Newsom apologizes for California’s treatment of Native Americans

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order Tuesday apologizing on behalf of the citizens of California for a history of “violence, maltreatment and neglect” against Native Americans in a rare move that some tribal leaders said could begin a healing process for their communities.

“California must reckon with our dark history,” Newsom said. “We can never undo the wrongs inflicted on the peoples who have lived on this land that we now call California since time immemorial, but we can work together to build bridges, tell the truth about our past and begin to heal deep wounds.”

Newsom is expected to offer an in-person apology during remarks at a blessing ceremony at the site of the future California Indian Heritage Center in West Sacramento. More than 100 tribal leaders from all over the state gathered in Sacramento on Tuesday for an annual meeting.

The governor’s order references an 1851 address from the state’s first chief executive, former Gov. Peter Burnett, in which he tells lawmakers to expect “a war of extermination” to continue “until the Indian race becomes extinct.”

A year earlier in the Legislature’s first session, lawmakers approved an “Act for the Government and Protection of the Indians” that allowed Native Americans to be sold into indentured servitude for minor offenses and separated children from their families. The state spent the equivalent of more than $1 million in currency at the time to subsidize militia campaigns against the native people, according to the governor’s office.