Legacy of slavery in California

Native Children on the Hoopa Reservation

 

I started this blog just before the Hoopa Tribal Chair was arrested in an incident involving an argument, a gun, and a family member or two (see article ).

While the incident was shocking and sad for all involved, thankfully no one got hurt, physically.  Emotionally it may have been a different story, and not just for the family and the tribal members involved.    Comments from readers of the Times Standard article ranged from sympathetic  to racist and hate- filled.  

It was unbelievable and far too familiar.  These were the same ignorant , misguided, judgemental beliefs that caused such suffering here so many years ago when the whites came in and marginalized the indigenous people.      

Last night  Patricia Whitelily commented that even now being Native American is  looked at as a deficit by some people,  and though I’d really like to argue with her,  some of the evidence falls in her favor.

Problems with the Klamath Reservation didn’t stop ‘em

Mouth of the Klamath

Continued from yesterday’s post.

There were problems with the Klamath location for an Indian reservation, which were pointed out by those outside of Humboldt County. 

New Klamath Reservation–  We had the pleasure a few days since of perusing a private letter from one of the deputies of the Indian agent of the Northern part of the State, dated at the Indian Reserve, near the mouth of the Klamath River.  He thinks the place is a bad selection, and wholly unfit for the purpose intended.  This is [not] the first time this opinion has been expressed in relation to the Klamath Reserve.  The valley, or rather valleys, are narrow, skirting along the river for several miles, separate by spurs of mountains, intersecting the river at various points.  These valley are (unknown word, likely “not” ) adapted to cultivation and game is scarce.  If the Indians have to obtain subsistence by fishing, the Government had better leave them… unmolested.–~Trinity Journal

Response from the Humboldt Times…

The beginnings of the Klamath Reservation

Later photo at the Klamath Reservation

Continued from yesterday’s post…

As time went on, the settlers became “desperate”.   Cattle  were dying, after all.  In the settlers’ minds, that was certainly enough cause to threaten mass murder.

Humboldt Times, June 16, 1855-Re: Incompetent Indian Agent –Henley -Col. Henly—to the San Francisco Herald, we acknowledge .. indebted for the aid.. in search of said officer, the Superintendent of Indians in California.  Rumor has it that there is such an office… He has been written to, beseeched and entreated to take some steps to relieve our section of the troublesome Indians that infest it… Such a state of affairs cannot last, our citizens will be compelled to take up arms and exterminate every Indian against which suspicions are directed.  To the “memorable seven” at Orleans Bar, we are more than half inclined to tender an apology for our castigation for their course, and in doing so divest ourselves of that sympathy and pity we once entertained for the Indian [author’s note, I so wish I knew what this refers to…]

 

In response, most likely, to the citizens’ cries for “help”, the Federal government chose an area at the mouth of the Klamath River for a new reservation.  It was, put bluntly, the crappiest location around, and unlikely to be wanted to white settlers in the near future, if ever.  At the Klamath, the natives would be “safe” and out of the way of encroaching whites.   

 

Indian Reserves, Part 1

 

After the Indian Island Massacre,    the surviving natives living along the bay were forced to abandon their homes and walk miles over rough terrain to the Klamath Reservation,   where they would be “safe” and out of the way.

 The reservation system in Humboldt County was initially developed to separate the “troublesome” natives from the white settlers.  Actually,  it was more to remove the indigenous people from rich agricultural land so that the whites could have full reign of the resources, but I want to believe that not everyone was motivated by greed. It seems at least some were convinced that forced isolation was the only way to protect the Indians.   The problem was that few people were willing to give up any valuable real estate to save them…

 Humboldt Times, April 28, 1855-Against a Hoopa Reservation –Indian Reservation—A correspondent made an inquiry of us as to the object sought to be gained by the establishment of an Indian Reservation in Hoopa Valley.  We do not know what the special agent has done or intends to do… There are fine locations to the north of us, at or near the mouth of the Klamath, or south of us on the Mattole, both far away from the whites, while a reservation in Hoopa is in the midst of what will be, in a year of two, a dense population both of farmers and miners. Hoopa is, and will always continue to be the great thoroughfare hence to the Salmon, and consequently there will always be difficulties between the Indians and whites.  The Indians will steal and white men will punish them. Bad whites are always to be found who cannot be prevented from maltreating them.  They will be only ten miles from the scene of their murders and butcheries, which are not forgotten or forgiven.  The two races cannot live together and they should be taken away from any association with white men…. we cannot believe that the agent will commit himself to a measure calculated to be so unpopular with the people and at the same time so expensive, as it will ultimately be to the United States, in keeping soldiers to protect the Indians.

 

To be continued…

Lessons never learned

Recently US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to a refugee camp in the Congo and was horrified to learn that rape is common there and in the towns, sometimes perpetrated against children as young as four.  Clinton, of course, is calling for action to address this appalling problem.

According to the BBC, from 1998 to 2003 armies from several countries fought each other on Congolese territory, resulting in an estimated four million deaths and rampant sexual violence.  The violence has continued over the years, and troops and rebels have continued to abuse women and children.

Clinton told the BBC’s Network Africa programme that she met a woman who was with her two children, ages 12 and 14, in their home when they were attacked. “She begged the rebels to rape her children first and finish with her because she had HIV/Aids. But she was crying because they didn’t listen.”

 I’ve included that last paragraph, not for shock value… actually, yes, for shock value,  because I don’t know that even I truly understood the horror of what I was reading until I read that. It should bring any reader to tears.  I am crying now.

Yurok Children

 This is happening now. Today.  And I’ve posted it here because it does make me wonder sometimes at the value of history. If we are capable of learning.  One hundred and fifty two years ago, two white men went to the reservation on the Klamath River (reservation = prison or refugee camp) intent on finding and raping young Native girls.