People of the West — Season 1, Episode 4: Genocide
59 min • 1 season, 10 episodes
Episode synopsis
California’s statehood unleashes a campaign of genocide and slavery against Native peoples. Militias carry out massacres with government funding, while laws legalize the buying and selling of Native children. When Native families defend their homes, the violence is overwhelming and merciless. Through the story of T’tc~tsa, a Wailaki girl sold into sexual bondage, the human cost of conquest is laid bare. Yet survival itself becomes resistance, as Native voices endure beyond frontier myths to expose America’s true foundation.
About People of the West
People of the West is a ten-part premium documentary series that reclaims the history of California through Indigenous perspectives. Blending oral histories, tribal archives, expert insight, and cinematic recreations, the series spans from creation stories and pre-contact life through colonization, state-sponsored violence, resistance, and cultural survival. Each episode centers Native voices and lived experience, reframing well-known events—from the mission system and Gold Rush to Alcatraz and modern sovereignty movements—through those who endured them. Visually ambitious and emotionally grounded, the series pairs sweeping landscapes with intimate storytelling to reveal California as it has always been: Native land. Designed to live both on screen and in classrooms, People of the West offers a corrective to dominant narratives while highlighting the resilience, continuity, and contemporary presence of Native nations shaping the state today.