In 1839, John Sutter, a Swiss immigrant of German origin, settled in Alta California and began building a fortified settlement on a land grant of 48,827 acres where the Sacramento and American Rivers meet.
As the White settlers were ranching two million heads of livestock, shooting wild game in enormous numbers, and replacing wilderness with wheat fields, available food for Indians in the region diminished.
In August 1846, an article in The Californian declared that concerning California Indians, "The only effectual means of stopping inroads upon the property of the country, will be to attack them in their villages.
"[6] On February 28, 1847, sixteen Mill Creek men petitioned US Army captain Edward Kern for assistance against local Indians so that they would not "be forced to abandon our farms and leave our property perhaps something worse.
From there, the men led three separate attacks in which twenty Indians were killed, while Kern and Sutter did not lose a single man.
[9][10][11] A contemporary newspaper account noted that Kern had Indian soldiers under his command on this endeavor and that they fought bravely and were considered the most efficient men employed in frontier service.
An 1851 legislative measure not only gave settlers the right to organize lynch mobs to kill Indians but also allowed them to submit their expenses to the government.
[17] In 1856, a San Francisco Bulletin editorial stated, "Extermination is the quickest and cheapest remedy, and effectually prevents all other difficulties when an outbreak [of Indian violence] occurs.
A Sacramento Daily Union article of the time accused high-pressure lobbyists interested in profiting off enslaved Indians of pushing the law through, gave examples of how wealthy individuals had abused the law to acquire enslaved Indians from the reservations, and stated, "The Act authorizes as complete a system of slavery, without any of the checks and wholesome restraints of slavery, as ever was devised.