Reportage in the Mid-19th Century California Was Very Different From the Way It Was Now

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In mid-19th century California, papers were pretty unequivocal about their political affiliations. Papers were clearly abolitionist and Republican or they were pretty clearly Democrat and pro-slavery. But the majority of news coming in is actually provided by non-journalists who are simply writing in to report what's happening in their area. And so very often the people reporting on the killing are not attempting to conceal what's happening. What they are concealing is the kind of killing.

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.