Bloody Island
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Places titled Bloody Island Listed chronologically
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[edit] Missouri
Bloody Island was a sand bar in the Mississippi River, opposite St. Louis, Missouri, which became densely wooded and a rendezvous for duelists. Appearing first above water in 1798 its continuous growth menaced the harbor of Saint Louis. In 1837 Capt. Robert E. Lee, of U.S.A. Engineers, devised and established a system of dikes and dams that washed out the western channel and ultimately joined the island to the Illinois shore.
Source: Dictionary of American History by James Truslow Adams, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940
External link: RiverWebSM - Further details on the formation and elimination of Bloody Island.
[edit] California
[edit] Lake County, California
Bloody Island is the name of an island in Clearlake in Lake County, California where several hundred Native Pomo American men, women and children were massacred by U.S. troops in 1850.[citation needed]
[edit] Humboldt County, California
Bloody Island is the name of an island in Humboldt Bay, CA in Humboldt County, where about one hundred Native American Wiyot men, women and children were massacred during a World Renewal Ceremony on February 26, 1860. The massacre was carried out by European immigrants who had 'settled' in the area beginning in the 1850 gold rush era. The massacre was particularly grizzly because the men who paddled over to the island only used hatchets, clubs and knives to murder their victims. They purposefully avoided using their guns so that local residents in the nearby town of Eureka, CA (several hundred yards away across Humboldt Bay) could not hear the slaughter. Only one person, an infant, survived the event. His name was Jerry James.
The island is now known by two names, Indian Island and Gunther Island. Indian Island gained the name due to the Wiyot peoples inhabitation and Gunther Island gained the name due to the name of the person who bought the island after the Wiyot were murdered.
