October 26, 1882- October 26, 2006
—Wé yakyee agaal haa jineiyí geinyaax yei tuwtuwangoogu yé .“
—The Day We Paid For A Crime We Didn‘t Commit.“
A memorial party hosted by the Raven House of the Deisheetaan (Raven/Beaver Clan) is being held in Angoon on October 28th. My memories take me back to the 100 th anniversary commemoration of the bombardment of Angoon by the U.S. Navy which took place on October 26th 1882 .
My great-grandfather Káa tlein (John Paul, Jr.) figured he was about 17 years of age at that time. He was in Kootznahoo Inlet when the bombardment took place and word got back to them that the village was being burned. When they got back the village was gone.
My grandmother Sxaalgén (Annie Jacobs) seated on the lap of her father Káatlein (John Paul, Jr.) with her brother Saa.aat‘ (Harvey Paul) standing next to them. (personal col., ca. 1900)
One canoe survived the bombardment, and I heard those stories from the time I was able to toddle off to my grandparents‘ house two houses away, to the time we found that very canoe prow in the American Museum of Natural History in NYC in January 1999.
Later, John Paul would inherit that very canoe and it was while it was in his care that the prow piece disappeared. The museum returned it in September 1999 and it was welcomed back with a large ceremony the following month.
If it wasn‘t for that one canoe, Angoon probably wouldn‘t exist today as it does, a stronghold of Tlingit culture, —Still practicing and living the culture from day to day, and not just every two years.“ as one of their clan leaders remarked.
The Beaver Canoe around 1900 (above) as it looks today (below). (AK Film Library ASL-P1-083 )
For the most part, most people know which house they belong to, even if it‘s in another village other than Angoon. My father Gusht‘eiheen (Mark Jacobs, Jr.) was from the Killer Whale House, his father Kashkwei (Mark Sr.) was from the Needlefish House, his maternal grandfather John Paul mentioned above was from the End of the Trail House, his great-grandfather mentioned later, was from the Raven House and his great-great- grandfather Kichnaalx (Killisnoo Jake) was from the Steel House (front picture).
The Deisheetaan are my grandfathers and they are considered the owners of Angoon. My own family comes from Taku as I am Yanyeidí (Wolf Clan) but my fathers‘ clan and my grandfathers are all from Angoon as is my father‘s clan house.
When I‘m in Angoon I feel at home on their land, and we tell and re-tell these stories and lineages over and over, after all it is part of oral history.
In Angoon, the Deisheetaan have eight houses; the L‘eeneidí have two houses, the Dakl‘aweidí have three houses, the Wooshkeetaan have three houses, and the Teikweidí have two houses. Of these, fourteen of the structures are still standing, and most are still occupied.
Angoon Houses L-R: End of the Trail House, Raven House, Needlefish House, Steel House, Freshwater Spring House, Dog Salmon House (Central House), Bear House, Killer whale House, and Killer whale House. (Beinecke Library, Yale University, ca. 1884)
My great-great-grandfather was Dick Yéilnaawú who was known then as Tlaxyaanagút , from the Raven House of the Deisheetaan . When the bombardment began he grabbed two ancient feast dishes and ran into the woods with them and returned for the clan‘s Raven Hat.
By that time the house was collapsing and he had to be held back from his determination to save the most prized possession of the clan. The Raven Hat was then and is now considered the —flag of Angoon.“
Very little escaped destruction. In the years following, the clan houses were rebuilt and items such as the crest hats that were stolen or destroyed were replaced including the Killer whale Hat from my father‘s family which was made by Dick Yéilnaawú who also painted the house-front of his clan house, known as Wooch dakádin kéet hít (Killerwhales Facing Away from Each House) or Keet Hít (Killerwhale House), the only house I‘ve been told, that survives with such a painting on the NW Coast today.
My great-great-grandfather Dick Yéilnaawu seated on the left on the porch of the Raven House, and wearing the Raven Hat replacing the one destroyed in the bombardment; Kwaal Éesh (Al Perkins Sr.) of the Needlefish House is in the middle and Kaa lkáawu tlein (William Peters I) is seated on the right wearing a Beaver Hat. The Beaver Dish which was saved from the bombardment is in the lower front. ( AK Film Library: ASL-P1-019 ca. 1900)
I look at the video taken in 1982 during the commemoration and see Eddie Jack, Minnie Johnson, Joe Kanosh, Joe Bennett, Robert James, Paul James, Cooney Starr, Naomi Kanosh, Emma Hamburg, Lucy DeAsis, Dan Johnson Sr., Charlie Joseph, Jimmy George, Margaret Abbott, Matthew Fred, Mary Willis, my grandmother Annie Jacobs, and William Nelson to name a few; William‘s older brother George was 96 at that time, still walking briskly around town and talking to anyone who would stop and take time with him. He was born just four years after the bombardment. All of them have since —walked into the forest“ but I can still hear their voices.
Also in the video is the late Gov. Jay Hammond, who was given the Teikweidí (Bear Clan) name of Lyekwudusteich . He too asked for an apology in words only Gov. Hammond could have come up with. His words ring true and unanswered 24 years later along with others who have asked for this apology.
For years these people waited for an apology that never came.
Most of the speaking was done in Tlingit then, and now 24 years after more than 50 speakers from Angoon are no longer with us. Two generations later, we still wait for a reply from the U.S. Government.
L.aangooshú (Billy Jones) was about the same age as John Paul. His comment afterwards was: — Wé yakyee agaal haa jineiyí geinyaax yei tuwtuwangoogu yé .“ The Day We Paid For A Crime We Didn‘t Commit.“ He died in 1966, waiting for the apology that never came; his father Gusht‘eiheen (my father‘s namesake) was my great-great- great-grandmother‘s brother from the Dakl‘aweidí (Killerwhale Clan); of the six children who died during the bombardment, three were from the Dakl‘aweidí .
Aayéil (Billy Johnson) holds paddles in front and his older brother L.aangooshú (Billy Jones) holds a rattle. Their sister Yíktusaan is behind their father Gusht‘eiheen and Shk‘uwyéil is in the background. Gusht‘eiheen wears the hat made by Yéilnaawú to replace the one lost in the bombardment and holds the clan‘s dagger that was also saved from the bombardment and which is said to have been made out of iron collected from a meteorite that fell near Klukwan. (AK Film Library ASL-P1-022 ca. 1895)
That was my grandparents‘ generation that was alive in 1982 who were the children and grandchildren of those who survived the bombardment, and now there are two generations after me, five generations of descendents waiting for these words which seem like they will never come.
According to Steve Henrikson, Curator of Collections at the Alaska State Museum, a letter was found in 1989 in a garbage dump by a man named Karl Lemmerman. Eventually winding up in the collection of Yale‘s Beinecke Library (Juneau Empire, 8/12/99) it turns out that this letter was written by a crewmember named believed to be Frank H. Clark of the USS Adams. Letter excerpt is as follows:
``Lt. Bartlett went on a steam tug belonging to the North West Trading Co. He took besides his sixty men and rifles a howitzer and Gatling gun. All this preparation against a lot of Indians half of whom were unarmed.
``On their arrival at Hoochenoo (later called Angoon), the Indian village where the property was seized, they found the two white men released and the property all restored.
``The Captain then notified the Indians that they must pay him four hundred blankets as a penalty for their unlawful conduct and gave them until the next day at noon to raise them. The next morning they had raised only a little over a hundred and at noon only one hundred and twenty he then burned and bombarded a few houses that were at our side of the village and at the same time raised his demand to 800 blankets, which is $2,400.
``This they did not comply with and he then gave orders to shell the town. After firing thirty or forty shells into the town he sent the sailors and marines and burned about forty houses, some of which cannot be replaced for $3,000, and only left five houses standing.
``Besides the dwellings there were a large number of storehouses filled with smoked salmon and other winter supplies. All this was burned too.‘
``Many of the Indians were away at Harrisburg (later called Juneau) mining and their houses contained everything they possessed and were all burned up. Of course those Indians who were there saved what they could before the burning.
``Mr. Vanderbilt who is prejudicial against the Indians estimated the loss to the tribe at 30 or 40 thousand dollars. This of course does not include the suffering to women and children who will suffer from want of shelter and food during the winter. As the weather there is much more severe than here it will undoubtedly cause much suffering.
``Most of the officers including myself consider it a brutal and cowardly thing and entirely uncalled for. It would have been well enough to have arrested the ringleaders and punished them, but in this case many innocent people suffered more than the guilty, and a large number of them helpless women and children. It is estimated that there are about 800 people in the village.
``We are all anxious to see the account the papers will give of it and the report the Capt. will give of it. In other words, how big a lie he will tell in order to justify himself.''
The USS Adams drew too much water to get in close to Angoon as an excerpt of this account states: http://www.uscg.mil/history/WEBCUTTERS/Corwin1876.html
On 22 October 1882, a Northwest Trading Company whaleboat chased a whale into the waters near the Tlingit Indian village of Angoon, on Kootznahoo Inlet, Admiralty Island. The whaling gun aboard exploded, killing Tith Klane, a Tlingit shaman who worked for the company. The other natives aboard the whaling boat took two company employees, E. H. Bayne and S. S. Stulzman, who were also crewmen on the boat, hostage in an effort to extract payment from the company for the death of their shaman. They landed at Angoon. There they, along with the villagers, sought payment of 40 blankets.
A company representative sought the assistance of the only naval warship in the area, the screw frigate USS Adams, under the command of a Commander Merriman, which was tied up at Sitka. As the Adams drew too much water to get close to Angoon, Merriman sought and obtained the assistance of Healy and the Corwin, which was in Sitka at the time obtaining coal. Healy agreed and the Corwin, with Merriman and 50 sailors and 20 marines from Adams aboard, set sail on 24 October 1882, apparently towing the Company's tug Favorite along with the Adams' launch, to the waters off Angoon. Merriman had armed the Favorite with a small howitzer and Gatling gun.
The USRC Thomas Corwin , aka —the Corwin.“ Imagine what a cannon of even that era would have done to the village, including the use of the gatling gun. (AK Film Library UAA-hmc-0069-b3)
Further from the website states this:
According to the official history of the Adams: "Upon arrival at Angoon, the force collected as many of the Indians' canoes as possible, and Comdr. Merriman held a meeting with some of the Indians during which he made counter demands for the release of the hostages and a levy of 400 blankets in return for which the expedition would spare their canoes and village. To buy time, the Indians accepted the demands at first and released the hostages; however, after they had an opportunity to hide their canoes and gather their forces, the Indians refused to honor the agreement. Thereupon, Corwin and Favorite took the village under fire, destroying a number of houses. When the ships ceased fire, a landing party went ashore and set fire to some of the remaining houses. At that point the Indians submitted. Comdr. Merriman left a party of sailors at Angoon to insure continued good faith, and he and the remainder returned to Sitka in Corwin to re-embark in Adams." Apparently six children suffocated when the village's houses were put to the torch and the villagers suffered greatly that winter, having lost their means of livelihood in the canoes and their shelter from the weather.
Does My Lai ( th
A payment of $90,000 was made to Angoon in 1973, in —1882“ dollars, for what the U.S. decreed was the value items lost —then.“
[Maybe along with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) we should be able to buy back our items from museums at 1882 prices and not have to fight for them through this complicated law.]
124 years is too long. How much longer will we have to wait for the apology that is long overdue?
Angoon, AK as it looks today. The house on the right is the Log Jam House of the L‘eeneidí and the remainder of the clan houses are situated below the two large buildings on the hillside.
-- HHHaHaaarrrroooolllldddd JJJaJaaaccccoooobbbbssss
NOTE: Til‘tlein , the íxt‘ (shaman) whose death precipitated the bombardment was Deisheetaan . His direct descendents today the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of [Robert and] Helen James, Paul [and Isabelle James] Chulik, and Tommy [and Josephine Nakamura] Chulik.