A NARRATIVE OF THE HUMBOLDT INDIANS.
The following is a true narrative of the way that the Humboldt Indians
(Way-yets) have been treated and almost exterminated by the white man.
Humboldt Bay being a harbor where vessels could come in and make a safe
landing, was the place where the whites would naturally first make a
settlement, and make a base from which to supply the miners and cattle
raisers, therefore it soon became a town. First it was called Bucksport
and afterwards named Eureka, and the whole surrounding country was at
the first coming of the white man thickly populated with Indians, there
being hundreds of them, and even up into the thousands. These Indians,
the Klamath River Indians, called in their language the Way-yets,
and the country in which they lived or around Humboldt Bay, they
called We-ott. They also had names for the different places, such as
Ar-ca-tah, (Arcata) Per-wer (Eureka), and at times they would call the
whole of the country Per-wer.
As the whites became more numerous they began to crowd the Indians back
more and more, never at anytime willing to concede that the Indians
had any right to any thing that they wanted, until the Indians began
to rebel at being drove from their homes, where they had lived for
thousands of years. Whenever they made the least resistance, the whites
were up in arms, until finally the Humboldt Indians were moved to a
reservation at Smith River and kept there for a time, among the Smith
River Indians. The Smith River Indians were not friendly with them, not
treating them kindly and many of them died there for the want of food
as they did not know the country and could not gather food supplies.
When some of them would go out to get fish or gather supplies the
Smith River Indians, being jealous of them, would follow and kill them,
and the soldiers would never say a word or reprimand them and only
laugh at them. They had no medicine case when sick and had no way of
treating the sick ones in their way. They had no sanitary provisions
and could not keep themselves clean, which they were strict in their
own homes. The young girls had no rights with the soldiers or white men
and were diseased, and if an Indian made any objection to the white
man’s treatment, they were in return kicked and abused, and often
killed, in this way many of them died at Smith River.
The Klamath Indians called Crescent City, Caw-pay, and Smith River,
He-na, and all the Indians are one tribe and they call them He-nas,
but sometimes designate the certain part in which they live, by
calling them Caw-pay Indians, So after they had been kept on Smith
River reservation for awhile, they were driven like a lot of hogs,
only with less care as to whether they lived or died, to the Klamath
River Reservation, which extended from the Pacific up the Klamath River
for a distance of twenty miles, extending out one mile on either side
of the river. When they were driven to the Klamath River Reservation
they were treated by the lower Klamath Indians in a more humane way,
as a part of the Klamath Indians were good to them and tried to see
them get something to live on, and would doctor the sick ones, helping
them as much as they could, that is, a certain part of them would.
They kept the ones that were disposed to be unfriendly to the poor
Humboldts from doing them harm, yet many of them died while on the
Klamath. After keeping them for a while the order came to move them to
the Hoopa Indian Reservation, which is situated on the Trinity River,
and comes down the Trinity to its junction with the Klamath River, and
into Humboldt County; so the Humboldts were gathered together again
by the soldiers, and were kicked and clubbed, the children thrown
into boats, and when killed they were cast into the river. While this
murdering was going on, the head men of the lower Klamath Indians,
went to the Humboldts and told them to make a break and run and hide
in the brush, for they might just as well perish in that way as be all
killed by the brutal soldiers. So a good many of them made good their
escape, wandering through the woods and the Klamath Indians picked up
many of them and took care of them for a number of years, while many
of them died from exposure and starvation. I have seen the bones of
quite a number where they had died in the heavy redwood timber, and
the soldiers took what Indians were left to the Hoopa Reservation. The
Indians here did not like them and they had no way to gather provisions
on which to live, and no way to doctor or take care of the sick, no
sanitation by which to keep clean. Once a week two or three pounds
of flour was given out to each family to live or die on. The Klamath
Indians would buy beef from the agent and give it to them to keep them
from starving, and when things became more quiet, the Klamath Indians
took the most of them that they had picked up, and took them to Hoopa,
to their own people, and left them there. After this had dwindled
down to a mere nothing, by the help of the lower Klamaths a few got
back to Humboldt Bay, their ancient home. To finish them up, as they
were having a festival on what is now called Gunther Island, just
north of Eureka, a crowd of six or eight white men, took a canoe and
slipped over there in the night with axes, club and knives and murdered
innocent men, women and children, which nearly exterminated the once
great and numerous tribe of Indians, known as the Humboldts, and by the
lower Klamath Indians, as the Way-yets. One influential Humboldt Indian
and his family, was kept safely at Pec-wan village, by Wetch-ah-wah,
(my own father) and after everything was quiet on Humboldt Bay,
Wetch-ah-wah brought him and his family back to their home, where he
lived peaceably for many years, having died only a few years previous
to this writing. Today there are not more than twenty or less Indians
living, and what are left, have lost completely all their old and
ancient customs and teachings. They never had only the most spurious
ideas of the Talth Order, when they were placed here by Wah-pec-wah-mow
(God), and given their country and language. Sometimes it seems hard to
think of man’s inhumanity, but as sure as the sun goes down, the white
man will suffer for his wicked treatment of the Humboldt Indians.