decision, petitioning Governor Weller to reinstate the Eel River Rangers, but the protest was unsuccessful. Aftermath and public reception On February 18, 1860, Jarboe summarized his record, claiming that in 23 engagements, he and his men killed 283 warriors, captured 292 prisoners, while only sustaining 5 casualties themselves. The bill to the state for their five months of service was $11,143.43. However, scholars now believe that the number of native casualties was grossly understated, as was the cost to the state. Historian Frank Baumgardner states that the total killed by Jarboe was certainly well over 400. New California Governor John G. Downey now inherited the massive debts incurred by Jarboe and the settlers' raids, debts that the state could not afford to pay. Damage done to Yuki and other tribal cultures was incalculable. The public reception of the conflict was mixed. A newly created Joint Special Committee on the Mendocino Indian War (also called the Select Committee on Indian Affairs) heard testimony from local settlers. The evidence was contradictory, with stories differing from each account, but some things remained consistent. Jarboe claimed that his actions were provoked by citing numbers of whites killed, but Dillon's reports contradicted those statements. Dillon wrote to his superiors that white settlers were at fault for the entire conflict, and that the locals had funded the slaughter. Many settlers claimed that the natives began the trouble by stealing cattle, while others testified that natives were allowed to eat the cattle and horses that strayed and died of natural causes. Nevertheless, a general consensus emerged that the settlers wanted the natives off of their land and used any means necessary to force them out, including blaming natives for stealing livestock. The investigation concluded that no war had actually occurred in Mendocino County, since the slaughter of natives who offered little resistance and launched no counterattacks could not be considered a war. Rather, the conflict could be more correctly labeled as massacre, and later on historians began calling it a genocide. The committee also recommended some laws to help protect California Indians in the future, but none of them were ever put into place. Between the time people settled in Mendocino County and the end of the 'war' (1856-1860), the population of Indians decreased by 80%. The rest were relegated to the Mendocino Reservation and the Nome Cult Farm. In the late 1880s, tensions left unresolved from