War Clouds: Liquor, the Gatling Gun, and the Death of Shegan
As the population of gold miners in Fort Wrangel swelled into the thousands, the death of a Tlingit headman in U.S. Army custody threatened to spark a war that would upend it all.
A photograph of Fort Wrangel from the late 19th century. Construction on the wharf began in 1875 under William King Lear to entice gold miners to stop over at Fort Wrangel on their way up the Stikine River.
Cassiar Gold Rush
In 1876, the Cassiar Gold Rush entered its third year. Fortune-seekers arrived in the spring at Fort Wrangel to await the ice cracking on the Stikine River, allowing ships to reach the Cassiar. Almost every day, steamships deposited fresh gold miners at the wharf in Fort Wrangel, turning the shantytown into a bustling hub of activity. To maintain order, the U.S. government stationed the Army inside the garrison of Fort Wrangel.
While Fort Wrangel was overrun with gold miners, the Army attention was focused on Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw, the nearby Tlingit village to the south. The village was the whole reason for the fort in the first place. In the words of General Henry Halleck, the Army constructed Fort Wrangel in 1868 to “keep the Stickeens in check.” By design, fort’s entrance and towering guardhouse overlooked the village. In 1869, after the Army hosted a drunken Christmas party which turned violent, the Army bombarded Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw with a 6-pound cannon for two days. The Army abandoned the post shortly thereafter, but it returned in 1874 as the Cassiar Gold Rush brought a deluge of merchants, miners, and illicit liquor into Fort Wrangel.
Still, the Army focused on the Tlingit. As the March 23, 1875 San Francisco Chronicle wrote:
“Uncle Sam seems not to forget his children who are living in this distant heathen part of his territory, as he has got stationed at Wrangel one lieutenant and adjutant, one doctor and fifteen men. I also notice one 12-pounder stationed on the hill with the muzzle pointing toward the residence of Captain Shakes, the Indian chief.”
Shakes, head of the Naan.yaa.aayí clan, was no stranger to the Army’s cannons, having endured the Army’s exploding shells in front of his house during the bombardment of 1869. Shakes, also known as Kaawishté, lived through decades of change and occupation, including the Russians and British. Many had come, but they had all gone.
In fact, nearly every single gold miner was temporary. They filled into Fort Wrangel in the spring, spent their summers up the Stikine River, and returned briefly in the fall before heading south for the winter. With few settlers and little property to protect, the Army turned its attention on enforcing alcohol prohibition on the Tlingit.
A photograph of Captain Stephen Perry Jocelyn, commander of Fort Wrangel.
Stephen P. Jocelyn
In August 1875, the Army assigned command of Fort Wrangel to 32 year-old Captain Stephen P. Jocelyn. A Civil War veteran from Vermont, he had mostly recently served in the Modoc Wars, where he assisted in the execution of high-ranking Modoc Indian leaders and the relocation of Modoc survivors to Oklahoma.
Many of Jocelyn’s letters from Fort Wrangel appear a biography written by his son, Mostly Alkali:
“The fort is well built and is a structure for defense against Indians, quite unlike many posts on the frontier, which are simply quarters and barracks for officers and men. The quarters are throughly made—the house for the commanding officer being a story and a half, containing eight rooms and a bath. I am having it repaired, painted, and papered before occupying.”
According to Jocelyn’s Post Returns, the Army equipped him with just under 30 men, a Gatling gun, a Mountain Howitzer, and a 12-pound cannon. This was an upgrade from the previous occupation of 1868-1870, which had only two Mountain Howitzers and a single 6-pound cannon. Jocelyn’s 12-pound cannon was twice as heavy, and his Gatling gun was capable of spraying hundreds of bullets in under a minute, allowing him to repel any attack. The Army did not fear invasion; rather, it feared its own Tlingit neighbors.
Gatling gun animation by Gareth Fowler
Jocelyn embraced his role of enforcing alcohol prohibition among the Tlingit, writing:
“Only a few days ago I captured and destroyed a distillery on a small island ten miles away with eighty gallons of the contraband fluid. It was operated by Indians in the most primitive manner. They used a coal-oil can for a still and for the worm they substituted a long piece of kelp (sea-weed). In this way, out of molasses, dried apples, beans, potatoes, old stockings and the like, they make hundreds of gallons of the vile stuff called ‘Koutznou,’ the odor of which is certain death to a healthy dog at a hundred yard!”
In fighting the liquor trade, the Army found a purpose for being in Alaska — even thought it granted itself an exception to import liquor for officers’ enjoyment. Captain Jocelyn joked about the ill effects of “Koutznou” in a letter:
“I intend recommending its adoption by the War Department in place of the Gatling gun, which discharges 300 shots per minute, and, prior to the invention of “Koutznou,” was the most deadly instrument of warfare known to military science…”
While in command of Fort Wrangel, Captain Jocelyn oversaw the arrest of multiple Indian prisoners:
“List of Indian prisoners in confinement at post of Fort Wrangel, Alaska, from August 1 to December 31, 1875, inclusive.” All these prisoners were arrested and released five days later, except one (“Dick”), who was released after six days. Captain Jocelyn’s command of Fort Wrangel coincides with the timing of this table.
The Army’s claim to authority in Fort Wrangel was hard to dispute for gold miners whose existence was always temporary. For the Tlingit, who lived on ancestral land and had seen many powerful people come and go, the Army’s claim to authority was tenuous, at best. The bombardment of 1869 demonstrated the Army’s military might, but its hasty departure afterward suggested its impermanence. The Tlingit were self-governing, produced their own food, and lived in homes that had been around decades before the arrival of the United States. Tlingit ideas of independence and sovereignty had not gone away.
Shortly before the arrival of Captain Jocelyn to Fort Wrangel, the Army narrowly avoided a conflict with Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw over the death of a headman identified as “Fernandeste.” In January 1875, the Army took Fernandeste into custody as a witness against Fort Wrangel’s liquor merchants. Aboard a steamship bound for Portland, Oregon, Fernandeste locked himself in a stateroom and slit his own throat. The death sent off shockwaves, and the Tlingit blamed the Army for his death. To settle the matter, the Army sent General O.O. Howard, Commander of the Department of the Columbia, to Fort Wrangel to return Fernandeste’s body, apologize, and to pay 100 blankets. The event marked a rare Army recognition of Tlingit justice. (This story is included in Episode 3 of Strange Customs).
The Tlingit accepted the Army’s gesture with a bonfire and a dance that went all night. By the end of the year, they would turn to the Army for help creating another peace, by asking for help negotiating with one of their oldest, most bitter, and bloodiest rivalries.
A modern map of southeast Alaska with the parties involved in the 95 Year War labeled in red.
A time for Peace
Alaska historian Andrew Kashevaroff dubbed it “The 95 Year War.” For decades, it ensnared the Tlingit of Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw, Sheet’ka (Sitka), and Chilkat territory. According to Kashevaroff, it began in the 1820s with the assassination of a high-caste Tlingit leader from Sheet’ka by the Tlingit of Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw. As the honor-bound system of Tlingit justice demanded retribution for each death, the conflict spiraled out of control for decades. By the 1870s, few were alive who could remember a time before the conflict.
According to Stanley Ray Remsberg in The Administration of Alaska, near the end of 1875, Tlingit leaders Shakes and Shegan approached the Army about helping to negotiate a peace. The Army agreed. According to Kashevaroff, the negotiations resulted in a treaty signed on January 17, 1876:
“TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: Know that the Stikine and Chilkat tribes of Alaska Indians, desiring the renewal of the peace and friendship heretofore existing between their people, have amicably adjusted all matters of differences which during the past twelve years have led to frequent acts of retaliation and war, and we, their authorized representatives, do hereby pledge the good faith of our respective tribes to the maintenance of complete peace.
Signed,
Shakes, Principal chief of Stikine Indians of Wrangell
Shaguasha, Principal chief of the Chilkats”
The February 3, 1876 Puget Sound Dispatch celebrated the news:
“The Chilcats and Stikine Indians have entered into a treaty, and the Sitka and Stikine Indians are now negotiating for the same. This will be a good thing, as the above tribes are very powerful and have been quarreling together for a long time.”
The Army played a pivotal role in bringing about peace. But it would be short-lived.
A photograph of Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw around the early 1880s taken from the area that now downtown Wrangell, Alaska. The two tall totem poles in the center are next to the home of Kadashan, head of the Kaasx’agweidí.
A Serious Disturbance
On May 14, 1876, readers of The Daily Colonist of Victoria, B.C. opened the newspaper to read:
“A serious disturbance has occurred at Wrangel. A number of Indians were drunk at their camp. The U.S. commanding officer sent a guard down to arrest the noisy ones. They refused to go and threatened to fire on the soldiers. A Gatling gun was trained on the camp and the savages given a few minutes in which to send out their chief as a hostage for their good behavior. He came out in time to prevent the discharge of the Gatling, and was taken to jail, where he hanged himself the same night.
The tribe then demanded 1,000 blankets in compensation for the death of their chief. The commanding officer invited them to square with the account in shot and shell, whereupon Shakes, the big chief, fled to Stickeen river, with threats to wreak satisfaction upon the miners. It is said he has issued orders that steamboats shall not be allowed to ascend the river when navigation opens.”
The next day, May 15, 1876, The Oregonian reported another version of the story:
“Two Stikine Indians were arrested at Fort Wrangel on the 20th of April for distilling and selling whiskey, and for resistance to the authorities in making search. One of them, Shegan, a chief of some prominence, committed suicide on the 27th, by strangling himself in his cell. The remainder of the tribe became greatly excited over his death, threatening to kill some white persons in retaliation. They were promptly informed by Capt. Jocelyn that any such act of violence would result in the immediate bombardment and burning of their village, upon which quiet was soon restored.”
For the Army, which had just negotiated a peace between warring Tlingit factions, this fracture was an about-face. Shakes and Shegan had just worked with the Army to secure a treaty, and now Shegan was dead, and Shakes was on the run.
Captain John Hayes, of the steamer California, told the May 25, 1876 Puget Sound Dispatch that “the reports circulated in regard to Indian troubles at Fort Wrangel are false.” He went so far to call the story a “humbug.” But same issue of the paper wrote:
“Indians are still greatly excited over the suicide of their chief, and await the arrival of Chief Shakes, who is on a hunt, when they will stop all white men from ascending the river.”
The story was no humbug. The conflict was real, and one soldier’s letter back home would confirm it all.
Josiah Sawyer Brown, the Commissary Sergeant of Fort Wrangel. (Photo courtesy of Candace Wells-Sehorn)
Josiah Sawyer Brown
In October 1875, the Army appointed Josiah Sawyer Brown as Commissary Sergeant for the Fort Wrangel post. Like Captain Jocelyn, Brown was a veteran of the U.S. Civil War who now found himself in Alaska. He was responsible for preparing meals, but he also took a keen interest in the goings on among the Tlingit.
The June 3, 1876 North Star newspaper published Brown’s letter describing what happened to Shegan:
“During the past ten days there has been a small ‘war cloud’ in the horizon, which luckily has not spread. Some two weeks ago, Capt. Jocelyn, Commanding the Garrison, sent Lieut. Williams, Officer of the Day with two soldiers of the guard, over to the Stickeen Village about nine o’clock P.M., to arrest some drunken Indians, and search for “Hoochinoo,” the Lieut. found the drunken Siwashes, and upon searching the house of one “Shugans,” a big Tyee, he met with opposition and threatened violence, the following day “Shugans” and his accomplice were arrested, and put in the guard house.”
In his Post Return for April 1876, Captain Jocelyn identified the other man arrested as “Cuttishan,” commonly known as Kadashan, head of the Kaasx’agweidí:
“Shegans and Cuttishan, Stickeen Indians, were arrested on the 20th instant for making and selling spirituous liquor and for resisting the military in making search.”
Josiah Sawyer Brown’s letter offered details not reported elsewhere about the treatment of the prisoners:
“ Shackles were riveted on their legs, and they were required to saw wood for the benefit of the garrison. Scowls and threats loomed up from the Stickeen camp, at the indignities these put on their chief. So things were quietly prepared, our Gatling gun cleaned, etc. in readiness to hold the prisoners at all hazards.”
Forcing Shegan and Kadashan to work hard labor was a particularly cruel form of punishment, and it was likely illegal.
Through 1875, as the Army’s case against Fort Wrangel’s liquor merchants wound its way through the court of Judge Matthew Deady, the Army was astonished to learn that civilian prisoners could not be forced to work hard labor and were entitled to appear before a judge within five days. Consequently, through the fall of 1875, the Army resorted to a catch-and-release policy, letting its Indian prisoners go after five days (though one prisoner was reportedly held 6 days).
For reasons not given, Shegan and Kadashan were confined for a week and forced to chop wood. Tlingit justice hinged on honor and preservation of face. The Army’s treatment of these two clan leaders would have been tantamount to a public humiliation.
Josiah Sawyer Brown described what happened next:
“On the morning of the 27th ult, between five and six o’clock “Shugans” took a towel, a neckerchief and his belt, and by fastening one end to a rafter, and the other around his neck, managed through pure cussedness to strangle himself to death, with his knees on the floor, without making a particle of noise, and there he was a good Indian sure enough, but an unpleasant carcass to have on our hands, evidently his proud spirit could not bear his disgrace longer, and he preferred death to dishonor through life…”
In his handwritten Post Return for April 1876, Captain Jocelyn wrote tersely:
“The former [Shegans] on the 27th committed suicide in his cell by strangling himself with a leather strap worn as a waistband.”
Captain Jocelyn’s hand-written notes about the arrests of “Shegans” and “Cuttishan” from the April 1876 Post Returns.
This was the third tragic suicide of a Tlingit leader from Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw in Army custody. The first was Scutdoo, who jumped into his own noose at his execution in December 1869, taking his own life. The second was Fernandeste en route to Oregon in January 1875. And the third was this instance with Shegan. It was a tragic pattern that illuminated traditional Tlingit beliefs about honor and death in captivity.
Dark Days
The Tlingit of Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw reacted to Shegan’s death with outrage. Brown wrote:
“The Stickeens were furious and for a time things looked dubious. The other chiefs were called up and Capt. Jocelyn explained the matter as clearly as possible to them, and I took all necessary precautions to guard against an outbreak, and the matter is now quietly dying away. The garrison consists of less than thirty fighting men, with two twelve pound howitzers and one gatling gun, and would be able to whip off all the Indians that might get round the stockade.”
The Stikine River was still frozen at the time of Shegan’s death, and it would not thaw for weeks to come. The town was filled with hundreds of gold miners, and steamships packed with more arrived at Fort Wrangel’s wharf almost every day. The threat of war with the Tlingit at this time would have been a nightmare for all sides.
The May 27, 1869 Washington Standard reported that the conflict threatened to interfere with the upcoming mining season:
“The steamer California arrived from Wrangel last Saturday, bringing 26 passengers—men who started for the Cassiar mines, but who returned too discouraged to make the attempt. The river had not opened so as to permit navigation, and the Indians are hostile. From these two sources of trouble, no men have been able to go into the mines, and they have gathered in at Wrangel to the number of seven or eight hundred, besides several hundred Chinamen. The white men will not permit the Chinamen to go in, nor will the Indians permit the whites.
It is said that the Indians having the advantage of the country on their side and are all being armed, can carry their threats into complete execution, and that it will be almost impossible for any one to get in or out of the Cassiar without their consent. The men at Wrangle are in a desperate way, provisions being scarce and very high, with nothing to do, and a hard prospect staring them in the face.”
Before fighting could break out, the ice on the Stikine River broke on May 23, 1876. Just as suddenly as they had come, gold miners leapt onto steamships and headed up the river, draining the town and leaving the Army and the Tlingit to settle their conflict.
Another casualty of the conflict may have been the peace treaty signed just months before between Shakes and the Chilkats. For unknown reasons, the treaty failed to gain a foothold. As Kashevaroff wrote, “This and similar treaties were made time and again which no more affected upon the Indian than if he had never seen the treaty. The Indian makes his own treaties in his own way, and no interference from the white man is tolerated.” The conflict would not be formally settled until the beginning of the next century.
For one Tlingit headman, T’owyaat, the threat of a bombardment was all too familiar. T’owyaat played an intimate role in the bombardment of 1869 when he urged Shakes to pursue peace with the Army by saying, “They are a big dog. We are only a little dog.” Even though the Army was outmanned, T’owyaat understood the devastating effects the Army’s artillery could have on the village.
Through his life, T’owyaat would earn the reputation of a peacemaker. Shortly after the ice broke, T’owyaat would get his chance to make a lasting peace.
Philip “Clah” McKay, a Tsimshian Methodist from British Columbia, Canada. Digitally enhanced photograph.
Parting Clouds
A week after the ice cracked, around June 1, 1876, four Tsimshian men led by Philip “Clah” McKay arrived in Fort Wrangel and found work chopping wood for the U.S. Army. They were Methodists who converted to Christianity in British Columbia. Their prayer and worship in broad daylight captured the attention of the Tlingit, most notably T’owyaat, who invited them into his home where he converted his family to Christianity. Others followed, including Kadashan, who became an influential member of the church for the rest of his life.
Captain Jocelyn, previously antagonistic to the Tlingit, became an enthusiastic supporter of the fledgling congregation. Captain Jocelyn helped to raise funds and provided places to worship and hold a day school.
Josiah Sawyer Brown was inspired by what he saw. In March 1877, he wrote a letter to the Y.M.C.A. of Portland, Oregon pleading for a church to “feed my sheep.” The letter reached the Reverend Sheldon Jackson, who used it as a stepping stone to launch his career in Alaska.
T’owyaat’s conversion to Christianity may have held spiritual dimensions, but it served practical purposes, as well. T’owyaat transformed the Army’s hostility into support. Instead of battling the liquor trade with the Gatling gun, the Army and Tlingit could work cooperatively towards a common goal.
It was the beginning of a new era for Fort Wrangel and Alaska.
