A number of the Indians had saved enough money to buy some land. They were sold land that was unfit for the white man's inhabitation. The U.S. government almost never allowed Indian women to immigrate to the U.S. because that would mean that Indians could put down roots in the U.S. by marrying and starting a family. The California State government passed a law, which made it illegal for non-citizens or naturalized non-white citizens to own land.

The Indians got around this by organizing co-operatives, which ceded ownership to some Indian children born in America. Some of the Indians entered into agreements with white persons who were given a profit share for saying they owned the land. But a large number of such relationships ended in the white partner claiming, at harvest time, that the whole crop was theirs.

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Asian Immigration and Exclusion, 1906-1913 - LexusNexis