US Navy to apologize for destruction of Tlingit village in Alaska in 1882

ANCHORAGE, Alaska– Shells fell on the Alaska Native village as winter approached, and then sailors went ashore and burned what remained of the houses, food caches, and canoes. Conditions became so dire in the following months that the elderly 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 southeastern Alaska. Now, 142 years later, the perpetrator of the bombing, the US Navy, is preparing to apologize.

Rear Adm. Mark Sucato, commander of the Navy’s northwest region, will issue the apology during a ceremony Saturday, the anniversary of the atrocity. While the rebuilt Angoon received $90,000 in an agreement With the Department of the Interior in 1973, village leaders have also sought for decades an apology, beginning each annual commemoration by asking three times: “Is there anyone here from the Navy who can apologize?”

“You can imagine the generations of people who have died since 1882 who have wondered what had happened, why it happened and wanted an apology of some kind, because in our opinion, we did nothing wrong,” said Daniel Johnson Jr., a tribal chief in Angoon.

The attack was one of a series of conflicts between the U.S. military and Alaska Natives in the years 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 has indicated it plans to apologize for bombing Wrangell, also in southeastern Alaska, that year, although no date has been set.

The Navy recognizes that the actions it took or ordered at Angoon and Kake caused deaths, loss of resources and multigenerational trauma, Navy civilian spokeswoman Julianne Leinenveber said in an email.

“An apology is not only justified, but should have been made a long time ago,” he said.

Today, Angoon remains a quaint village of about 420 people, with colorful old houses and totem poles clustered on the west side of Admiralty Island, accessible by ferry or seaplane, in the Tongass National Forest, the country’s largest. Grizzly bears vastly outnumber residents, and in recent years the town has made efforts to foster its ecotourism industry. Bald eagles and humpback whales abound, and salmon and halibut fishing is excellent.

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

The Navy’s version says that the tribal members forced the ship to disembark, possibly took hostages and, in accordance with their customs, demanded 200 blankets as compensation.

The company refused to provide the blankets and ordered the Tlingit to return to work. Instead, filled with sadness, they painted their faces with coal tar and tallow, something the company employees took as a precursor to an insurrection. The company superintendent then sought help from the naval commander. E.C. Merriman, the top U.S. official in Alaska, said a Tlingit uprising threatened the lives and property of white residents.

The Tlingit version maintains that the ship’s crew, which included Tlingit members, probably 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 demanded compensation so soon after the death.

Merriman arrived on October 25 and insisted that the tribe provide 400 blankets by noon the next day as punishment for disobedience. When the Tlingit surrendered only 81 people, Merriman attacked, destroying 12 clan houses, smaller houses, canoes, and the village’s food stores.

Six children died in the attack and “there are untold numbers of elderly people and babies who died that winter from both cold, exposure and hunger,” Johnson said.

Billy Jones, nephew of Tith Klane, was 13 years old when Angoon was destroyed. Around 1950, he recorded two interviews, and his account was later included in a pamphlet prepared for the 100th anniversary of the 1982 bombing.

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

Rosita Worl, president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau, described how some elders that winter “walked into the woods,” that is, died, sacrificing themselves so that younger people would have more food.

Although the Navy’s written history conflicts with Tlingit oral tradition, the Navy defers to the tribe’s account “out of respect for the lasting impacts these tragic incidents had on the affected clans,” said Navy spokesman Leinenveber. .

Tlingit leaders were so stunned when Navy officials told them during a Zoom call in May that they would finally receive the apology that no one spoke for five minutes, Johnson said.

Eunice James of Juneau, a descendant of the Tith Klane, said she hopes the apology helps her family and the entire community heal. She awaits your presence at the ceremony.

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