The US Navy apologizes 142 years after it shelled and burned an Alaska Native village

Anchorage, Alaska
AP
—

As winter approached, shells rained down on the Alaska Native village, and sailors landed and burned the remains of houses, food tanks, and canoes. In the following months, conditions became so terrible that elders sacrificed their own lives to save food for the surviving children.

It was October 26, 1882, in Angoon, a Tlingit village of about 420 people in southeast Alaska. Now, 142 years later, the perpetrator of the bombing – the US Navy – has apologized.

Rear Adm. Mark Sucato, commander of the Navy’s Northwest Region, apologized in a sometimes emotional ceremony Saturday, the anniversary of the atrocity.

“The Navy recognizes the pain and suffering inflicted on the Tlingit people and we acknowledge that these unlawful actions have resulted in loss of life, loss of resources, loss of culture and have created and caused intergenerational trauma within these clans,” he said. in a ceremony broadcast live from Angoon. “The Navy takes the significance of this action very, very seriously and knows an apology is long overdue.”

The rebuilt Angoon received $90,000 in the settlement told the Department of the Interior in 1973, village leaders have also been demanding an apology for decades, beginning each annual commemoration by asking three times: “Is there anyone here from the Navy who could apologize?”

“You can imagine generations of people who have died since 1882 wondering what happened, why it happened, and wanting some kind of apology because we didn’t think we did anything wrong,” Daniel Johnson Jr. said. ., head of a tribe in Angoon.

The attack was one of a series of conflicts between the U.S. Army and Alaska Natives that occurred after the United States purchased the territory from Russia in 1867. The U.S. Navy apologized last month for the destruction of the nearby village of Kake in 1869, and the Army said it plans to apologize for the Wrangell shelling, also in southeast Alaska, later this year, although no date has been set.

The Navy acknowledges that the actions it took or ordered at Angoon and Kake resulted in death, loss of resources and multi-generational trauma, Navy civilian spokeswoman Julianne Leinenveber said in an email before the event.

“An apology is not only warranted, but overdue,” she said.

Today, Angoon remains a charming village of about 420 people, with colorful old houses and totem poles clustered on the western side of Admiralty Island, reached by ferry or plane, in the country’s largest Tongass National Forest. Brown bears greatly outnumber local residents, and the village has sought to support its ecotourism industry in recent years. Bald eagles and humpback whales abound, and the salmon and halibut fishing is excellent.

Accounts vary as to the cause of its destruction, but usually begin with the accidental death of a Tlingit shaman, the Tith Klan. Klane was killed when a harpoon exploded on a whaling ship owned by his employer, the North West Trading Co.

The navy’s version says that the tribesmen forced the ship ashore, probably took hostages and, as was their custom, demanded 200 blankets in compensation.

The company refused to provide blankets and ordered the Tlingits to return to work. Instead, in sadness, they painted their faces with coal tar and tallow, which company employees considered a harbinger of an uprising. The company superintendent then requested assistance from the naval commander. E. C. Merriman, the top U.S. official in Alaska, says the Tlingit uprising threatened the lives and property of white residents.

The Tlingit version claims that the boat’s crew, which included Tlingit members, likely remained on the ship out of respect, planning to attend the funeral, and that no hostages were taken. Johnson said the tribe would never have sought compensation so soon after a death.

Merriman arrived on October 25 and insisted that the tribe deliver 400 blankets by noon the next day as punishment for disobedience. When the Tlingit were only 81 years old, Merriman attacked, destroying 12 clan houses, smaller houses, canoes and local grocery stores.

Six children died in the attack, and “countless elderly people and infants died this winter from cold, exposure and hunger,” Johnson said.

Billy Jones, Tith Klane’s nephew, was 13 years old when Angoon was destroyed. Around 1950, he recorded two interviews, and their account was later included in a booklet prepared for 100th anniversary after the attack in 1982

“They left us homeless on the beach,” Jones said.

Rosita Worl, president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau, described how this winter some older people “went into the forest,” meaning they died, sacrificing themselves so that younger people could have more food.

Although the Navy’s written history conflicts with Tlingit oral tradition, the Navy maintains the tribe’s account “out of respect for the long-lasting impact these tragic events have had on the affected clans,” said Leinenveber, the Navy spokesman.

Tlingit leaders were so stunned when Navy officials told them on a Zoom call in May that an apology would eventually come that no one spoke for five minutes, Johnson said.

Eunice James of Juneau, a descendant of the Tith Klane, said she hopes the apology will help her family and the community heal. She expects his presence at the ceremony.

“Not only will his spirit be there, but also the spirit of many of our ancestors because we have lost so many,” she said.