Timeline of Genocide Incidents in the Clear Lake Region
CONTENT WARNING: Many of the primary sources linked on this timeline contain racist language or sentiment and graphic accounts of settler-colonial violence against indigenous people.
| Appx.* | Date | Number killed
|
Location | Source | Source files |
| II | Before December, 1849 | 1 | Big Valley Ranch, near Clear Lake | Benson, “Stone and Kelsey ‘Massacre’,” 268 | http://nahc.ca.gov/webmaster/atlas/evidence/i0107a.pdf |
| II | Before December, 1849 | 4 | Big Valley Ranch, near Clear Lake | Benson, “Stone and Kelsey “Massacre’,” 268 | http://nahc.ca.gov/webmaster/atlas/evidence/i0108a.pdf |
| II | After December 28, 1849 | 3 | Big Valley Ranch (Kelseyville) | Davidson to Canby, January 6, 1850, 31st Cong., 1st sess., 1850, S. Exec. Doc. 52, serial 561, 65 | http://nahc.ca.gov/webmaster/atlas/evidence/i0110a.pdf |
| II | Probably May 14, 1850 | 3 | Clear Lake | Lyon to Canby, May 22, 1850, 31st Cong., 2nd sess., S. Exec. Doc. 1, Part 2, 1850, serial 587, 82 | http://nahc.ca.gov/webmaster/atlas/evidence/i0126a.pdf |
| II | May 14 or 15, 1850 | 2 | Near Clear Lake | Augustine, in Palmer, History, 2:62. | http://nahc.ca.gov/webmaster/atlas/evidence/i1061a.jpg |
| III | May 15, 1850 | 16 – 800 | Bloody Island in upper Clear Lake (this island no longer exists) | Augustine in Palmer, History of Napa and Lake Counties, 2:62; Lyon to Canby, May 22, 1850, S. Exec. Doc. 1, Part 2, 31st Cong., 2nd Sess., 1850, serial 587, 81-83; Sherman, “Sherman Was There [Part III],” 54 | http://nahc.ca.gov/webmaster/atlas/evidence/i0681a.pdf
|
| II | After May 15, 1850, Probably May 16 | 3 | Emerson Island and Emerson Hill near Clear Lake | Gibbs, August 23, 1851, journal entry, in Schoolcraft, Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge, 3:113-114; Benson, “Stone and Kelsey ‘Massacre’,” 272 | http://nahc.ca.gov/webmaster/atlas/evidence/i0127a.pdf
|
| II | July, 1850 | 2 | Near Clear Lake | Sherman, “Sherman Was There, Part III,” 55-56 | http://nahc.ca.gov/webmaster/atlas/evidence/i0130a.pdf |
| I | Late 1852 or early January, 1853 | 3 | “in the mountains near Clear lake” | Woods in Jenkins to Superintendent Beale, January 13, 1853 in S. Exec. Doc. 57, 32 Cong., 2d Sess., 1853, serial 665, 10 | http://nahc.ca.gov/webmaster/atlas/evidence/i0040a.pdf |
| II | Before March 27, 1858 | 1 | Bloody Island on Clear Lake | Napa Reporter, March 27, 1858 in SDU, March 31, 1858, 2 | http://nahc.ca.gov/webmaster/atlas/evidence/i0381.pdf |
TOTAL ESTIMATED NUMBER KILLED IN REGION: 39-823
*Appendix (Appx.) refers to the reference’s location in:
Benjamin Madley, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016.
For full bibliographical references please refer to the text or Atlas credits & references
Abbreviations used in timeline:
SDU Sacramento Daily Union newspaper
For full bibliographical references please refer to the text or Atlas credits & references