Our Fathers
(Feb. 25, 2010) It’s still hard for some locals to accept that 150 years ago — five generations, a historical blip — Humboldt County was controlled by genocidaires. Our illustrious forefathers, the settlers of this county, were, in large part, twisted, scheming, evil men. They murdered the original people of this place for their own private gain, ruthlessly and sometimes whimsically, and they terrorized those among their own number who showed signs of conscience or dissent. They ruled through fear.
Despite overwhelming historical evidence, some of us nitpick this characterization or deny it outright. Some of us are still in the habit of seeking loopholes and half-excuses for the figures whose names sully our maps. We know this from experience; the last time the Journal published a history that told a piece of this story, many angry telephone conversations ensued.
This is a strange and unhealthy state of affairs. Our theory is that it results from a warped understanding of community. There is still, with some people, a sense of the word “we” that takes in folks who left this Earth many years ago. Some of us claim kinship — familial, racial or spiritual — with the most murderous of the Humboldt County pioneers, and for that reason rush to their defense when the old stories are told honestly.
A civilization that can’t confront its history is not a civilization. Therefore, the Journal proposes the following general principle, and places it up for discussion: No one gets take credit for their ancestors’ accomplishments, and no one has to accept blame for their sins. But if you want the credit, then you have to take the blame. That seems fair enough, and it allows enough space for honest accounts of how we — the living — came to inherit our world.
This week marks the 150th anniversary of the Indian Island Massacre, the most notorious of the many Rwanda-style bloodbaths that the early rulers of Humboldt County undertook against native people. And so the Journal is honored, as it has been in the past, to publish the research of historian Jerry Rohde, who for the first time names some of the pioneers involved in planning and carrying out the slaughter. More than that, he uncovers their motive, which is even more ignoble than had been previously imagined, and he unearths the surprising stories of the massacre’s survivors.
This is Rohde’s third story for the Journal. He is doing some of the most important work in Humboldt County today. If you missed his previous two stories when they came out, you should rectify that error now. “Ricks to the Rescue” (April 13, 2006) is about the early battle between Eureka and Arcata for dominance over Humboldt Bay, replete with backstabbing and dirty politics. “The Sonoma Gang” (Sept. 11, 2008) tells the tale of another set of Indian-killers who founded the city of Arcata, and of the civilized people who tried to resist them. In addition to their eye-opening insight into life as it was lived back then, both are excellent reads.
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On a lighter note: Some members of the extended NCJ family will be invading KHSU’s Thursday Night Talk this week to discuss the last days of the printed word. “Media Maven” columnist Marcy Burstiner will host “Dirt” columnist Amy Stewart and pinch-hitting Town Dandy Scott Brown for a “lively discussion” — Burstiner’s words — about books and bookstores and fabulous new electronic tablet-like reading technology.
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13 Comments
Comment / By Richard / Feb. 25, 7:38 p.m.
As someone who did not grow up in the area and who read the local history shortly after arriving, I was appalled by the accounts of the Indian Island Massacre. It seemed unreal that an incident with such a high number of deaths could be not much more than a local historical footnote. I thought the massacre should be as well known as Wounded Knee, especially considering more individuals were murdered here. I still feel this history should be known and understood not deigned. But ( and that is a big but) I do feel we must be careful. These things happened and the descendants of the victims and the perpetrators as well as those with no blood tie to the place from that time all must live together here today. We cannot choose our history and history can be a burden, witness the Middle East.
Tomorrow is a new day and what are we going to do to make this a good place for us all to live?
Comment / By Kym / Feb. 25, 7:44 p.m.
Jerry Rhode’s piece describes the horror of the North Coast accurately and your description of the founders as genocidal is true (at least in many cases) but I have to take issue with the term “evil.”
Vilifying an act as evil is an important part of learning to make judgments about right and wrong. Vilifying people as evil makes it too damn easy to pretend that we are never in danger of walking the dark paths ourselves…
Comment / By Ernie’s Place / Feb. 25, 8:52 p.m.
Don’t you dare lecture me Hank. As everybody knows you are a good and prolific writer, in fact sometimes you put too much in print.
Hank Simms quote: “…I admit that Alta California was going to fall sometime. It’s just a shame that it had to fall to the worst human refuse North America had to offer at the time. My only consolation is that my uncle Jose Antonio smote their backup but good in the Battle of Dominguez Rancho … and yet still survived to serve as one of the voices of the Californio block at the state Constitutional Convention, alongside his good buddy Stearns!” September 5, 2009 9:38 PM
Hank it was your proud Alta Californians that Pierce Asbill, from Hettenshaw Valley, traded his Indian women and kids to for Spanish horses, but you probaly meant to say that.
Your roots go a little to deep in the slime of California history to be riding around on any Spanish high horses!
Comment / By Hank Sims / Feb. 26, 10:46 a.m.
Ernie, I will forever rue the day that I took at face value the idea that your blog was about “bullshistory.”
Kym: You write on your blog that …
I have come to realize that people are capable of a huge range of actions – both good and evil – and to label a person good or evil limits your understanding of them…and of yourself.
… which is where I take issue, I suppose. I would say that there’s really not that much to understand about evil people. They’re living out the oldest, basest and most boring story in the world.
Comment / By Charley / Feb. 26, 1:07 p.m.
Hank, I appreciate your reverence for truth—whatever that is. The historical error you may be indulging in is to blanket judgment upon the people of one time using the mores of another.
On the other hand, right now, today, our culture kills with just as much impunity and indifference as you decry 150 years ago. We use Tomahawk missiles instead of tomahawks nowadays, but I think you’ll agree that’s a quibble. We don’t even count the corpses anymore, because numbers are more controversial than mere bloody facts. That’s us.
Is our society “twisted, scheming, evil”? Quite arguably. But I won’t convince anyone of this merely by saying so. I have to be more subtle, less offensive, than that. So do we all, as we try to appeal to the better angels of our natures.
Now, I don’t know how to do that, or even if it’s possible. But name-calling is my last refuge when reasoning has failed. It doesn’t help—but as history shows, little else works either. So I surrender: thanks for telling the truth!
Comment / By kym / Feb. 26, 3:09 p.m.
Hank, I think Charley said it well (as did Joe on my blog) We kill with missiles and drones. Does that make us evil? Does that make the soldier that pushes the button evil?
Is their act evil—in my opinion, yes. But are they wholly evil—absolutely, not, in fact, they may be kind, hard-working, brave, and otherwise admirable. I might even do what they do if I don’t watch where I walk. That I think is the lesson we should from learn from the North Coast genocides. We, as a country, blithely kill innocents, in the name of national security. My ancestor (and yours too, in some other time and place, I guarantee it as a genealogist) did it in the name of personal security. Which is worse?
Comment / By Hank Sims / Feb. 26, 8:02 p.m.
A). War and genocide are different things.
B). The massacre was not down to a matter of “personal security,” as Jerry Rohde showed.
Comment / By Kym / Feb. 27, 9:28 a.m.
War and genocide are different things (but damn they can be closely related at times.) The settlers of the North Coast (I am not apologizing for the murders, the slavery, the pure out evil they committed) however, obviously felt they were in a war —see the photo I embedded in the blog post.
Rohde did beautiful working adding to the knowledge of what was going on then. But it is always a mistake to blanket apply one motive to a group of people. I’m sure he would agree that there was more than just money involved. There was fear for personal safety, there was fear for financial security, there was racial bigotry, there were twisted personal reasons, etc.
Just as there are now. In the Iraqi “war” for instance, many senators voted for war because they believed there were weapons of mass destruction and they needed to protect the US. In a sense, they were voting to attack Iraq because they perceived that country as having equal weapons to us. How is that going to be perceived by our descendants?
Comment / By Thirdeye / Feb. 27, 3:54 p.m.
@kim: It will be perceived badly, not as a matter of evil but as a matter of cowardice and suspension of better judgment.
The effort to deceive Congress with concocted evidence for WMD will be, and is, perceived as evil. The “security” excuse is commonplace when war is waged with the objective of controlling another country’s resources.
Comment / By unanonymous / March 1, 10:18 a.m.
While it is important to learn from the past, to interpret the past using the philosophies of the present is misleading. The world was a different place, for right or wrong, people were different. To use the history of the past to judge those of the present regardless of their actions, is scapegoating.
Comment / By hugh / March 4, 5:21 p.m.
Dear Mr. Sims; For many (20) years I have been doing some amateur research on this subject due to an item I have. Do you have a e-mail address or phone number for Mr. Rhodes? There is an inscription on it including a couple of names I have been trying to track down. This was truely a horrific event, but one that has been done time and time again to native peoples (and is still going on in some parts of the world). Thank You for any help you can be.
Comment / By Hank Sims / March 4, 6:17 p.m.
Hugh — e-mail me your contact info: hanksims@northcoastjournal.com.
Comment / By Joel Mielke / March 9, 8:23 p.m.
“…to interpret the past using the philosophies of the present is misleading.”
Poor Unanonymous. He’s feeling sorry for Colonel Custer.