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Getting away with murder: Part III
George McKale
The first case argued and determined in California’s Supreme Court March term of 1850, was the People v. Smith, et al. To recapitulate, a group of pioneers led by Mr. Smith were arrested by the sheriff, Israel Brockman, for “burning certain Indian lodges in the Nappa [sic] Valley, and of killing several Indians, and perpetrating outrage.” Smith and his posse were residents of the city of Sonoma. To understand the bloody events of Feb.27, 1850, we must go back a little further in time to another well-documented atrocity known as the Bloody Island Massacre at the north end of Clear Lake.
It was in 1847 that Andrew Kelsey and Charles Stone purchased a cattle ranch up in the Clearlake region from Salvador Vallejo. Kelsey and Stone had notorious reputations and their relationship with the Pomo Indians was quite troubling. Many of the Hoolanapo clan of the Pomos were enslaved by Kelsey and Stone, and worked as vaqueros on their ranch. Pomo families starved under their tutelage. Reportedly when one young man asked for more wheat, Stone killed him. A little reminiscent of the delightful musical “Oliver,” the young man pleaded “please sir, may I have some more?” There were other reported atrocities conducted by the Kelsey and Stone “tag-team.”
Kelsey and Stone were known to beat and kill Pomo men and rape their women. Pomo Chief Augustine’s wife was raped by Kelsey, prompting an attack. The chief’s wife poured water onto the two men’s gun powder effectively making their weapons useless. The Kelsey and Stone house was attacked by warriors at dawn, and Kelsey was immediately killed with an arrow. Stone jumped out of a window and was subsequently caught and killed with a rock. This was in the fall of 1849.
Early accounts regarding the history of Napa, Sonoma, and Lake Counties, describes a “party of Americans who came over from Sonoma to avenge upon the Indians in general the murder of Kelsey in Lake County, in which the Indians of Napa had no hand. This party was on their way back from Soscol to attack the Indians there, but was turned back by another party of white men at Napa, who prevented them from crossing the ferry. They then returned to Calistoga and murdered in cold blood eleven innocent Indians, young and old, as they came out of their sweathouse, then burned their wiki-ups, together with their bodies.” The account acknowledges they were arrested, but released, as “the country was in such an unsettled and unorganized condition that they were set free on habeas corpus, and never brought to trial.”
Sure enough it was the ranch of Henry Folwer and William Hargrave of Calistoga, Smith and friends converged on Feb.27, 1850. The revenge they were after was somehow satisfied by the killing of Wappo Indians who had nothing to do whatsoever with the Kelsey and Stone killings in Clearlake. It was the First Dragoons Regiment of the U. S. Cavalry that made good on the revenge of Kelsey and Stone’s death; resulting in what was known as the Bloody Island Massacre, depending on which version one chooses to believe, resulted in the death of 60-400 Pomo Indians.
California’s Supreme Court in the March Term of 1850, in The People v. Smith et al., concluded, “there was reasonable ground to believe that the prisoners were guilty of burning certain Indian lodges in the Nappa [sic] Valley, and of killing several Indians, and perpetrating other outrages…” They were, nevertheless, released on the grounds that the district courts had not been organized, their terms fixed, judges appointed, and there was no secure place to keep the prisoners until they could be brought to trial. The case concludes, had these conditions been resolved, the prisoners would have “been remanded to the custody of the sheriff.”
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