how the exploitation of Native Americans in California helped develop a thriving region for Western settlers

how the exploitation of Native Americans in California helped develop a thriving region for Western settlers

The following research paper is written to better understand how the exploitation of Native Americans in California helped develop a thriving region for Western settlers. Southern California was an area of ranches and simple native living before it was colonized by Americans from the East coast. As history has seen before, as settlers conquered and gained control of more land, the use of local peoples for manual labor was used to develop the area. With projects such as the Zanja, a canal built from the Santa Ana River to supply orchards with water in Yucaipa and Redlands, as well as the Big Bear Dam, Native Americans were put to work.
These projects were unnecessary before the land was settled by the western world. With a mind-set of expansion and industrialization, the settlers began manipulating the land and people around them to fit their needs. Southern California is a region perfect for agriculture, citrus in particular, and the opportunity was taken advantage of. In order to meet the high demand for citrus nationwide, the new settlers began working on projects that would have lasting impacts on the region. Without these projects, and without the use of native labor, the area would look much different today and would not have developed into the prosperous region that it is today.