City council will consider sending letter to Wiyot Tribe
3/15/14
The Eureka City Council will vote Tuesday on sending a letter to the Wiyot Tribe that would offer the first formal apology for the 1860 massacre on Indian Island that left 200 sleeping men, women and children dead.
“I think that is a wonderful thing to happen because no one has ever done that before outside of giving us 60 acres, which we are grateful for,” said former Wiyot Tribal Chairwoman Cheryl A. Seidner.
The city turned over the 60 acres in 2000 after the tribe purchased 1.5 acres of the island in an effort to restore the site of the World Renewal Ceremony, where the massacre took place. The Environmental Protection Agency deemed the area, which had been contaminated by toxins from a boat repair operation, safe for tribal use last August.
“It’s a huge deal,” Humboldt State University Native American Studies Chairman Marlon Sherman said of the apology. “First of all, the city of Eureka giving land to the tribe in the first place, that was huge. That never happens. Cities or counties or states just don’t give land back, so that was a wonderful acknowledgment of responsibility.
“Now, this apology to go along with that speaks really highly of the people in the city of Eureka,” Sherman added. “This is, for the city of Eureka, a major, major admission. I’m impressed with the action.”
Mayor Frank Jager said he thought the letter was appropriate with the completion of the World Renewal Ceremony happening later this month — 154 years after a group of Eureka men stole out to the island under the cover of night and killed the sleeping tribal members. The Wiyot Tribe held its last vigil at the massacre site in February.
“I thought it was appropriate that we formally apologize as a city to the Wiyot Tribe for what happened, because I don’t think anybody’s apologized to them,” Jager said. “Over the years, people have expressed outrage and anger over what happened, but I don’t think anyone apologized for what happened that day.”
