U.S. Navy issues apology for torching native Alaska village in late 1800s

The U.S. Navy issued an apology for bombing and torching the Alaska Native village of Kake in 1869.

The apology came in a ceremony on Saturday, the Guardian reported.

"This has been 155 years in the making," said Joel Jackson, the president of the Organized Village of Kake, of the apology to the Lingit (commonly known as the Tlingit) people.

"It's becoming real because we never talked about it and now we are," added Jackson.


Surrounded by tribal Chilkat weavings, historic photos, and other Lingit artwork in the Kake school gymnasium, Rear Admiral Mark B. Sucato conveyed the military's regret, marking the first of two planned apologies for the bombardments of Alaska Native communities in the late 1800s.

A second ceremony is scheduled for Oct. 26, marking the 142nd anniversary of the Navy's 1882 bombardment of the nearby village of Angoon.

The attacks on Kake and Angoon took place just a few years after the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. During this period, the U.S. Army and Navy patrolled the region, including from a fort in Sitka.

In 1869, after a sentry killed two Lingit men, an army general sent the USS Saginaw, a warship, to Kake to "seize a few of their chiefs as hostages till (the accused) are surrendered" and to "burn their villages."