Rick Ruja

Indian Tears Along the Mad River Rick Ruja

This exposé reveals unique and tragic events that occurred north of San Francisco Bay in Northwestern California primarily during the Nineteenth Century. It details a clash between the indigenous inhabitants of the area who had lived here for several millennia and White invaders from the eastern portions of the United States attracted by reports of placer gold deposits found in selected waterways as well as by the presence of land where flora and fauna grew in unprecedented profusion from the heavy rainfall sufficient to support great stands of Redwood forests, the tallest trees on earth. For American ranchers and farmers subject to drought in many parts of the United States, Northwestern California sounded like a Garden "marred " only by the presence of hundreds of thousands of Native Americans who occupied this Eden. What followed was a war of brutality in the 1800's between two races for possession of land ownership, an updated story that has never been presented in such detail before. White migrants committed ethnocide and genocide in removing the natives while founding Humboldt, Trinity, Mendocino and Klamath counties. This work takes the form of an historical "novel "blending fact with a modicum of fiction for readability.