Excerpt from the New York Times’ “California Today,” by Jill Cowan:

On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a formal apology to California’s Native American communities.

Here’s more from my colleague Tim Arango about the apology and what it means:

In 1851, California’s first governor, Peter Burnett, told the Legislature to expect war “until the Indian race becomes extinct.”

Recounting his state’s dark history, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday issued an apology in front of a group of Native American tribal leaders on behalf of the state for a history of repression and violence.

Mr. Newsom, in an emotional presentation, recited a published chronicle from the 19th century that listed a tally of Indian deaths, including an account of a white settler who chose to kill children with a revolver instead of a high-caliber shotgun because “it tore them up so bad.”

“It’s called genocide,” he said. “That’s what it was, a genocide. No other way to describe it. And that’s the way it needs to be described in the history books.”

Read the full article here: