Indian Island Massacre Excused

"Now, they are heavy taxpayers, and they are losing all they possess. So, they get desperate, and perhaps are prompted to deeds of desperation."

Van Ness, B.

"The Humboldt Bay Massacre-Statement of the Sheriff of Humboldt County" in the March 31, 1860, issue of the National Intelligencer, a newspaper published in Washington, D.C.

On the evening of Saturday, February 25, 1860, a small group of men sailed into Humboldt Bay, landed on Indian Island, and attacked an encampment of Wiyots. At least fifty and perhaps as many as eighty people were killed, mostly women and children. The Wiyots were butchered with knives and axes within earshot of the residents of Eureka, who later expressed outrage but did nothing at the time. Humboldt County Sheriff B. Van Ness did nothing to investigate the Indian Island massacre or the other massacres carried out in nearby communities that bloody weekend, virtually exterminating the Wiyot tribe in the space of 48 hours. In fact, Van Ness quickly sailed for San Francisco and offered an explanation for the massacres to the San Francisco Bulletin. It is this explanation that is reprinted here. 

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The sheriff blames a weak commander at Fort Humboldt and the army's inability to prevent some Indians from poaching cattle. A group of ranchers and other settlers banded together and put themselves (apparently) at the service of the Fort Humboldt commander.

Van Ness writes, "Immediate action is necessary; they equip themselves—expecting to be called into service at an early day; they get but little encouragement. Now, they are heavy taxpayers, and they are losing all they possess. So, they get desperate, and perhaps are prompted to deeds of desperation. I state these facts, not as an apology for the bloody deed, but to serve to modify somewhat the censure which should be cast upon the perpetrators of this terrible massacre on Humboldt bay." Without a doubt, the direct victims of the massacre were not involved in cattle rustling.

The newspaper has old folds, which are starting to split. One split affects a single word in the story. Contemporary accounts of this holocaust—one of the most brutal and one-sided attacks on Native Americans in the long, sad history of Anglo-Indian relations in the United States—are rare.

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