavy researching. And let's go back to that first contact 1542. The ethnographers demographers estimate the population the native population of California to be between 350 and 360,000 people at that time. I'm going to choose 360,000 because then I can do some really simple arithmetic. We have the Spanish and Mexican period where there were heavy deaths. We've all we kind of heard about this in school. European diseases tuberculosis syphilis. But then came the gold rush. And this is when the decline really fell off the cliff. By 1880, the United States census reported the Indian population of California at 18,000. 160,000 in 1542 to 18,000 is a 95% reduction in population. And most of it is the murder, the mass murders that are going on Hastings, Leland Stanford, John C. Fremont. Walter Jarbo has got a street named after him and Bernal Heights and on and on and on it would pure murder. It was announced by the first governor of California in that state of the state address. This is going on at the same time as the slave. Yes. I've read Benjamin Madley's book and also Brendan Lindsay's excellent book, which is called murder state. And the, the facts are absolutely horrifying. And I think they should be mandatory reading for every person in the state of California. That's just my personal opinion because I, I don't think the gravity nor the horror of what occurred in those years can really be appreciated until until you look at the look closely at the facts. I can never see California landmarks in the same way. I, I go to Clear Lake. And what comes to mind is the is the massacre committed by the US cavalry there of hundreds and hundreds of native California's but I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm stepping out of line here I'm the moderator not the, not a commentator. Well, so let's let me ask you both about the Gold Rush and then I think we need to turn to, you know, sort of more contemporary concerns and the implications of what occurred in the past for the, for the current and for the for the present and for the future. But the, the, what was it about the gold rush obviously there was a huge influx of of non native peoples in a very short period of time. And what, what about that, that influx and the kind of the economic changes. Change things so dramatically and that caused Indians to, to be slaughtered on mass instead of being enslaved of course they continued to be enslaved I'm sure you could, you could, you could share that too. But something happened there that was different. I wonder if you could help us understand it. Well, maybe I'll take a first stab at this and then turn it over to Abby and I will try to keep this brief. The, what, you know, who were these 49ers. Who, who were they. These were men, almost exclusively who were leaving mothers, wives, children, churches, creditors, the law to come make an easy fortune, right just a little bit of digging and it's all free I don't have to get a permit from the federal government. I steal all the water I want, I take all the land I want and I'm going to make go in that. That's, that's a portrait of a typical 49er, but you had really educated people, Serranis Hastings did not attend the law school, but he read law under illustrious lawyers. Oh, let's look at Ogden Hoffman who presided over all the land cases, not all the land cases, most of the land cases, seeking to validate Mexican and Spanish land grants. Ogden Hoffman was from a patrician eastern family and he had gone to Harvard Law School. Both were mightily arrogant people. They weren't it in the law, and they would have no hesitation telling you they were Hastings made himself the first dean of the law school that he founded Hastings Law School. They certainly knew the principle of Aboriginal title which had been announced by the United States Supreme Court in 1823, and then in 1831 and has been reiterated over and over again. He wanted land. Not, not Hoffman himself, but he was in this club. Stanford wanted land Stanford built the biggest vineyard in the world, Vina Ranch on the Sacramento River. And he did it. Contravention of the principle of Aboriginal title. As far as I know I haven't read every one of the 800 land cases 600 were confirmed. There were a couple hundred blatantly fraudulent, I mean, laughably fraudulent cases. But in every one it was between a claimant in the United States government Indians weren't there. And yet here you have United States Supreme Court precedent. And the motivation is. If we ever give those Indians the right to go to court they just might assert their rights on the international law as recognized by the United States Supreme Court and the easiest way to take care of that is to kill them. Justice of an auntie. Why people do evil is a very hard proposition. We're talking about today in today's world. Why would you create a drug like fentanyl. Put it out there and watch thousands of people die. What in the God's name, you're a human being I'm a human being. I don't understand how this happens how a human does this. Some things you just have to accept and go, it's not who I am or what I am, and why they do it I don't know what's necessary today and in those days is for people to stand up for what's right. And there were people who did. We don't hear much about them because the whole thing is obscured. It's like now there's people who say no to fentanyl. We've got to do something about this there's people who are standing up. So the real issue is how do we stand up now. Looking back how do we get the truth out how do we do this. The why you know humans are. I mean the good news is for all of us that we're not God's we didn't create this humans were created by God's and how they did it I don't know. Why they act the way they do I don't know. I know I'm responsible for myself, and to try to move past that, but it's the why part of it is really hard for me to understand I can't. I don't know why it happens. All I know is that at some point you have to say no, whatever that I will not cross that line and model that for other people. And on that I don't know how this happened, because I mean, how do you enslave children how do you mass murder people sleeping in their homes how do I don't know how that happens. I don't know what makes that okay for anybody. Okay, I, I believe I'm getting the, the signal that we will start taking questions from the audience at this time. I want to read out the questions, starting with Michael warburton who asks, wasn't there a public trust governing the territory. And this is addressed to john briska. The short answer is no. Okay. And anonymous attendee asks, would they have used the names of native persons who were being enslaved I guess that means did they were they renaming the native people they enslaved. So just, is that as they did with, you know, with black slaves, you know, I think a lot of the people were renamed. You know, and what I what we would be interested in is like location and then we can kind of figure out going backwards. You know, and then try to see if there's any stories left about them. Those are the kinds of things we would, we would look at, you know when I was younger oh so much younger. And there were people who had known people who were enslaved and had run away back home, but nobody liked to talk about it. You know, so the thing about California is it's not that far away. So it's actually possible to reconstruct some stories. But without that first bit we really can't do that. I mean it's like the kids who were taken to boarding schools and didn't come home. They don't have their names, but if we can see where they left from and you know, it's like putting all the records together you need a real researcher to do that. You know, and it's, it's not an easy task and longer we don't do it, the harder it becomes, I guess is the answer, the sort of long answer to it. Kind of leads to the next question from another anonymous attendee with any of the numeric decline be accounted for by those who did not identify or tried to hide their identity. That is, you know, Native Americans who just decided it wasn't worth being identified as Native Americans. Go ahead, Abby. I was going to say I think early on that wasn't possible later it became more possible. And did people do that. And do people still do that at times. Yes. You know, because the whole interaction with surrounding communities can be unpleasant. I mean my interaction, when I was young. Here, there were lots of unpleasantnesses shall we say people obviously had poor home training I don't know what else you could call it. You know, acting in ways that just were not acceptable, in my opinion, but I would never act that way. You know, so that that's where you get into. Did that happen I would think so at a large number the earlier on because that was pretty early in in the go, probably not. Frankly. A question from Steven Benwells was the European Spanish treatment of the native people in the Caribbean and South Pacific comparable, or was California particularly bad. The treatment was. And this, this would be for Kevin star, the great historian of California, if he were still with us Kevin passed away a little over five years ago. The treatment was to my very limited knowledge, pretty much the same. It was different from English colonization. The Spanish colonization was very church related send send the missionaries in they were Jesuits at first. Jesuits for some reason in the mid 1760s got on the wrong side of the king and they were kicked out of Mexico, for example. But you had, you had Spanish colonialism in the Philippines and Guam, which of course we confiscated. And it was based on a mission system in Mexico and most of Spanish South America. So I generally think the answer is, it was similar. European diseases, enslavement as judge Abbey mentioned because labor was needed to make the missions run. You've got farms orchards. You know they were made they were taught and made to make wine choose all that sort of thing. Another question from Michael warburton is he asks about Dr. Lewis gun in Sonora. He says what about people like the Dr. Lewis gun in Sonora. Well, I for one, don't know the name. Then was Bob Mueller asks was indigenous indentured labor used in the gold rush mining activities, particularly in the Sierra. They were used to dig and they were used to handle the mercury later used to separate because they realized it was a dangerous chemical. So that's, you know, a certain number of deaths occurred from that those practices because they were very difficult. That was my understanding. Jacqueline Miziani asks, can you talk about capturing or rewards for runaway slaves what was the law surrounding that with their postings and newspapers. I've seen, I've seen old advertisements. Yeah. You know that would be looking for people. There was one brief look into this and it was commissioned when john Burton was the president pro tem of the Senate, and some of those advertisements are there. You can read about the slave market in Los Angeles on the side of the federal courthouse I don't have a citation right now, but it was a document done by the legislative council's office or the state library I can't remember but it's a, it's a pretty good document that addresses some of these matters. I did, I did have a question kind of related to that my understanding was that people of color in, in particularly in San Francisco during in in California we're in danger constantly even if they've been born free of something similar to what you're describing is that they would have what I'd heard was that if somebody say you had somebody who was a southerner and American southerner who saw a black person on the street if they said, oh I recognize that person he escaped from our plantation that they they were in danger of being handed over there was a similar sounded somewhat similar to what you were describing with people just answering it made Americans on site is that do you know anything about that was that kind of the same was that going on roughly the same time. Yeah, yes and no. I think it's important to keep in mind the timeline and certain basic statistics. At the end of 1848 the population of San Francisco was a bit which was the port. Okay. You know forget the San Pedro hadn't been developed San Diego was a port but if you were coming for the gold rush, you came to San Francisco. The population was 500 at the end of 1848 and something like 25 or 35 or 45 Gray Brecken I think is on this and probably has a better handle on what exactly was the population at the end of 1850. Well people are coming and going. They're staying in San Francisco a little bit of the time and they're going into the gold country and whatnot. The handful of smart people settled in San Francisco and operated hardware stores, for example, would have people need in the mines. But there was very little the government the government that was set up here the municipal government was intended for a population of 500, not 50,000. And when these guys coming. There are a lot of bad bad people. And twice the vigilante committee, it was called a committee of vigilance had to be created just to restore order. And the best account of this is in the volume published in published in 1855 the annals of San Francisco. Three men, this bit, he home and Suley, who lived through the whole thing they gathered documents and they wrote their accounts at 700 pages. But they have chilling accounts of what it was like on San Francisco streets. So they don't have an account of black slaves being apprehended. There were a lot of Negroes as they were referred to. Russians. Many, many nationalities. But I don't know of any widespread sort of saying but there was no civil law for a long time. Brenda Hillman asks, was California indenture modeled on Mexican indenture. And was that called slavery. Brenda. I don't know. It reads as though it was just written by a bunch of guys with their brandy flasks at their side and John Colton Colton Hall in Monterey, which is where they all this was was written. I don't know the answer. But that but again that's part of this you know Abby said, we've got to do this research. The most important thing is for people to know what happened. And this has been buried, like the genocide, the slavery has been buried. And the first thing is we've got to figure out what happened in the first place to start is all the county clerks offices and the 58 counties. And that's the that's the starting place. And how did this develop was the LA slave market, similar to the Baltimore slave market. We don't know. Okay, the final question is from Richard Page. I'm very grateful to hear from judge Abinanti that native people realize the need to teach us younger brothers and sisters if our language present prevents deep understanding what method of teaching remains please. I think listening to the stories that we have realizing that there are stories looking at the stewardship that we did have in the lands that we are still related to, and how they were and how they are now. I mean even the discussion about cultural burns now. You know that's all what we always did. One of the things that we're doing up here as one of our projects of the court is we're taking storytelling into the elementary schools. And we present a story and it's about an Indian legal premise. Essentially, it's a story of this bird who hurts its wing and can't fly with its family. And then the storyline is how do you ask for help. When do you ask for help. How do you give help. What's the consequence when somebody tells you know and how do you keep doing it and telling the stories and thinking about the stories and developing practices from the stories. That's how you make the corrections, you know, because if the person is denied their help. How does that make them feel. You know and teaching that and we're giving that to all the kids in the elementary schools that surround the reservation or on the reservation. So we're doing more things like that. So storytelling it's in me. You know how do you organize the courts like our court. When I first came home people were like, Oh, well you can't be the judge because you know john and you know George and I'm like, Yeah, well, I know everybody and all of you know me. I said we never had stranger justice. We need to think back to who we were. And you know when people would come in and not have all these people lined up and you go okay, do you want to trial or you just want to talk to judge Abbie and figure out how we're going to make this right. I'll just talk to you. Okay, fine. That's what we'll do. Because I don't need to figure out whether you did it or not you were there tell me if you did and if you did let's fix it. You know, and that's pretty much how the court runs now. And you tell me because you know, why should I aggravate myself, you know, and if you're having a dispute with a neighbor, or somebody, you know it's I have guys fighting on the river. And I'm like, you know, you are really trying my patience here. You guys a fish next to each other for 30 or 40 years. And now you're having this fight and I had to issue restraining orders. That is not okay. I said I happen to have a cultural leader here today. You guys should have resolved that with him whatever your problem is, do you want to go outside and try to do that. They're like, well, and I said, okay, or you can, you know, you can either resolve it that way, or you can come back in here and face one mad old duroc woman, you make the choice, because I don't really care. I think we'll go outside and talk to them. Okay, so they go outside an hour and a half later they come back laughing and talking and they say don't worry judge it's all taken care of. I said okay that I only instruction to you on this is you go home and you tell your sons, and you tell your nephews, because you should have done it this way in the first place, instead of almost killed each other, which I can't fix. Okay, okay. You know so it's that way test the model and then apply it where it applies. Because we can't have winners and losers I have to have people who resolve issues. Well, we run out of time but I want to thank judge Abbey Abinanti attorney john briscoe and Professor George Bisharat for a really compelling conversation. And it's so important for us to really look at the facts and figures of our history here in California, as well as across this country, and to make we cannot make reconciliation and reparations until we understand that history. So we must carry the facts, the history, and also these stories of the, of our communities. Fourth, we have to bring our, our, our, our, our saying and also our truths to be brought forth so that we can move forward for the future and I thank all of you for this compelling conversation we will save the chat we will try to save that so we can share one and I want to also welcome back Claire Greensfelder from California Institute of Community Art and Nature just to say a few words of thanks before we close out Claire. Well first of all thank you so much to the panelists and our moderator for guiding us on what should be taught every fourth grade class in California and every history book. There's so much more to be done, but you've really led the way and the information we shared today was absolutely stellar devastating but devastatingly important so thank you. And what where we carry that forward in with our organization is trying to support sovereignty and California Indian cultural preservation revival and in all its vitality which is amazing. And I would like to invite all of you to join us on July 30 Saturday from 330 to five at Toby's feed barn in point race station for it. Where else would you go with a great station but Toby's feedback to join us for a party celebrating Malcolm Margolins latest book deep hanging out and wonderment in native California, 40 years of essays if this participation and involvement with the California Indian community, both culturally politically and just hanging out. And we'll have a lot of special guest speakers will be announcing them soon check out our website I believe the chat, and we'd love to see all of you there. So, thanks again to everyone who attended today it's such the more we know the truth and one thing that Judge Abanani said which I found was so profound, which was that it's the stories, we have to keep telling the stories that's where the history is that's where the truth is. So thank you so much to everyone who came today and told your stories. Thank you everyone for joining us and please join us again for programs at Mechanics Institute online, or in person at 57 post street in San Francisco.