What in the village of Kake may have at first appeared to be a simple public safety matter has overnight become symbolic of a lingering injustice in Alaska predating statehood. A remnant of U.S. military might from the Civil War era -- an unexploded artillery shell -- has forced villagers in the remote Alaskan community to seek atonement for wrongs committed against them more than a century ago by the U.S. government. They knew this time would come eventually, but they hadn't planned to have it happen so abruptly. It had, they thought, been a shelved issue they would get to when the time was right. Through a series of unexpected events, that time is now.
It started when a bomb squad from the U.S. Air Force was dispatched to the village Thursday to examine a 30 pound parrott shell, a relic from a time when the U.S. military was exploring the coastline of Alaska before Russia had even sold the territory to the United States. Times were rough and tumble. The Tlingit Indians of Kake and the surrounding region were known to be strong defenders of their home and society. They'd had run-ins with Russians and Americans alike, which escalated in 1869, resulting in the U.S. Navy's decision to bomb and plunder village and camp sites in Kake in the dead of winter.
Now, after decades of silence on what it calls "atrocities inflicted" by U.S. forces on its people, the Organized Village of Kake feels it can no longer be quiet. The U.S. has never taken steps to right the wrongs of the past and it's time to begin the process, said Mike Jackson, a tribal member.
"This is just the fingertip of the story," Jackson said in an interview Thursday from his tribal office in Kake, explaining that the bombardment in 1869 was just one of several similar episodes in the village's history.
But for now the community will focus on only this one issue -- the destruction of food and shelter for an entire community, dooming its people to either starve and freeze to death or leave. Villagers chose life and left their homes to go live with other tribes, only later moving back to the Kake area but not to the razed sites themselves.
The lone artillery shell -- 4 inches wide and 12 inches long -- has thus become both a symbol of Kake's wound and a catalyst for its healing.
"The shell is an iconic object associated with an incredible trauma inflicted upon them," said Stephen Langdon, a professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska who was called in to consult with the tribe about the situation.
"The bombing of the Kake people was the first act of state terrorism in Alaska," Langdon said.
(Re)discovery
The 30-pound shell isn't a new discovery for the village, but it was new to one of the village's younger members, who ran across it when he was cleaning up a house he planned to rent. The shell was first discovered in the 1940s near a wooden stump, where it appeared to come to rest after driving a hole through what was left of a tree trunk. Villagers at the time decided to hang on to it and keep it safe until the time was right to do something more with it. Most recently, it had been tucked away in the home of one of a relative of Jackson's, who died in 2005. The home sat empty for years until this week, when Jackson's nephew made plans to move in, started cleaning, and stumbled across the shell and told the village public safety officer about it.
Jackson attributes the swift action that ensued to a generation gap: Young people have been taught the history, but aren't old enough to have lived through some of the key moments themselves.
"They are too young to remember what we told them about it," he said.
Word of the unexploded shell traveled quickly, spreading to the Alaska State Troopers and on to the bomb squad at Elmendorf Air Force Base. To the displeasure of Kake's residents, within a day a team was on its way to the village to deal with the unpredictable piece of history, bringing with it a wave of emotion it may not have even known it had in hand.
On his way to Kake, Langdon was seated next to a liason for the state troopers who had also been assigned to the mission, and as they conversed about the situation Langdon said it was clear the person didn't know what Kake had in the past suffered or that the shell was an unavoidable reminder of that pain.
"We are not dealing with historically informed people," Langdon said.
Worried that the military and law enforcement teams would either take away or destroy the shell, someone made a call to U.S. Sen. Mark Begich's office on behalf of the village. The village wanted to retain control of its artifact and the history it represented. Kake residents were also in mourning, in the process of honoring a woman who had recently died, and wanted the visit postponed. Langdon believes getting Begich involved helped clue Alaska officials in to the sensitivity of what was afoot.
"When the senator's office is calling you that heightens your attention and your willingness to understand what this object was and it's deeper context," he said. In the end, on Thursday when the team descended on Kake, he said everyone "dealt with the tribe in a very responsible manner."
The Air Force crew X-rayed the bomb and determined it was safe enough to leave with the tribe but not safe enough to let sit as a potentially live piece of artillery. It would have to be defused, and the Village of Kake agreed to hire someone to do it.
A painful past
Located on Kupreanof Island in southeast Alaska, Kake was at one time a crossroads of the Tlinglit nation. They controlled trade routes and defended themselves from Outsiders. When Russians and Europeans began to enter the picture, the native of Kake began to engage with large Euro-American powers that were exploring Alaska.
For Langdon, who has studied the historic interactions, the U.S. forces that Kake would by 1869 come into contact with were marked by domination and subjugation. The men sent to enforce order in Alaska and in Kake were the very same men who were coming out of the U.S. Southwest campaign against the Apache Indians, and the same men who had spent time rounding up the Arapajo Indians.
The conflict in 1869 began when a U.S. sentry in Sitka shot and killed a youth from Kake. In retaliation, family members of the murdered youth killed two non-Native traders. The next show of force would come from the U.S.S. Saginaw, which over the course of two days shelled the village sites, destroying, burning and pillaging the "tribal houses and food caches in the heart of winter," according to the village.
The account fits with Langdon's research. Military powers had a history, not only in Kake but also in the village of Angoon, of conducting retribution so severe that it crippled a population's ability to survive. Unlike Kake, Angoon sought reparations for a U.S. bombardment it suffered in 1882, and in 1973 won a $90,000 settlement.
Kake has never sought a financial remedy or an apology. But it may. Village leaders are in discussion about how to proceed and have already signaled that they intend to begin talks with the U.S. Department of Defense about it. They are consulting academic, spiritual and cultural leaders, and will also review their options with attorneys, Jackson said.
"This particular situation is extraordinarily complicated," Langdon said. "This is of enormous significance historically and culturally."
A prepared statement from the Organized Village of Kake sums the current situation up best: "In the words of the late Thomas Jackson Sr., 'There will be a time this history and artillery shell will have to be brought out.' June 2011 has become that time."
Contact Jill Burke at jill(at)alaskadispatch.com