The Keyesville massacre was a

mass killing Mass killing is a concept which has been proposed by genocide scholars who wish to define incidents of non-combat killing which are perpetrated by a government or a state. A mass killing is commonly defined as the killing of group members without ...

which occurred on April 19, 1863, in

Tulare County, California Tulare County ( ) is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 473,117. The county seat is Visalia, California, Visalia. The county is named for ...

during the

Owens Valley Indian War The Owens Valley War was fought between 1862 and 1863, by California Volunteers and local settlers against the Owens Valley Paiutes, and their Shoshone and Kawaiisu allies, in the Owens Valley of California and the southwestern Nevada borde ...

. A mixed force consisting of American

settler A settler is a person who has human migration, migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a ...

s and a detachment of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

's 2nd California Cavalry Regiment under Captain Moses A. McLaughlin killed 35

indigenous Californians The indigenous peoples of California (known as Native Californians) are the indigenous inhabitants who have lived or currently live in the geographic area within the current boundaries of California before and after the arrival of Europeans. ...

from the

Tübatulabal The Tübatulabal are an indigenous people of Kern River Valley in the Sierra Nevada range of California. They may have been the first people to make this area their permanent home. Today many of them are enrolled in the Tule River Indian Trib ...

and

Mono people The Mono ( ) are a Native American people who traditionally live in the central Sierra Nevada, the Eastern Sierra (generally south of Bridgeport), the Mono Basin, and adjacent areas of the Great Basin. The Eastern mono is often grouped under th ...

s "about ten miles from Keysville ic upon the right bank of

Kern River The Kern River, previously Rio de San Felipe, later La Porciuncula, is an Endangered, Wild and Scenic river in the U.S. state of California, approximately long. It drains an area of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains northeast of Bakersfiel ...

Context

The

Great Flood of 1862 The Great Flood of 1862 was the largest flood in the recorded history of Oregon, Nevada, and California, occurring from December 1861 to January 1862. It was preceded by weeks of continuous rains and snows in the very high elevations that began in ...

had driven away the game that sustained the

and their tribal members were starving.

The orders

In early April,

Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

William Jones received a petition from citizens of Keysville and vicinity asking military protection from Indian depredations. He forwarded the petition and notified his superiors in San Francisco of the action he was taking:

The report

Captain Moses A. McLaughlin, commanding the expedition to Keysville, made the following report about the incident:

Site of the massacre

The village where the Keyesville Massacre occurred has been identified by Tubatulabal people as being on

Tillie Creek Tillie Creek is a tributary of the North Fork of the Kern River, in the Southern Sierra Nevada, Kern County, California. Since the Kern River was dammed in the Kern River Valley, the creek's mouth is now on Lake Isabella Lake Isabella also ...

, near the North Fork of the

, now under

Lake Isabella Lake Isabella also called Isabella Lake, is a reservoir in Kern County, California, United States created by the earthen Isabella Dam. It was formed in 1953 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dammed the Kern River at the junction of its two f ...

next to what is now Wofford Heights. This is used as the memorial site.

External links

The California Military Museum: California and the Indian Wars, The Owens Valley Indian War, 1861-1865

Tübatulabal Memorial
photo of one of three crosses that stand above Lake Isabella in Wofford Heights. CA.

References