The History of Violence Against Native Peoples

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When there was violence committed by settlers, there was always this issue of first blood. And everything the settlers did was seen as defensive and everything that the indigenous people with some exceptions. So can you comment on how the violence, to the extent there was a double standard, how did that operate? It goes right to the heart of these cycles of violence that continued in California for decades.

In this extended interview, we speak with UCLA Associate Professor Benjamin Madley about his book, "An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe," and discuss how newspapers, tracts, and paperbacks were an essential element in assisting and priming the public for the genocide of California's native population.

Prof. Madley's work was instrumental in our research for previous Citations Needed episodes - namely, "Episode 158: How Notions of 'Blight' and 'Barrenness' Were Created to Erase Indigenous Peoples" and "Episode 172: The Foundational Myth Machine - Indigenous Peoples of North America and Hollywood" - so we were thrilled to dig even deeper into his work on this special News Brief.