In Joseph Conroy’s novel Heart of Darkness, the ivory trader Mr. Kurtz moves deep into the “savage interior” of the Congo and builds a vast slave plantation where he rules by terror. Severed heads are perched on the posts of his compound. Kurtz writes in a report for the International Society of the Suppression of Savage Customs “exterminate the brutes.” His white visitors believe he has gone mad.

John Sutter, born in Europe, moved to California in 1839. At this time, California was home to nearly 700,000 Natives (the densest population in North America) and only 1,000 Europeans (mostly Mexicans). Sutter used his wife’s family money to petition Governor Alvarado for Mexican citizenship and a land grant of 49,000 acres (76 square miles). This was granted, along with the authority to make and enforce laws and oversee Indian relations in the Sacramento Valley.

The film Apocalypse Now is a modern re-telling of Heart of Darkness, featuring Marlon Brando as the renegade US Army Colonel Kurtz.

Near the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers, Sutter built a vast plantation with over 800 Native slaves building his fort and tending his crops and cattle. He ruled by terror. He called his plantation “New Helvetia” (New Switzerland) and called himself “Captain Sutter of the Royal Swiss Guard”.

Sutter welcomed white American and European pioneers, who made some of these observations:

“The Capt. [Sutter] keeps 600 to 800 Indians in a complete state of Slavery and as I had the mortification of seeing them dine I may give a short description. 10 or 15 troughs 3 or 4 feet long were brought out of the cook room and seated in the broiling sun. All the laborers great and small ran to the troughs like so many pigs and fed themselves with their hands as long as the troughs contained even a moisture.” – James Clyman, pioneer from Virginia

“As the room had neither beds nor straw, the inmates were forced to sleep on the bare floor. When I opened the door for them in the morning, the odor that greeted me was overwhelming, for no sanitary arrangements had been provided. What these rooms were like after ten days or two weeks can be imagined, and the fact that nocturnal confinement was not agreeable to the Indians was obvious. Large numbers deserted during the daytime, or remained outside the fort when the gates were locked.” – Heinrich Lienhard, Swiss employee at Sutter’s Fort

“Those who did not want to work were considered enemies. With the other tribes the field was taken against the hostile Indian…the villages were attacked usually before daybreak when everybody was asleep. Neither old nor young was spared…and often the Sacramento River was colored red by the blood of the innocent Indians. Seldom an Indian escaped such an attack, and those who were not murdered were captured. All children from six to fifteen years of age were usually taken by the greedy white people. The village was burned down and the few Indians who had escaped with their lives were left to their fate.”  – Theodor Cordua, Prussian rancher in Marysville

He once decapitated a runaway slave and placed his head on the posts of the fort’s entrance to rot in the summer sun. He gave young boys and girls as gifts to business partners.

Juan Batista Alvarado, the governor of Alta California, had seen enough. He said,

“The public can see how inhuman were the operations of Sutter who had no scruples about depriving Indian mothers of their children. Sutter has sent these little Indian children as gifts to people who live far from the place of their birth, without demanding of them any promises that in their homes the Indians should be treated with kindness. Sutter’s conduct was so deplorable that if I had not succeeded in persuading Sutter to stop the kidnapping operations it is probable that there would have been a general uprising of Indians within the Northern district under Sutter’s jurisdiction as a Mexican official.”

To white Americans, he was a welcoming host, an oasis in the wilderness. When California became a state in 1850 and quickly implemented laws in support of keeping Natives as slaves, in trafficking boys and girls (the latter for twice the price), Sutter was well positioned. He had set the standard. He paved the way for the massive genocide of Natives in northern California, much of it ordered and paid for by the state. It remains among the most well-documented genocides ever.

As a child, I grew up learning about the Gold Rush and Sutter’s Mill and how he helped the Donner Party. I never heard a word about slaves or sex trafficking or genocide.

Today, Sutter’s name adorns streets, schools, hospitals, a county, even Governor Jerry Brown’s dog. There are several statues of him, although one less in recent days.