Today, California is the most populous state in the US. But its history includes the deliberate mass murder of Indigenous people in the 1800s. In this excerpt from An American Genocide, Benjamin Madley argues that this organized catastrophe qualifies as genocide.

As the sun rose on July 7, 1846, four US warships rode at anchor in Monterey Bay. Ashore, the Mexican tricolor cracked over the adobe walls and red-tiled roofs of California’s capitol for the last time. At 7:30 am, Commodore John Sloat sent Captain William Mervine ashore “to demand the immediate surrender of the place.” The Mexican commandant then fled, and some 250 sailors and marines assembled at the whitewashed customs house on the water’s edge.

As residents, immigrants, seamen, and soldiers looked on, Mervine read Commodore Sloat’s proclamation: “I declare to the inhabitants of California, that although I come in arms … I come as their best friend — as henceforth California will be a portion of the…