In 1850, after a heated debate in the US Congress around the issue of slavery, California was brought into the Union as a free, nonslavery state by the Compromise of 1850. [1] However, the idea of California as “Free” was much more complicated in reality. Particularly looking at the genocide of Native Americans through violence, enslavement, discrimination, and forced removal, and the enslavement of people of African descent before and during the ratification of California as a state in 1850, it would be false to say California was truly a “Free” state. [2][3]