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The Wiyot Massacre refers to the incidents on February 26, 1860, at Tuluwat on what is now known as Indian Island, near Eureka in Humboldt County, California.
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Immigrant settlers had settled in the area since the California Gold Rush, over the 10 years before the massacre. The Wiyot were a peaceful tribe that had never fought with white settlers and had no reason to expect an attack.[1]
To avoid drawing attention from nearby Eureka residents, some of whom may not have condoned the genocidal killings, the attackers primarily used hatchets, clubs and knives. Contrary to a commonly held view, guns were used to murder Indians, according to Professor Jack Norton Sr.'s seminal book titled "Genocide in Northwestern California: When Our Worlds Cried." In fact, in that book, Norton said that some Eureka residents reported hearing several shots that night but knowledge of the genocidal acts were not widely known at the time.
Based upon Wiyot Tribe estimates, 80 to 250 Wiyot men, women, and children were murdered. Because most of the adult able-bodied men were away gathering supplies as part of continuing preparation for the World Renewal Ceremony, nearly all the Wiyot men murdered are believed to have been older men, which is one reason why the Wiyot were largely defenseless. It is untrue to say the Wiyot were killed with ease because they were "exhausted from the annual celebration." The celebration usually lasted seven to 10 days, and the men traditionally left at night for the supplies while the elders, women and children slept. That is why most victims were children, women and elder men.
Arcata's local newspaper, the Northern Californian, described the scene as follows:
Blood stood in pools on all sides; the walls of the huts were stained and the grass colored red. Lying around were dead bodies of both sexes and all ages from the old man to the infant at the breast. Some had their heads split in twain by axes, others beaten into jelly with clubs, others pierced or cut to pieces with bowie knives. Some struck down as they mired; others had almost reached the water when overtaken and butchered.[2]
There were few survivors. One woman, Jane Sam, survived by hiding in a trash pile. Two cousins, Matilda and Nancy Spear, hid with their three children on the west side of the island and later found seven other children still alive. A young boy, Jerry James, was found alive in his dead mother's arms. Polly Steve was badly wounded and left for dead, but recovered. One of the few Wiyot men on the island during the attack, Mad River Billy, jumped into the bay and swam to safety in Eureka.[1] Another woman, Kaiquaish (also known as Josephine Beach) and her eleven month old son William survived by not being on the island in the first place. Kaiquaish had set out in a canoe with her son to take part in the ceremonies, but became lost in the fog and was forced to return home before the attacks began.[3]
The Tuluwat/Indian Island massacre was part of a coordinated simultaneous attack that targeted other Wiyot sites around Humboldt Bay, including an encampment on the Eel River. Though the attack was widely condemned in newspapers outside of Humboldt County, no one was ever prosecuted for the murders.[4] One writer in nearby Union (now Arcata, California), the then-uncelebrated Bret Harte, wrote against the killers and would soon need to leave the area due to the threats against his life. Several local citizens also wrote letters to the San Francisco papers condemning the attacks and naming suspected conspirators.[5]
Motive for the attacks was never clearly established. The local sheriff, Barrant Van Ness, stated in a newspaper editorial published in the San Francisco Bulletin a few days after the massacre that the motive was revenge for cattle rustling. Ranchers in the inland valleys claimed as much as one-eighth of their cattle had been stolen or slaughtered by Indians over the previous year, and one rancher, James C. Ellison, was killed while pursing suspected rustlers in May 1859. However, the area where the ranches were located was occupied by the Nongatl tribe, not the Wiyot, so the victims of the massacre would not have been responsible for any rustling. Van Ness closed his written statement by saying he did not excuse the killers for their deeds.[6]
Major Gabriel J. Rains, Commanding Officer of Fort Humboldt at the time, reported to his commanding officer that a local group of vigilantes had resolved to "kill every peaceable Indian - man, woman, and child."[7] The vigilantes, calling themselves the Humboldt Volunteers, Second Brigade, had been formed in early February 1860 in the inland town of Hydesville, one of the ranching communities in the Nongatl area. They spent most of February "in the field" attacking Indians along the Eel River. A petition had been sent to California Governor John G. Downey asking that the Humboldt Volunteers be mustered into service and given regular pay.[8] Downey declined the petition, stating that the U.S. Army was sending an additional Company of Regulars to Fort Humboldt.[1]
The Wiyot Tribe said the Wiyot people were not allowed to return to the island or their other land, and they often found their land stolen and/or destroyed. Soldiers from Fort Humboldt took many of the surviving Wiyot into protective custody at the fort, later transporting them to the Klamath River Reservation.[9] Recently, the Wiyot have been repurchasing the land in order to perform their annual World Renewal Ceremony.[10]
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