The Yahi were the first Yana group to suffer from the Californian Gold Rush, as their lands were the closest to the gold fields. They suffered great population losses from the loss of their traditional food supplies and fought with the settlers over territory. They lacked firearms and armed white settlers intentionally committed genocide against them through multiple raids. The settlers were led by Indian hunter Robert Anderson, whose men launched two raids in 1865 which killed about seventy people combined. The massacre reduced the Yahi, who were already suffering from starvation, to a population of less than 100.