The Cottonwood Militia says no one should fear its name. History tells a more complicated story.

Nevin Kallepalli

UC Berkeley California Local Reporting Fellow at Shasta Scout.

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The Cottonwood Militia says no one should fear its name. History tells a more complicated story.

FROM WILDFIRE PREPAREDNESS TO WEAPON TRAININGS, A LOCAL MILITIA IN THE RURAL TOWN OF COTTONWOOD ENSURES MEMBERS CAN SUSTAIN AND PROTECT THEMSELVES. THE EARLY CALIFORNIA SETTLER MILITIAS THEY IDEALIZE FOR THEIR RESILIENCE WERE ALSO PAID BY THE STATE TO COMMIT VIOLENCE AGAINST NATIVE PEOPLE.

Shasta Scout

When California became a state in 1850, Lindsay explained, militias played a key role in American settlement, particularly at a time when the new state’s funds were scant. “There was no money to actually have a regularly organized California militia,” Lindsay said, mentioning that the California National Guard didn’t form until 1903. Instead, the Golden State legalized the activities of volunteer soldiers — with a caveat. “But, big capital B-U-T, only if authorized by the governor,” Lindsay emphasized. As officially state-authorized groups, the volunteer militias of California’s past had a more formalized relationship with the government than the Cottonwood Militia has today. Part of that formalized relationship, as Lindsay has examined closely in his scholarship, was the militia’s role in perpetrating the genocide of California Indians. This kind of violence has a long legacy. As early as 1637, the New World’s first settler militias attacked Native communities shortly after crossing the Atlantic.