The U.S. Navy has formally apologized for obliterating an Alaska Native village in 1882, the second such apology this fall.
Saturday’s gesture came on the 142nd anniversary of the destruction of the 420-population Tlingit village of Angoon, which the U.S. Navy bombarded before torching homes, food supplies and canoes. Six children were killed in the onslaught, and “untold numbers” of infants and the elderly died of cold, exposure and hunger during the ensuing winter, Angoon tribal head Daniel Johnson Jr. said at the livestreamed ceremony.
Angoon resident Shgen George and her daughters perform a ceremonial song during a U.S. Navy ceremony Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Angoon, Alaska, to apologize for the 1882 military bombing of the Tlingit village in Angoon. (Nobu Koch/Sealaska Heritage Institute via AP)
The Navy claimed Tlingit villagers had taken hostages after one of their own, Tlingit shaman Tith Klane, was killed by an exploding harpoon gun on a whaling ship owned by the North West Trading Co., his employer. The Tlingit contended that far from taking hostages, the crew’s tribal members had remained with the vessel out of respect in anticipation of the funeral, and refuted other details of the naval accounting.
There’s no dispute the arrival of Naval Cmdr. E.C. Merriman, the U.S.’s top Alaska official, brought tragedy and havoc. After his initial demands for the tribe to supply 400 blankets weren’t met, he shelled the hamlet on Oct. 26, 1882, obliterating 12 clan houses, homes, canoes and the food it had stored for the upcoming winter.
Residents were left “homeless on the beach” for the winter, with so little food that elders sacrificed their lives to ensure the youngsters would have enough to eat, said Rosita Worl, president of the Sealaska Heritage Institue in Juneau.
U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Mark B. Sucato speaks during a Navy ceremony Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Angoon, Alaska, to apologize for the 1882 military bombing on a Tlingit village in Angoon. (Nobu Koch/Sealaska Heritage Institute via AP)
The Navy has now accepted the tribal version of events “out of respect for the long-lasting impacts these tragic incidents had on the affected clans,” Navy spokesperson Julianne Leinenveber told The Associated Press, adding: “An apology is not only warranted, but long overdue.”
As far back as 1982, the Navy acknowledged “the destruction of Angoon should never have happened, and it was an unfortunate event in our history.” But until now there had been no apology, though village leaders had been pressing for one for decades.
Last month the Navy apologized for destroying nearby Kake in 1869, and the U.S. Army has said it will apologize for shelling Wrangell, another village in the region, the same year.