The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America

In 1846, Captain John B. Montgomery, commander of the Northern Department of California, issued a proclamation that, while claiming Indigenous peoples were not slaves, forced them to be constantly employed. The proclamation stated that “all Indians living in the settled portions of California could not ‘wander about in an idle and dissolute manner,’ but were required to obtain employment” (263). Even if the Indigenous individual paid off their contract with an employer, they had to find a new one. Failure to do so meant arrest or forced labor draft. This proclamation began the process of legalizing the debt peonage system in California.

Henry W. Halleck, the Secretary of State of California, formalized Montgomery’s 1846 proclamation with the certificate and pass system. He passed this order in 1847. As part of the order, employers issued certificates of employment to their Indigenous workers. If these workers wanted to visit family or friends elsewhere in the state, their employers had to issue them a pass. Halleck stated that any Indigenous individual found without a certificate or pass “will be liable to arrest as a horse thief, and if, on being brought before a civil Magistrate, he fail[s] to give a satisfactory account of himself, he will be subjected to trial and punishment” (264).