Bald Hills War

Bald Hills War (1858–1864) was a war fought by the forces of the California Militia, California Volunteers and soldiers of the U. S. Army against the Chilula, Lassik, Hupa, Mattole, Nongatl, Sinkyone, Tsnungwe, Wailaki, Whilkut and Wiyot Native American peoples.^[2]

The war was fought within the boundaries of the counties of Mendocino, Trinity, Humboldt, Klamath, and Del Norte in Northern California. During the American Civil War, Army reorganization created the Department of the Pacific on January 15, 1861, and on December 12, 1861, the Humboldt Military District, which was formed to organize the effort to pacify the hostile Indians and protect the peaceful ones from the encroachment of the American settlers. The district was headquartered at Fort Humboldt,^[3] (which is now a California State Historic Park located within the City of Eureka, California). The District's efforts were directed at waging the ongoing Bald Hills War against the Indians in those counties.

The war began with conflicts between native people and local settlers and travelers on the pack mule trails between Humboldt County and Trinity County in Klamath County on upper Redwood Creek and the Bald Hills. William C. Kibbe, appointed Isaac G. Messec as Captain of the newly organized California Militia company, the Trinity Rangers. Messec led that unit in the Klamath & Humboldt Expedition against the Whilkut people during the fall and winter of 1858-1859. Following indecisive fighting, severe winter weather forced an end to the so-called Wintoon War, and the starving Whilkut were forced to capitulate and were removed to the Mendocino Indian Reservation under the eye of Fort Bragg.^[4]

Despite the end of the Wintoon War, the causes of conflict spread the warfare to the Chilula, southward to the Eel River Athapaskan peoples and the Mattole in the Mattole River Valley and Bear River Valley. Additionally the Whilkut gradually returned from the south to their lands. The U. S. Army established Fort Gaston among the Hupa people on the Trinity River and later posts in the Eel River valley to keep the peace in the area. Federal troops were unable to adequately protect the settlers from attacks by native raiders. Settlers dispersed over the countryside were on the losing side of this irregular warfare.

A local militia was formed in mid 1859, the Hydesville Volunteer Company. However, it was never given State approval as a militia unit or funding and had to disband in January 1860. The localities were financially not up to the task of maintaining the militia, and the State did not support them, seeing it as a Federal responsibility. Trying again the Humboldt Volunteers was formed as a state militia unit, in early February 1860. However on February 26, 1860 some of the settlers lashed out at the peaceful coastal Wiyot people in the Indian Island Massacre. Some of the members of the Volunteers were implicated in the Massacre, and the unit was disbanded in late 1860. Gradually many settlers were compelled to abandon their ranches and farms and take shelter at the coastal settlements between 1860 and 1862.

In late 1861 the Federal troops were recalled to the east to fight in the American Civil War. Elements of California Volunteer Regiments raised to replace Federal troops during the Civil War were sent to the newly formed Humboldt Military District under Col. Francis J. Lippitt. They established a number of posts to protect the settlers, but the troops raised outside the rugged Northwest were at first unsuited to conditions there, and failed to defeat the native peoples.^[5] However continued aggressive patrolling finally yeilded results. Lassic and his band were driven to surrender on July 31, 1862, at Fort Baker. More of his warriors came in on August 10 and the 212 captured Indians at Fort Baker were sent to join 462 others at Fort Humboldt and held for a time in the makeshift prison created out on the Samoa Peninsula in Humboldt Bay. In September, 834 Indians were then sent on the steamship SS Panama to the Smith River Indian Reservation near Crescent City. Seemingly the war was being won.

However, in early October Lassic and three hundred natives, mostly warriors had escaped the Smith River Reservation,^[6] followed by the exodus of more natives from the Reservation through November. Things were now no better than they were before Lippitt's campaign began.

During 1863 and 1864, the so-called Two Years War, the conflict was brought to an end. Col. Lippett was relieved on July 13, 1863 by Lieutenant Colonel Stephen G. Whipple of the 1st Battalion California Volunteer Mountaineers, a former indian agent, local politician and newspaper editor, who advocated a more active execution of the war with men raised from among the local settlers used to the hardships of war in the redwood forests. Under his command of the Humboldt District he began a more active campaign of unrelenting extended patrolling and skirmishing by all the units of California Volunteer soldiers. Henry M. Black filled in while Whipple served in the Assembly for a few months, and maintained the operations that killed or captured many of the native people. Whipple's operations finally compelled most of the tribes to make peace in August, 1864. However, some operations continued into late 1864 before hostilities ceased completely. California Volunteers remained in local garrisons until mustered out following the end of the Civil War in 1865. ^[7]

See also

• California in the American Civil War
• Klamath and Salmon River Indian War (1855)

References

• The California State Military Museum, Historic California Posts: Fort Humboldt
• The War of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies, Volume 27, Part 1, CHAPTER LXII. Operations on the Pacific Coast, January 1,1861 — June 30, 1862, United States. War Dept.
• The War of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies, Volume 35, Part 1, CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS ON THE PACIFIC COAST FROM JULY 1, 1862, TO JUNE 30, 1865. By United States. War Dept, Robert Nicholson Scott, Henry Martyn WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, 1897.
• Records of California men in the war of the rebellion 1861 to 1867, By California. Adjutant General's Office, SACRAMENTO: State Office, J. D. Young, Supt. State Printing. 1890.
• Anthony Jennings Bledsoe, Indian wars of the Northwest: A California sketch, Bacon & Company, San Francisco, 1885.
• Theodore Henry Hittell, History of California, Volume 3, J. N. Stone, San Francisco, 1898. Book X, Chapter XII Treatment of Indians(continued) pp.912-936
• Early Trails of Southwestern Trinity County, Thomas S. Keter, May 1998 (Submitted to the Trinity County Historical Society)(Reedited and published on solararch.org February 2009)

External links

• Map of tribes around the Hoopa Reservation Created by C.Hart Merriam, United States B.A.E., Original in United States National Archives, Washington DC
• The California State Military Museum: California and The Indian Wars