Beginning in the 1840s, leaders and politicians used the phrase, "Manifest Destiny" to justify American expansionism and make it seem preordained. Instead of waiting for the organic, though inevitable expansion of the U.S. population to the West, the federal government took actions to both accelerate and control westward expansion. The goal of "settling" the country from ocean to ocean had a profound impact on the Native Americans, who had no place in this vision of the nation's destiny.
One of the central elements of Manifest Destiny was a transcontinental railroad. President Lincoln signed The Pacific Railway Act of 1862 to catalyze this effort. But a key provision authorized the railroad companies to "extinguish, as rapidly as may be consistent with public policy and the welfare of the said Indians, the Indian titles to all lands … required for the said right-of-way and grant of land herein made." While the railroad was not sanctioned to eliminate tribes, they were empowered to remove all obstacles to railway construction.
The California Indians did not impede the construction of the railway east. Various factors conspired to make them the most persecuted of Native Americans in the West. The Gold Rush that began in the late 1840s brought gold diggers to the state who exploited Indian knowledge of the land, while many tribe members caught "gold fever," wreaking havoc on their traditional lifestyle.
By the next decade, over 100,000 gold seekers had come to California. The 1850 Act gave white settlers the right to, indenture Indian children, for all intents and purposes.. And, in 1851, the federal government reneged on 18 "peace and friendship" treaties that promised California Indians eight and a half million acres of land. European diseases, massacres, and displacement from their tribal lands and resources had reduced the population; numbering around 300,000 in the late 1700s their population dwindled to less than 50,000 by the mid 1860s. As the Central Pacific built east from Sacramento, California, and the Union Pacific moved west from Omaha, Nebraska, railway companies claimed over 174 million acres of land (more than 270,000 square miles) to serve as rights-of-way. In exchange for land, the railroads allowed Native Americans to ride the trains for free after the completion of the railroad. Like many deals negotiated with the tribes, the railroads offered a token in exchange for permanently altering the Native American way of life. This image, photographed by the Union Pacific Railroad, depicts a "Group of Ute Indians on the War Path." Even though pockets of Native American resistance existed, it was directed at other tribes as much as settlers, as Indians were forced to compete with each other for dwindling land and resources.
The acquisition of their lands consolidated Native Americans on smaller reservations and in less desirable places. In California, the railroad brought more people who could displace even more California Indians. By the turn of the century, the California Indian population had been reduced to 16,000. As Native Americans were displaced by the influx of settlers, they were also forced to give up many aspects of their way of living, marking the end to the development of their culture. Of all the peoples affected by the railroad, the Native Americans were impinged upon the most.
- Students explain how explain how California became an agricultural and industrial power, tracing the transformation of the California economy and its political and cultural development since the 1850s.