US navy apologizes for razing of Native Alaska communities in late 1800s

USS Saginaw, probably at Mare Island Navy Yard in 1862.

In ceremony in Kake, military acknowledges bombardment of village that destroyed it and led to many deaths

Cecilia Nowell

Sat 21 Sep 202

In a ceremony Saturday afternoon, the US navy apologized for firing upon and torching the Alaska Native village of Kake in 1869.

Surrounded by tribal Chilkat weavings, historic photographs and other Lingít artwork in the Kake elementary and high school gymnasium, R Adm Mark B Sucato expressed the military’s regret, in the first of two apologies planned by the military for bombardments of Alaska Native communities in the late 1800s.

“This has been 155 years in the making,” said Joel Jackson, the president of the Organized Village of Kake, of the apology to the Lingít (often known as the Tlingit) people. “It’s becoming real because we never talked about it and now we are.”

“They burned everything. All the shelters, all the food caches, the canoes,” Jackson told the Washington Post. Although no one was killed during the winter bombardment, he said the destruction of the community and its supplies and canoes led to many deaths.

READ: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/21/us-navy-to-apologize-for-razing-of-native-alaska-community-in-late-1800s?CMP=share_btn_url

ABOUT SAGINAW: wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Saginaw_(1859)