Friend –

If your high school history class was anything like mine, you were probably taught that California joined the Union as a free state and never had slavery.

Well, that's a lie. California was free in name only. In 1850, the California legislature passed a law to funnel Indigenous children into a slavery pipeline.

That's the subject of the newest episode of our Gold Chains podcast, "Indigenous Injustice."

Listen to Gold Chains: Episode 3 – Indigenous Injustice

We connect the dots between California's early enslavement of Native children, to attempts to eradicate Indigenous culture and languages in Indian Boarding Schools, to forced adoptions in the 19th century, all the way up to Brackeen v. Haaland. – a lawsuit currently before the U.S. Supreme Court that could dismantle the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and once again allow Native children to be indiscriminately torn from their families and tribal communities.

State and federal governments have repeatedly used the forced removal of Native children as a tool to erase Indigenous people, steal their land, and exploit the valuable resources on it like gas and coal.

Brackeen is merely the latest chapter in this story. The legal arguments made by the plaintiffs challenging ICWA in Brackeen undermine key tenets of federal Indian law, and threaten many other laws upholding tribal sovereignty.

Find Indigenous Injustice wherever you listen to podcasts or at goldchains.ca.org/podcast, where you can explore this episode and other stories about California's hidden history of slavery.

Thanks for listening. And if you like what you hear, please share the episode and help us spread the word.

Tammerlin Drummond
Gold Chains Podcast Host