How the California Gold Rush Sparked a Genocide No One Talks About.

🚨 THEY STRUCK GOLD... AND UNLEASHED HELL. 🚨 The California Gold Rush is sold as a story of rugged pioneers and American dreams. But they cut the most brutal chapter from your history book. For the Indigenous people of California, 1848 didn't mean wealth—it meant the beginning of a systematic, state-funded annihilation.

On this episode of Pastpulse, we're excavating the darkest secret of the American West: The California Genocide. This isn't a tragic accident of disease; it was a deliberate campaign of mass murder, slavery, and starvation that saw the Native population plummet from 150,000 to under 30,000 in just over 20 years.

WE'RE CONFRONTING THE HARDEST TRUTHS:

💰 Bounties for Scalps: How the new California government, backed by "respectable" citizens, passed laws and paid bounties for the murder of Native men, women, and children.

⛓️ State-Sanctioned Slavery: The brutal "Act for the Government and Protection of Indians" that legalized the forced servitude of Native children and the auctioning of Native prisoners to white settlers.

🍞 Starvation as a Weapon: How miners and settlers deliberately destroyed oak groves and salmon streams—the primary food sources for tribes—to clear the land by any means necessary.

🤫 The Erased History: Why this isn't called a "genocide" in most textbooks, and how the narrative was sanitized into a simple tale of "Manifest Destiny."

This is not a comfortable history. It is a necessary one. It's the story of how the foundation of modern California was built on a mountain of gold, soaked in blood.

This is the history we have a duty to remember. If you believe in facing the full truth of the past, SMASH THAT LIKE BUTTON & SUBSCRIBE to Pastpulse.

Why do you think this chapter of history is so suppressed? How can we better acknowledge this legacy today? Share your thoughts respectfully in the comments below. 👇