The Keyesville massacre was a mass killing which occurred on April 19, 1863, in

Tulare County, California Tulare County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 473,117. The county seat is Visalia. The county is named for Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lake ...

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 border ...

. A mixed force consisting of American

settler A settler is a person who has 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 pioneer. Settl ...

s and a detachment of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

's 2nd California Cavalry Regiment under Captain

Moses A. McLaughlin Moses A. McLaughlin (1834–1899) was an Irish-born California Militia officer, Union Army officer, farmer, later a medical doctor. As Captain, 2nd Regiment California Volunteer Cavalry, he is best known for his role in the 1863 Keyesville Massacre ...

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. W ...

from the Tübatulabal 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 ...

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 River Status, Endangered, National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, Wild and Scenic river in the U.S. state of California, approximately long. It drains an are ...

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 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 California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million resid ...

, 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 ...

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