 As a result, the rise of modern California equalled great tragedy and hardship for the native inhabitants.Several scholars, including Benjamin Madley and Ed Castillo, have described the actions of the California government as a genocide.In subsequent decades after 1850, the native population of more than 100 tribes were gradually placed in a series of reservations and rancherias, which were often very small and isolated and lacked adequate natural resources or funding from the government to sustain the populations living on them in the hunter-gathering style they were used to living.