Some interesting points from the law.

Act of 1850, ammended 1860, 1863 and abolished in 1865.

3. Any person having or hereafter obtaining a minor Indian, male or female, from the parents or relations of such Indian Minor, and wishing to keep it, such person shall go before a Justice of the Peace in his Township, with the parents or friends of the child, and if the Justice of the Peace becomes satisfied that no compulsory means have been used to obtain the child from its parents or friends, shall enter on record, in a book kept for that purpose, the sex and probable age of the child, and shall give to such person a certificate, authorizing him or her to have the care, custody, control, and earnings of such minor, until he or she obtain the age of majority. Every male Indian shall be deemed to have attained his majority at eighteen, and the female at fifteen years.

Ammended in 1863...

Sec. 3

...such indentures may be for the following terms of years: Such children as are under fourteen years of age, if males, until they attain the age of twenty-five years; if females, until they attain the age of twenty-one years; such as are over fourteen and under twenty years of age, if males, until they attain the age of thirty years; if females, until they attain the age of twenty-five years; and such Indians as may over the age of twenty years, then next following the date of such indentures, for and during the term of ten years, at the discretion of such Judge; such Indians as may be indentured under provision of this section, shall be deemed within such provisions of this act, as are applicable to minor Indians.

16. An Indian convicted of stealing horses, mules, cattle, or any valuable thing, shall be subject to receive any number of lashes not exceeding twenty-five, or shall be subject to a fine not exceeding two hundred dollars, at the discretion of the Court or jury.

17. When an Indian is sentenced to be whipped, the Justice may appoint a white man, or an Indian at his discretion, to execute the sentence in his presence, and shall not permit unnecessary cruelty in the execution of the sentence.

http://courses.csusm.edu/hist338bas/f05/act1850.htm

NOTE... The Act also provided that male Indian children under fourteen years could be indentured until they were twenty-five, and females under fourteen until they were twenty-one years old. If they were over fourteen but under twenty, males were indentured until they were thirty, and females until they were twenty-five years. Indians over twenty years old could be indentured for an additional ten years. Due in part to a decade of state-financed expeditions against the Indians, there were many young Indian children without parents. In 1863, Section Three of the 1850 Act was repealed. However, historical accounts

Articles:

"Alta California - 1862
The Ukiah Herald, published in Mendocino county, has a long article upon the practice of Indian stealing so extensively carried on in that section of the country, and says that one woodman has been caught with sixteen young Indians in his possession, being about to take them out of the county for sale. The Herald says: “Here is well known there are a number of men in this county, who have for years made it their profession to capture and sell Indians, the price ranging from $30 to $150, according to quality. Some hard stories are told of those engaged in the trade, in regard to the manner of the capture of the children. It is even asserted that there are men engaged in it who do not hesitate, when they find a rancheria well stocked with young Indians, to murder in cold blood all the old ones, in order that they may safely possess themselves of all the offspring.”

http://www.waterplan.water.ca.gov/docs/cwpu2005/vol4/vol4-tribal-earlycalifornialaws.pdf