Dear Arcata,
I didn’t want to do this by letter but I know if I try to get this all out in person, I’ll freeze up. We’ve had a good run together — a century! — and I just think it’s time to move on. For a while now I’ve felt — what’s the word? Stuck.
Getting shot in the gut makes a man think. And I’ve had 112 years up here to mull things over. Anybody who says they have no regrets is nuts. Before you fight me on that, let’s remember I had a front row seat when you got tossed from Everett’s for clogging up the jukebox with Def Leppard. Yeah. Just be glad nobody cast you in bronze while you were wearing that sleeveless half shirt. Meanwhile I’m over here drowning in a long coat that makes me look like that shrimp James Madison.
Listen, it’s not you; it’s me. I’ve changed. Maybe after gazing down at a couple dozen war protests and homeless veterans sleeping rough at my feet I’m feeling a little less hawkish, less reckless about human life. Maybe standing in the middle of Wiyot land and seeing first-hand the murder and misery my policies wrought, I’m not so proud. And yet here I am, frozen with this look of conviction on my face and the Women’s Peace Vigil over there judging. Yeah, I know you’re over there, ladies. Every goddamn week.
We’ve had some good times together, Arcata, but it hasn’t all been family picnics on the grass. I’ve been egged, climbed and covered in Silly String, strewn with condoms and dressed up like a purse dog. I’ve lost count of the number of penises that have been drawn on me. Losing your thumb and standing stock still while people hunt for it like a bronze Easter egg isn’t dignified, folks. And I’ll tell you something else — the thumb they soldered back on my hand? Not mine. I think I know my own damn thumb.
The rain out here is terrible. And so is the endless parade of dudes with poi sticks. And when some guy on the plaza starts talking about chem trails, maybe you can brush him off but I can’t escape. I’m literally welded in place for the whole fucking spiel. For the love of God, let me go.
When I was younger and, you know, alive, I was more ambitious. Now I wish I’d just coasted through my term, cut the ribbon on the presidential library, maybe done a little public speaking. If I hadn’t gotten shot, I could have slipped into the mists of history between Roosevelt and Lincoln. I could have gone out like Chester A. Arthur or Millard Fillmore — the ones they skip in school plays. They’re not on money and only the hardcore nerds remember them, much less all the bad shit they did. And those two? Both assholes. I mean that on a historical and personal level because between you and me, even in the afterlife they’re pretty smug for a couple of guys named Chester and Millard. But have you seen a statue of them? No. So nobody’s coming after them for the Chinese Exclusion Act or enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. Those bastards have it made.
I hear there’s a petition going around and a group of concerned citizens out to keep me right where I am. Hey, I’m flattered, but we’ve both got to move on. Ask yourself — and remember this is me you’re talking to — how much do you really care about me, like, for me? I mean, you just didn’t seem that into me until you heard I might leave. Do you even like me as a sculpture? I’ve seen how you look at that giant flaming octopus. Is it possible you’re holding on this tightly because deep down you know it’s over? We both deserve better than that. I may not be perfect but I deserve to be in a museum or a weird private home or a mini golf course that really wants me, not just a symbol of a past that felt comfortable for you.
Frankly, some of the guys rooting for us to stay together are creeping me out. First that debate team dropout Tucker Carlson on Fox News came out Team McKata, then Karl Rove poked his head out of his haunted mansion to croak out his support. Does it not bother you that a professional racist like Richard Spencer is in our cheering section? I’d punch him myself if I thought this thumb would hold.
Arcata, we’ve got history and that’s not going away. Where we go from here is part of our history, too. You’re still a fun, attractive town and there are plenty of other statues out there for who you are now, who’ll grow with you. I’ll take the blame for our breakup since what I did in life, hey, that’s on me. But you’ve got to take me off this pedestal.
Sincerely,
Bronze President McKinley
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at 442-1400, extension 320, or Jennifer@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @JFumikoCahill.
Got a humorous take or tale to share? Then the North Coast Journal wants to hear from you. Contact us at editor@northcoastjournal.com to pitch your column ideas.
This article appears in One Year Later.
A century-overdue reparations plan to the Wiyot people may see a legal challenge in 2018, if local businessman
Rob Arkley gets his way.
The internet blew up in August of 2017 when Arkley went on a local talk radio station to muse about the city of Eureka’s ongoing negotiation to return Tuluwat to the Wiyot Tribe.
Also known as `Indian Island, was the site of a shameful massacre in 1860 that saw a group of Eurekans murder about 160 mostly Wiyot women and children.
Apparently the tribe had lived on that island for thousands of years.
A subsequent public records request from the Journal turned up a series of emails in which Arkley harangues City Manager Greg Sparks about the estimated market value of the island, which he says should be put up for a public bid … so he can buy it.
Arkley also suggests the city should put the question of whether to auction off the island on the ballot next year.
Because of nondisclosure agreements, we don’t know where negotiations stand between the tribe and the city.
But whether the city follows through with what’s right or there’s a ballot measure on the subject, it’s a safe bet the story will land back on this list next year.
Arkly must be stopped..!!!! Silence will not suffice..
For more than 150 years one tragic event has dominated the history of Native and foreigner relationships in Humboldt County.
The massacre of the WIYOT PEOPLES
..On the night of 26 Feb 1860, a small group of settlers crossed sunbelt bay to avoid drawing attention from the nearby Eureka residents, the bulk of whom may not have condoned the killings , carried out primarily with hatchets clubs and knives.
The village of Tolowot or Tuluwat on Duluwat Island was the site of the spiritual if not the political center of the Wiyot people.
The had lived there for such a long time that they changed the topography , in part due to the process known as shell mounding.
The Wiyot had survived from subsistence fishery management in the same location for at least 7000 years.
Arcatas local news paper the `northern Californian, described the carnage that followed..
`Blood stood in pools on all sides; the walls of the huts were stained and the grass coloured 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 had almost reached the water when overtaken and butchered.
The vigilantes who called themselves the Humboldt Volunteers, second Brigade, had been formed in early February 1860 and had vowed to;
kill every peaceable Indian-man-women-and child.
About 150 peaceful Natives died that night.
Almost all were women and children, as the men had left for Harvesting elsewhere.
Many others from the Wiyot tribe who were LIVING in different locations
were also slaughtered that week.
The Humboldt times reported
`The law works beautifully.. We hear of many others who are having them bound to suit.
A Boston Transcript correspondent visited Humboldt and described Indians
`being hunted for their children..
Mr. Hanson reported that Kidnapping of Indians had become `
`quite a business of profit , and I have no doubt is the foundation of
the so-called Indian wars.
On March 26th 1859 the Humboldt times reported :
`300 prisoners taken, over 100 killed Authorities under lieutenant Hanson deported them to suffer starvation conditions of the federal governments at Mendocino Reservations.
By the summer of 1859 most of the Natives who had been living in 1849 were now dead.
Yet the worst was still to come . Aware of this genocide neither Indian affairs Hanson or any generals intervened. It seemed that nobody was able to stop this cruel and relentless pursuit of the natives in this vicinity:?
` the genocidal system of servitude to create a powerful machine of extermination began in earnest the same year and month as the War to emancipate the negroes began.In the same month that the civil war began in April 1861, a war, in part to free the the African slaves,
a slave-raiding boom was unleashed in Humboldt county.
..The Humboldt county court indentured 77 in that year, the youngest a two year old; indentured for
23 years. ..
Thus began the Genocide in Humboldt and the sanctioning of the native slave trade,
an operation funded by the federal government and implemented by the
Humboldt court under Indian affairs officer George Hanson.
Mercifully in the following years Hanson was replaced by superintendent Austin Wiley the former editor of the Humboldt times,
and the Us army started to alter its genocidal policies.
The Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation was established.
Such investigations may be painful, but in the context of genocide, recording deaths also dignifies the slain and
gives voice to the departed.
Can there be any question on who the Island belongs too.?