In the book Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California, Almaguer tells us about the conflicts that were taking place in California, against the Whites and non-Whites. The European Americans created isolation for anyone who was color, and did not look or act “white”. The Mexican population was treated differently unlike any other colored community. “Mexicans occupied a qualitatively different “group position’ from that of Indians, blacks, and Asian immigrants in the new racial hierarchy” (Almaguer 45). The Mexican society was actually “accepted” “… actually assigned Mexicans an intermediate location in the new society they imposed in the region” (Almaguer 45). In 1849 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo allowed Mexicans to stay in the United States. It allowed the…show more content… “…The Indians of North American generally were not seen as a useful laboring population worthy of even a subordinate place in the Anglo-Americans economy” (Almaguer 23). The Indians were the servants to many Rancheros’; most of them viewed them as “friends rather than servants”. (Almaguer 49). “Indians were viewed as stepchildren of the ranchero class… and responsibilities as well as binding compadrazgo (godparent) relationships” (Almaguer 49). The Indians were treated nicely in exchange to their work in the rancho estate and without the Indians nothing could be done, “without them the business of the country could hardly be carried on”(Almaguer 51).
The Europeans categorized the Indians as shameful people, they were uncivilized, non-white, and gente sin razon. According to the book, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mother went Away, Indian’s were uncivilized “3,294 nomadic Indians entered Spanish household as slaves between 1693 and 1846”(P.180). Slaves were viewed as dishonored people, “The crown tolerated slavery in New Mexico as a way of “civilizing” the Indians”