Humboldt County

History

History of Humboldt County California - Historic Record Co., Los Angeles, 1915

CHAPTER VIII.
Early Troubles With the Indians

        All accounts of early adventures by the settlers of Trinity county, from which Humboldt county was made, emphasize the fact that there was much mystery involved in the consideration of the Klamath river. That stream was supposed by many to be the Trinity river, while others mistook it for the Salmon. Its source was long unknown after its mouth had been discovered. The Klamath soon attracted a large number of gold hunters, and it was not long after they began to come into the country before the Indians along the Humboldt bay began to look upon them with suspicion.

        Many of the old timers were really rough and ready men, and were inclined to treat the Indians as if they were mere dogs. Suspicious and watchful, the Indians magnified all little injuries into much larger ones and entertained a number of small grievances. Of course, there were some men of wicked disposition who, being surly and overbearing, did wrong to the Indians.

        One of the characteristics of the Indians is that they cannot particularize or distinguish between individuals. The result was that they held all of the white men responsible for any injury done to them by any one white man, being so constituted mentally that they were unable to distinguish between an individual who had done them wrong and a community of men of the same color of the wrong-doer.

        The old doctrine of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth found splendid exemplification among the Indians, for if a white man murdered an Indian he immediately killed the first white man he caught, not seeming to care whether the real culprit escaped or not. It was this habit of the Indians which caused a number of the most serious difficulties encountered by the early settlers of Humboldt county.

        A few of the old residents of Humboldt county have a keen recollection of perilous times with the Indians. Mrs. R. F. Herrick, an aged woman of Arcata, has a distinct memory of some of the stirring events as late as 1859. In a letter which the editor of this history has been permitted to see, she says as follows :

        "We landed in Eureka on November 29, 1859, having a letter of introduction to the Rev. Mr. Huestus. We finally found him at Arcata, and when we crossed the bay and viewed our surroundings we decided to go to the American hotel, which was then kept by a Mr. Bull. We then thought Arcata was the most beautiful place we had ever seen in California. The Plaza looked like green velvet, and the dark background of great redwood trees, I think, was the most beautiful I had ever seen. I then thought that the Indian name, which means a bright or sunny spot, was very appropriate. When I saw Arcata first the sun was shining over it. I remained at the hotel while my husband went to look at a place near the mouth of Mad river.

        "I did not know anyone in the county, but Mrs. Murdock, Mrs. Bowles, Mrs. Culberg, and Mrs. Minor called and asked me to Mrs. Minor's, where a sewing society was in session, and there I made more acquaintances.

        "The tenth of January we moved to the White place. We bought some cows and my husband made the first cheese that was ever manufactured in Humboldt county, and the firm of Coddington & Bowles shipped this cheese by pack-train to the Trinity mines.

        "I was very much afraid of the Indians, especially one who was known as Sore Eyed Tom, a big Indian, who came to my house in a sneaking sort of way. All the clothing he wore might be described as a knife about two feet long attached to his neck by a buckskin thong. I was very homesick and lonesome, and he came in one day and he said he was hungry and wanted what he called whago bread.

        "I had set some of this bread to rise and did not have any baked at the moment. I was then paring potatoes, so I told the Indian that I did not have any bread ready. He said, 'Too much lie.' That was too much to hear, so I forgot my fear and started for him with the butcher knife raised as if to strike him. I never in my life saw anyone run so fast as that Indian did. He did not wait to open the gate, but jumped over the fence, and as far as I could see him, he was running. I was never afraid of Indians again."

        This respected lady says she often went with neighbors to minister to the sick. Among others she met one who was known as Coonskin's daughter, who was very sick. The Indians seemed to appreciate everything which the white ladies did when they carried her up to their house and cared for her and cured her. The father was the chief of the Indians. He mixed his blood with that of Mrs. Herrick's, which was the ceremony that gave her the right to be known as an adopted daughter of the tribe. All the Indians were instructed to look out for her and her family. There was at this time no Indian trouble in the county.

        On the second day of February, 1859, the lady heard some shooting and the screams of women and children down by the river. Her husband wanted to go down, but it was before daylight and it was believed imprudent to go.

        Men, women and children came tumbling over the fence and on to the porch for protection by the household. After daylight her husband went down to the river and there found one young Indian man dead at the water's edge and an old man lying dead just outside of the house.

        Mr. Herrick told her they were going to bury them that afternoon, and two graves were dug just inside of the sand dunes in a green, grassy glade. The corpses were tied in deerskins, like mummies. The young Indian had one wife and baby. She sat patting the corpse and waiting the death-song to come, a pathetic wail that, once heard, can never be forgotten.

        About that time Mrs. Herrick and her husband saw twenty or thirty Indians dancing, with war paint on them, and all armed with bows and arrows strapped across their backs. Mrs. Herrick told her husband that if the white people did not desist from abusing the Indians there would be an awful Indian war. Her words proved prophetic.

        We have gone a little ahead of our story in order to give a glimpse of conditions as reported by Mrs. Herrick. It should be said, however, that what was

known as the Klamath War occurred in 1855. It was the first serious trouble between any very large body of Indians and the whites, and its origin may be traced indirectly to difficulties that had long passed. These were local and personal, but they conveyed the intelligence to the mountain tribes that the white people were trying to drive them away.

        An example of the superstitions of the Indians is well worth citing. One day a captain of the name of McMahon met a few Indians and inflicted chastisement on them, by the aid of his company, for some petty thieving and other wrongs which they had clone. The rancheria of the Indians was inadvertently fired on by the troops, and one old squaw was killed thereby. The captain then left with his company, and the Indians were very serious, as one might know they would have been, over the occurrence. They suspected Robert Walker and three of his companions who lived on the Klamath river. This was in 1851.

        It was not long after this event, which resulted in the death of the squaw, before Walker and his companions noted that several hundred Indians were holding a pow-wow around his cabin. One grave old Indian came and told Walker that it was the belief of the tribe that he and his companions had killed the squaw. The Indians proposed to give the white men a fair trial, as they said, by taking them up to a place under a certain mysterious tree. A fire was to be built near the tree, and if the smoke were to be wafted towards the cabin in which the white men had lived it would be a sign from the Great Spirit that the men were guilty; but if the smoke were to go in any other direction than towards the cabin it was to be a sign that the men were innocent.

        Walker was much surprised, but was a man of cool nerve. He recalled that he had often noticed that along toward noon the rising heat was such that a breeze always took the smoke from his cabin up toward the hills, so his problem was to get the Indians to postpone the trial for an hour or two. He forthwith began to entertain them by stories and to delay them by asking a number of questions. The chief said he would appeal to Mowena, the Great Spirit of his tribe, who would unerringly judge righteously for white men and Indians alike. Then, as the hour grew near, Walker said he was ready to go and he knew, he said, that the Great Indian Spirit would be just to him and his companions. So deeply were the Indians impressed by the efficiency of their fire-tests as a means of communicating with the Great Spirit that they quickly went to the cabin and tendered their friendship to Walker and his companions.

        The great fire was built and the breezes carried the smoke away from the cabin, thereby convincing the Indians that they had made a mistake in accusing these men of murder. After this peculiar trial had convinced the Indians that they were wrong, Walker presented the spokesman with a lion's skin, and in a week thereafter the Indians returned and gave him and his companions a present of smoked salmon. These Indians long bore in mind the trial and long maintained friendly relations with Walker. Other events, however, served to inflame the Indians, who were occasionally imposed upon and cheated by some of the worst of the early settlers. Sometimes those who had no authority from Uncle Sam would deal with the Indians and swindle them outrageously.

        In the fall of 1852 Colonel McKee, the government's first Indian superintendent for California, went up the Klamath river with a hundred mules loaded with presents for the Red Men. These presents consisted of beads, knives and handkerchiefs of gay and varied colors. Cheap articles of rich color appeal to the natives of the great forest. Colonel McKee, like nine out of ten employes of the Indian department, had very little knowledge of the Indian character and very little regard for the obligation of any agreement he might make with them. It is said that he unloaded his mules and distributed his presents, calling to his aid as interpreter the same Robert Walker whose life had been saved by the fortunate culmination of the trial by smoke. It is said that a large company of Indians flocked into the camp of Colonel McKee and were very much pleased with the presents which he distributed.

        These Indians said they wanted to hear his proposal for continued friendship and peace with the whites, after which a day was set for the making of a treaty which was to be lasting and effective proof of the seriousness and earnestness of the friendship. A large number of Indians were present, and then Colonel McKee, with the pomposity of one high in authority, made a grandiloquent speech, telling the Indians that the white men were as many as the leaves on the trees, and that if the Reds did not remain peaceable their property would be destroyed, but if they remained quiet and inoffensive they would be protected in their lives and property. In conclusion, he said he wanted them to be good Indians until he could go back to San Francisco and return, and when he came back, which was to be in so many moons, he would do more than he had ever done to prove the friendship of the Great Father at Washington.

        He turned to Robert Walker and commanded him to interpret the speech to the Red Men. It appears that Walker then had established a ferry across the Klamath river, and in order to make it profitable it was necessary to have the co-operation of the Indians in time of high water. As when he conceived the idea of detaining the Indians in his cabin until the noon breeze should carry the smoke from their trial of fire up the river and away from his home, so now there came to him another happy suggestion. He would make Colonel McKee's speech do a good turn, for he knew the Indians would neither understand nor appreciate the speech if it were literally translated, so he might in reality do Colonel McKee a great service by changing it to suit his own ideas. He therefore began his translation by saying that the white men in San Francisco were more plentiful than the leaves on the trees, and wound up by an assurance from Colonel McKee of perpetual friendship, provided that the Indians would take care of the ferry until Colonel McKee could go to San Francisco and return. Well, Colonel McKee did not return, nor did anybody keep that part of the promise which Walker translated into the treaty. Walker having finished his translation, the Indians held a consultation and answered that they would accept the proposal, whereupon Walker immediately reported to Colonel McKee that his proposition was accepted and that the Red Men would be good Indians until his return. Colonel McKee appeared to consider that his entire duty was not yet done, and he immediately proceeded to lay out a reservation, drawing lines from Weitchpec down the Klamath many miles, including a section of country which lies between the Hoopa and Klamath reservations as at present located. Having accomplished this, he packed up his mules and rode away. And that was the last that was ever seen of Colonel McKee.

        The Indians kept their part of the treaty as it was translated to them by Walker, sacredly observing their agreement to assist in operating the ferry, and were in fact on their good behavior during the four or five months that McKee was away, but when they found they had been lied to, and were firmly of the opinion that Colonel McKee and Walker possibly had been in collusion to deceive them, they began to have serious misgivings.

        It would have been easy at this time to have a general war, but there were a number of strong-minded Indians who prevented this. One known as Trinity Jim, and another one who was his associate, did a great deal to prevent the serious outbreak in 1852, when a large number of white persons would have been killed and their property destroyed. However, trouble had been brewing for a long time, and it was inevitable that there could be no settlement of their differences, except a contest for the possession of the Klamath river.

        There were many faults on both sides. Many Indians would steal cattle and occasionally a murder would be committed, accompanied with robbery and slaughter, and in this connection some of the white men mistreated the Indians very badly. A terrible murder was committed in the year 1852 on the Klamath river about twelve miles below Weitchpec, at what was known as Blackburn's ferry. A trail had been cut through from Trinidad to this point, and a man by the name of Blackburn had built a ferry there, together with a stopping-place for settlers. One night when Blackburn and his wife, with five or six tourists, were sleeping in their tents, the Indians made a silent and barbarous attack. The five men in the tent slept on the floor with their heads outwards, touching the bottom of the tent. Silently, with deadly intent, the Indians crept up and tomahawked them from the outside while they slept. They then attacked the inmates of the house, but Blackburn was prepared for defense, and while his wife loaded one gun, he fired another, thus keeping the Indians at bay until day­light. Up in the mountains not far away there was a camp of eight white men, and when they heard the firing they went down to the ferry and drove the Indians away. It is easy to realize that this was the beginning of serious trouble. Blackburn and his wife escaped without injury, but there was a strange and sad incident in connection with them. Blackburn had been expecting his father to arrive from the East and made preparations to receive him. On the morning after the attack on his house he went to a rancheria, owned by supposedly peaceful Indians, situated a few hundred yards above on a bench of the mountains. There he found the body of his father, who had been murdered almost within sight of the house he had nearly reached. Whether the murderers were ever punished is not now known, but a volunteer company of miners was raised and several Indians' residences were attacked and burned. This was probably the extent of the punishment that the Indians received. It is not known whether the real murderers were those who fell under the fire of the miners.

        In 1853-54, while there was a great deal of talk of Indian warfare there was no general uprising, but many indications pointed to an approaching outrage, so that the superintendent of Indian affairs of the state paid some attention to the Indians of this section. Colonel Buchanan was stationed at Fort Humboldt near Eureka with a portion of the United States forces then doing nothing of special importance or advantage. It was about this time that General Grant had his sad and lonely experience in this part of the country.

        In January, 1855, there was much anxiety and suspense among the miners on the Klamath and Salmon rivers, for they heard from many sources that the Indians were preparing for a general outbreak. The miners were so anxious, and in many cases so alarmed, that they deserted their claims and collected at different trading posts on the Salmon river. At some points the rancherias were visited and firearms were taken away by bands of whites, while at other points the Indians obtained information of the intention of the whites, so their squaws and children were sent into the mountains with whatever firearms the warriors present did not have to carry with them.

        Another danger which menaced the whites was the practice of certain unscrupulous traders to sell arms and ammunition to the Indians, as well as to repair their guns. Miners at Orleans bar, knowing the great danger from this practice, on the sixth day of January held a public meeting and pledged themselves to do everything in their power to stop the traffic. It was decided that all persons detected selling firearms to the Indians should be sentenced to have their heads shaved and receive twenty-five lashes and thereafter be driven away from camp. It was also decided to make an attempt to disarm the Indians in the vicinity of Orleans bar. In pursuance of this object the head men of the rancherias in the neighborhood were notified that failure to comply with this request would be visited with death to any Indian carrying weapons, and a notice was given that all who refused to surrender their arms would have until the nineteenth of January to give them up. The Orleans Red Caps and a few other tribes refused to give up their arms, and matters stood largely this way until the middle of January, when a number of miners organized for the purpose of destroying the rancheria of the Red Caps. On the same day the company marched to the rancheria and demanded its surrender. Thereupon there was a volley of shots which killed William Wheeler and Thomas O'Neil and wounded several others: The death of these men demoralized the miners, who retreated to Orleans, and immediately a messenger was dispatched to Colonel Buchanan, in command at Fort Humboldt, asking him for assistance. He ordered Captain Judah and twenty-five soldiers to the scene of the difficulty. They were accompanied by Dr. Simpson of the medical staff. A party of volunteers on horseback also left the bay for Weitchpec.

        By this time the entire Indian country was beginning to assume a warlike attitude. The Indians knew every ravine and mountain path, as well as every stream which they could ford. Being children of nature, inured to all sorts of hardship and accustomed to a simple life, sometimes going hungry for days, they had many advantages over the whites, who were much disconcerted by the swift and swollen streams and deep mountain fastnesses that confronted them on almost every hand. By this time the Trinidad Indians and those on Mad river and Little river began to desert their rancherias for the mountains. Not long after this a volunteer company of white men, composed of miners and others, killed Tharash, a bad Indian leader of great cunning and boldness. The war was now on, for the Indians were stealing cattle, robbing and murdering the white men, burning houses and running wild in general. There were at least three thousand five hundred of them, about half of them being armed with pistols, revolvers or guns.

        Orleans Bar was the scene of many bitter hostilities, and it was not long before two white men were killed and several were badly wounded in that vicinity, the Indians meantime growing bolder and bolder, and their boldness was accompanied by great treachery. Dunham and Proctor were killed while at work near Orleans Bar on their mining claims. Lamm and Johnson were wounded at the same time and in the same vicinity, the offenders being Red Cap Indians.
        Captain Judah arrived at this moment and opened negotiations with the friendlier of the Indians. He consulted the leaders of the mining men as well, and was of the opinion that peace might be obtained if the parties on both sides would listen to reason, but the miners were strongly for war, desiring if possible to exterminate their foes. About this time the Weitchpecs surrendered to Captain Judah. A company from Union, commanded by Reason Wiley and F. N. Johnson, arrived at the opportune moment. Peace failed, however, because Colonel Buchanan, a man of changing purpose and moods, ordered Captain Judah to return to Eureka. By reason of this unwise course an era of bloodshed that might have been prevented had Captain Judah been allowed to carry on his sensible plan, forthwith ensued.     The Salmon river miners, hearing of the trouble below, at once joined their Klamath brethren for the purpose of hunting the Red Men. The Salmon miners, however, refused to join in an indiscriminate attack on all tribes of Indians, as they were requested to do by their friends. They said that it would be the height of folly to attack all Indians, whether friendly or hostile. Strife arose between the miners because of these conflicting views, and this was greatly to the advantage of the Indians.

        Captain Buzelle and his company arrived on January 24, 1855, and at once prevented a number of miners from killing peaceable Indians. Capt. U. S. Grant, later of Civil War fame, was at that moment at the mouth of the Salmon river, where several tribes had surrendered to him. The military men, as a whole, Captain Grant co-operating with them, prevented a number of hot-headed men from massacring a number of friendly Indians. The same cool-headed military men confined the hostilities of the whites to a fight against the treacherous Red Caps, who were the leaders of the Indian forces.

        About this time Capt. F. M. Woodward and some of his men were led into an ambush by unfriendly guides whom they were obliged to kill. No harm was done to the soldiers, Woodward's party soon thereafter killing twenty warriors and taking almost as many prisoners of war.

        News of the war had by this time spread throughout the settlements of the county, and those living away from the hostilities made up their minds to do everything in their power to help the men in the field. Merchants immediately opened their stores to the fighters and to the volunteers who passed through Union and the other settlements, whereupon long pack trains of mules began to carry provisions to the mines. Mining was then a very risky business and was almost abandoned, for there was no safety whatever for the men engaged in it. Nobody could travel or work without the aid of armed guards. About this time some malcontents attacked a rancheria of friendly Indians and killed a number of them. This was a deplorable event. Some miners and others on New river, moved by a motive that surpasses our comprehension at this late day, and which the people of that time could not understand, sold firearms to the Indians, thereby causing the death of many brave pioneers. The events following may be briefly summarized in paragraphs as follows :

        March was a hard month of rain, snow, and heavy floods—no hope of relief from the governor or from the superintendent of Indian affairs. Both were indifferent. No representative of either the State or the Nation was on the ground to speak with authority, or nobody had been appointed to succeed Captain Judah.

Volunteers remained close to camp—only a little desultory fighting—occasional lonely cabins or miners in isolated positions were attacked and the miners were killed.

        The Hoopas and Weitchpecs, also some other Indians, offered to help the whites in their contest with the Red Caps, if the white men would protect the rancherias of the Indians while they were engaged in the warfare.

        April brought good news. F. G. Whipple was appointed Indian agent and he proved to be a man of considerable ability, and was honest. He was influential enough to have the commander at Fort Humboldt reassign Captain Judah to the command in the Klamath. The Indians believed in him, because he was a man of influence. He called a council of the friendly Indians and decided to do all he could to help the whites.

        By this time only about fifty Red Caps were left, but within twelve or fourteen days sixteen of them surrendered. Unfortunately, Captain Judah was again ordered to report to Eureka. It seems that a very curse of recalls followed this able man's footsteps. Captain Jones succeeded him, and Jones proved to be a very good man. He and Whipple at once started the Klamath reservation plans which proved successful for a time. The Red Caps, much reduced in number, consented to live on the reservation and were glad to accept reservation life as a good escape from the harassing position into which the whites had forced them.

        The miners, too, rejoiced because they were able to return to the bar and pursue their vocation without the danger of being killed.

        By 1856 the military authorities again showed signs of great negligence, and the Klamath tribes, growing restless under superstition, began to grow hostile again. They were swayed by superstitious beliefs of all kinds, and their imaginations were inflamed by reason of a number of earthquakes which then occurred. There was some excitement in the Hoopa Valley at this time and the reservation began to give evidence that it would be a complete failure.

        The Hoopa Indians were all good shots. There were two hundred of them, and it was the general opinion that they were more than the equal of any two hundred white men among the miners. Various tribes began to grow restless and hostile. For this reason a number of white families became so alarmed that they left and made their homes nearer the settlements around the bay. About this time a few cattle were killed by the hostile Indians at Angel's Ranch.

        Soon after this Captain Snyder was sent up to the Klamath to pacify the Indians. They had confidence in him and he explained that the white people desired to know that the restlessness of the Indians did not presage a general outbreak. The Indians soon surrendered a number of guns to him, and peace was assured for a long time. In August there was a little uprising on Redwood creek, but it did not amount to very much.

        Occasionally Indians were flogged for stealing or some other little offense of that kind, though some of the bolder pioneers, even then, would have hanged them to the first convenient tree. The whites were often in a perilous position because there were so few of them, also because the Indians were numerous and restless, appearing to be eager to exterminate their foes.

        The Indians often tried and sometimes succeeded in ambushing and even killing the settlers. The settlers, however, were rather wary and often escaped from being slain by using their brains and avoiding the snares of the Indians.

        A number of atrocities occurred here and there during those times—notably one or two in the Eel River Valley country. David and Adolphus Cooper were slain by Indians and their bodies were mutilated by the wolves, for example. They were two of a family of five brothers who had come from Canada and who had trusted the Indians a little too far.

        We cannot pause to give a minute description of the trying events of those times, and must hasten on to matters of more importance.

        We might take a little glance at the conditions surrounding a bold tribe known as the Win-toons. They were a desperate race of hardy Red Men who peopled the Bald Hills country and thronged in places remote from large streams. Bledsoe, the entertaining writer of Indian warfare, tells us that the Win-toons were a hardy race subsisting on game and nuts. As their principal occupation was hunting, unlike the lower or valley tribes who lived on fish, they early became accustomed to the use of firearms and were very clever shots. Even before Dr. Gregg and his notable company ascended the Trinity river there were a few guns in the possession of the higher mountain tribes of Indians, and when the valley Indians were using them ignorantly and with poor effect the Win-toons had become proficient in their use and this was anything but encouraging to travelers along the lonely trails.

        It may have been that their early acquaintance with the white men induced them to remain friendly as long as they did, for as long as they were friendly they could obtain firearms, also whiskey. For several years after the Klamath war they committed occasional depredations on the property of stock-raisers in the Bald Hills country, and when they saw their old hunting grounds deserted by the deer and the elk, the devil that is naturally in an Indian's composition began to assert itself. Revenge was sweet to the savage, no less than to the civilized man, and with a blind fury, characteristic of the race, theirs was then cruel and atrocious.

        About this time several men were murdered in the mountains, one on Trinity trail near Grouse creek. This was a murder of a very heinous character. About July 1 three companies volunteered to go out after the Indians on Redwood creek and the upper Mad river, for they had been acting in a very hostile manner, having attacked a Grouse creek rancheria. Murderous white men were also on the rampage in the wildest way imaginable. They had shot several Indian boys, also others, and were in the habit of looking upon the Indians as their legitimate prey. Unfortunately they were men of so depraved a nature that they had no respect whatever for the rights of the primitive inhabitants of the forest. They hunted down good looking young squaws as if the squaws had been mere animals created for their own enjoyment, and often forced these young women to submit to their passionate desires. A number of half white children resulted from these forays of the men who thus violated Indian maidens, who were often regarded as worthless creatures except for rapes of this character. It is said that bands of white men, consisting of three or four depraved wretches, would often catch a young squaw or two and detain them for several days or weeks at their cabins and then permit them to make their way home as best they could.

        All this naturally inflamed the Indian's desire for revenge and many murders of white men followed in the guerrilla warfare that resulted from this conduct. The Indians began to plan as best they could to circumvent their white foes. There were many lonely trails and canyons, veritable death traps, into which the Indians often lured their foes.

        While citizens were raising many volunteer companies for the purpose of attacking the Red Men, the Indians were far from idle. Mass meetings were being held among the white men at Union, but meetings in the woods were being held by the Indians. While the white men were discussing the question of exterminating the Indians, the Indians, on the other hand, were discussing the question of harassing the whites. At Union the sentiment for a time was that the only hope was in the total extermination of the Indians, but the Win-toons were also busy, and the plan to exterminate them seemed one that could not be carried out.

        The unprovoked murder of one Paul Boynton inflamed the white men and stirred them to action. About this time people were aroused by rumors of atrocities and decided to go along rational lines of warfare. Forty-eight soldiers, arrived from Fort Humboldt and this, unfortunately, checked the popular movement against the Indians and the entire result proved later to be rather disastrous to the whites and was in the nature of fuel added to the flames.

        Governor John P. Weller, sitting at Sacramento in comfort, was slow to act. A. Wiley, then editor and publisher of the Times, pleaded for help and showed the necessity for action, but even then the Governor did not call for volunteers, nor did he seem willing to do anything to help the settlers in the Northwest. Fort Humboldt, strangely, was equally slow and sleepy—a mass of inactivity and stupidity at Sacramento and the same at Fort Humboldt.

        Here a peculiar event occurred. Suddenly news came from some Indian that a horrible massacre had occurred. It was reported that hostile Indians had murdered many families of peaceable Indians in the Mad River country and that the tribes of Indians friendly to the whites were in great danger. It was reported that the women and children of the peaceable tribes were wholly at the mercy of the more ferocious of the Red Men. The people of Union and the surrounding country at once began to hunt everywhere possible for firearms, desiring to go to the aid of the Indians, but just as the settlers were about ready to go forth to rescue the friendly Indians it was discovered, by reports from some ranchers and others, also by news from a scouting party, that there was nothing in the story. It was either a joke or a lie started by a few stray Indians. Stories of this character were frequent and the public was often excited by all sorts of rumors.

        Finally, after a long period of warfare which we cannot describe more fully here, the war came to an end. Hard pressed and half famished, the Win­toons were forced to surrender, but not until many lives were lost on both sides. General Kibbe and his troops had suffered terrible hardships for five and a half months. The settlers and the state owed them much, for they came to the rescue many times when it was believed that little help, if any, would be afforded to the settlers. The state of California finally paid them $52,000 as a mark of appreciation of their services. The Win-toons went to their reservation, but did not remain there long in happiness. They began to feel the call of the wild and the desire to rove. They grew weary and began to desert the softer life of the reservation for the high country in the mountains, their native environment.

        As the situation developed the outlook for peace became more and more gloomy, for it was evident that neither the army nor the state would master the situation with any degree of celerity; but the effective work of Kibbe and his brave soldiers had now become only a memory. True, the Win-toons and others had been brought under the power of military force, and they knew that the military forces were strong when well directed, but the Indians were beginning to learn how to fight with their foes and they grew bolder as time wore on.

        A strong force like that which General Kibbe commanded could have suppressed the uprisings which were now inevitable, but the delay in paying volunteers, owing to the sleepiness and red-tape at Sacramento, had had an evil effect on the people and had warned the volunteers not to rush in where angels might fear to tread.

        About this time some of the bolder Indians began to commit murders in the Mattole valley and elsewhere. It was not long after this until the blankets, ammunition and arms of the murdered men were found on a rancheria and several Indians confessed that they had committed the deed. The case was one of peculiar atrocity, for the bodies of the murdered men were chopped up and thrown into the surf.

        It was evident that the only way that could be devised for rectifying these conditions would be for volunteers of the pioneers to go after the Indians without any hope of assistance or reward from the state. The news of these events spread throughout the county and caused a great deal of excitement, especially as the stories were exaggerated as they were passed along.

        By the beginning of February, however, there was a strong organization to go out and fight the Indians, and it was manifest that the Red Men were to be met with great firmness. In vain the volunteers appealed to Sacramento for arms, but no requisitions from the people in the lonely outpost of Humboldt were honored by the Governor at Sacramento. Not only was no attention paid to the petitions and the earnest oral requests, communicated by travelers who chanced to reach Sacramento, but the war claims, for some mysterious reasons, were not paid. Citizens who had rendered valuable services and furnished supplies in good faith, and where every consideration of honor and of public policy should have prompted Congress at Washington to make necessary appropriations to cover the losses, were doomed to disappointment. It is no wonder that Bledsoe tells us that the farmers and settlers, hemmed in by innumerable difficulties, exasperated and maddened beyond control, were prepared to sanction the most desperate enterprises if they contained even the slightest promise of relief.

        Those who live in Humboldt county today, isolated though it be, can have no appreciation of the terrible difficulties that confronted the pioneers of the first ten years in the history of Humboldt county. It was about this time that one of those mysterious leagues which are sometimes formed by civilized man was hatched and began to plan its awful work of destruction which was fated to be executed upon the Indians. It will be best to speak of this briefly and to say that on Saturday evening, February 25, 1860, the most remarkable massacre ever known in Humboldt county occurred on what was then known as Indian Island, being now known as Gunther's Island. More than two hundred Indians of all ages and of both sexes were engaged in worshiping, dancing, feasting, and enjoying themselves. Sometime during the night their stealthy foes, maddened beyond all imagination by knowledge of the treachery and continuous warfare that had harassed them, went to the island and killed every Indian there. When the sun rose on the morning of February 26 its bright rays shone on a scene of death and desolation. Old men and women lay dead with their heads split open or their hearts pierced with daggers or bullets, while by their side, young in life's great battle, boys and girls alike lay peacefully sleeping in the sleep of death. Terrible was the destruction which had fallen upon all these for the crimes that had been perpetrated during the year preceding.

        At other places throughout the county simultaneously similar deeds of violence had been perpetrated upon the Indians. At last the white men had become more barbarous than the savage, and every member of the mysterious league had sworn to keep the secret until his death. In the years that have passed no lip has ever whispered the story of the great massacres which then occurred. This deed excited great condemnation among a large class of the white people, but it stirred the Indians to the very depths of revenge and destroyed every hope of peace at that time. In the three massacres which then occurred more than three hundred Indians met their death, and the news of the uprising of the whites soon spread throughout the county. Immediately thereafter the county grand jury tried very hard to ascertain the names of the persons who were responsible for the killing of the Indian children and women, but their reports concluded that after a strict examination of all the witnesses nothing was elicited to enlighten them as to the perpetrators. They expressed their condemnation of what they called the outrage and regretted that their investigations met with a result so deplorable and absolutely void of facts.

        Three months of trouble and Indian warfare quickly followed in the wake of these massacres and some of the most terrible of all events of those times were then perpetrated by both sides in this warfare. It will thus be seen that the year 1860, while it was one of war for the nation, it was one of a peculiarly atrocious war for the people of Humboldt county. At no time during the year was there anything like an abatement of the difficulties which had so long confronted the settlers—difficulties of the character which have been described in these pages. The Indians began to leave the reservations for the Klamath country, and those in the Hoopa valley showed signs of dissatisfaction. Evidently there were many conferences among the Red Men and they had decided to do all they could to harass and avoid the whites. It was not long before hostile tribes throughout the county were on the warpath in deadly earnest. A veritable reign of death followed. Many murders were committed during the last half of the year and they left a profound impression on the people. The community was startled out of any idea of peace that might have been entertained at the beginning of the year, for the Indians had entered on a fanatical attempt to exterminate the white people or drive them from the settlement. This naturally caused the people to hold mass meetings and take more active measures against the Indians. A two years' war ensued and many bloody deeds characterized this fighting. The Hoopas were the leaders in the fight on behalf of the Red Men, and Captain Flynn of the United States Army has been given the credit for leading the first actual engagement of the war, which occurred a few days before the massacre at Stone Lagoon in April, at a place called Big Ben, on the North fork of Eel river.

        There was a notable raid at Trinidad, a terrible battle at Redwood creek, and a number of engagements between scouting parties and Indians followed. The mountaineers were the most active of the whites in pursuing the Indians at this time. They had enough to do when pack trains had to be escorted across the mountains and houses had to be guarded, for swiftly moving bands of savages had to be trailed over deserted hills and through dangerous canyons. The mountaineers proved themselves to be very effective, and it was through their able battling with the reds that victory finally came to the white men. August and September brought desolation and death to the whites and reds alike in the vicinity of the Trinity mines. Bledsoe's history gives a wonderfully interesting account of this two years' war, and the reader who may be interested is referred to it. Not only so, but Bledsoe's wonderfully interesting volume should be consulted by any person desiring to know more minutely the facts concerning the Indian wars of the northwestern part of California.

        We have given the foregoing account, with some local color, simply to give the reader a general idea of the conditions which confronted the pioneers who founded Humboldt county. In conclusion it may be well to give a view of the ideas entertained by those who have given careful consideration to the Indian question.

        It is the opinion of a number of investigators and men who have had a long and intimate acquaintance with the pioneers that the wars with Indians were caused very largely by the overbearing and criminal conduct of a comparatively few men. It is said that one of the most flagrant of the early incidents which led to the war was that of a man who attempted to assault a beautiful young Indian woman as she was going along with her boy. He allowed his passion to get the best of him and demanded that the woman yield to him. She refused and her son clung to her garments, whereupon the bully, made angry by the outcry of the boy, shot him down by his mother's side, after which he proceeded to carry her away to his tent. After this her people killed an ox and did some other deeds in revenge, and it was not long before the community was in an uproar. In speaking of these early Indian troubles, J. Ross Browne says : "I am satisfied, from an acquaintance of eleven years with the Indians, that had the least care been taken of them, these disgraceful massacres and wars would never have occurred. A more inoffensive and harmless race of beings does not exist on the face of the earth, but wherever they attempted to procure a subsistence they were hunted down; driven from the reservations from the instinct of self-preservation; shot down by the settlers upon the most frivolous pretexts, and abandoned to their fate by the only power that could afford them protection." The massacre of the Indians still continued, and in February, 1861, thirty-nine Diggers were killed by the settlers on main Eel river above the crossing of the old Sonoma trail. A few settlers at Kentinshaw, at the beginning of the winter, in order to avoid danger to their stock from snow, moved down on main Eel river at the point named. Not long thereafter some of them returned to look after their houses, and found that the Indians had destroyed all of them. Thereupon a company started in pursuit of the offenders, taking along some friendly Indians to assist them. They found the band that committed the damage and killed the Indians, to the number stated above. The Indians at once retaliated as best they could and the settlers were driven from the interior. It was estimated that nine thousand head of cattle were killed by the Indians. Another war was at once started in which local volunteers participated.

        For many years, it is evident, that the Indians of the state in general were abused and defrauded of their natural rights and sometimes cheated out of government bounties. Their domestic happiness was disturbed by lawless adventurers, and they were driven from their favorite fishing grounds and hunting places under a pretense of Indian hostilities, when the primary object in some cases was to get possession of choice locations and obtain money from the government for quelling disturbances. This statement will not apply as an indictment against the whole or even against a very large part of the early settlers; but it is known that there was a large number of unscrupulous men who acted as here indicated. It is not strange that these encroachments upon the natural rights of the Red Men aroused their passions and inflamed their savage nature into a veritable fire, until they were driven to become dangerous foes to the white race and forced to cause much suffering. For a long time they retarded the growth and prosperity of the country, but it has been a good many years since there was any outbreak.

        A little glance at the reservation question will show that under the act of Congress passed in 1864, it was provided that not more than four reservations should be set apart for Indians in California, and that these would be under two superintendents. The Hoopa valley, in Humboldt county, was of course one of the settlements.

        Congress, in July, 1868, authorized the abandonment of some Indian farms on Smith river in Del Norte county and removed the Indians to the Hoopa valley in Humboldt county. A resident of Humboldt county was employed, being an experienced mountaineer, well acquainted with the routes, to bring the Indians to the reservation in Humboldt county.

        The Hoopa reservation has an area of about thirty-eight thousand acres, and the valley is estimated to contain about two thousand five hundred acres of arable land. With the assistance of the Smith river reservation Indians, through systematic and expert operation, a large crop of grain and vegetables was raised in the valley soon after they came there. The reservation was under a fine state of cultivation almost immediately and the government report indicates that it is now one of the best in the country. Where all was once bloodshed and consternation, peace and plenty now prevail. Those wars and those times are now only a memory, yet they are a part of history.

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler.