Respecting Planet Earth
Former Sierra Club president David Brower talks about some of the ways humans have damaged planet Earth in the quest for material possessions and wealth. He invokes Henry David Thoreau's sentiment that there's no use for a house if you haven't got a...
Manifest Destiny?: Mine Workers Face Discrimination and Exploitation
Laborers are urgently needed to support this new mining enterprise in California. Young men from as far away as China look upon this as a golden opportunity and begin to emigrate in large numbers. But when they arrive they face violence at the hands...
Manifest Destiny?: Crimes Against Native Americans during California Gold Rush
Indian lands are confiscated by forty-niners in their rush to find gold. Tribal members who retaliate are killed or imprisoned, their children enslaved. By 1860 the Indian population is reduced from 100,000 to 30,000. Historian Elliott West calls th...