The Keyesville massacre was a mass killing which occurred on April 19, 1863, in Tulare County, California during the Owens Valley Indian War. A mixed force consisting of American settlers and a detachment of the United States Army's 2nd California Cavalry Regiment under Captain Moses A. McLaughlin killed 35 Indigenous Californians from the Tübatulabal and Mono peoples "about ten miles from Keysville, upon the right bank of Kern River".
Context The Great Flood of 1862 had driven away the game that sustained the Mono people 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, near the North Fork of the Kern River, now under Lake Isabella next to what is now Wofford Heights. This is used as the memorial site.
See also Indigenous peoples of California Kitanemuk Serrano people
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