and marines, taking the howitzer of the launch with him. The Indians then seized their arms and ran to the woods, where they took positions behind trees and logs and prepared for battle. A shot from one of the guns on the Traveller was now fired and the Indians answered with a volley. The battle soon became general. A broadside from the ship sent shell and grapeshot into the woods and thickets where they seemed to be thickest, doing great execution. Semmes and his men, being protected now by the fire from the ships, charged the camp and destroyed it, together with all the property it contained. The canoes, which had been drawn up on shore, were also destroyed save one, and that was disabled later in the day, to prevent the Indians from escaping. The battle continued during the whole day, the Indians firing from their hiding places whenever any of the sailors or marines showed themselves within range of their guns. During the afternoon a squaw, who had been taken prisoner, was sent to them, to say that if they would surrender they would be sent across the straits, providing they would promise never to return; but they returned the defiant reply that "they would fight as long as there was a man of them alive." They held out stubbornly for two days, when hunger compelled them to yield. When the fight began they had 117 warriors present, besides their women and children. During the fight 27 were killed and 21 wounded, one of the latter being a chief. Being without canoes, or other means of leaving the country, they were now taken on board the Massachusetts and conveyed to Vancouver Island, where they were landed and furnished with provisions enough to supply them until they could again provide for themselves. The loss, on the part of the Massachusetts, in the engagement was one man killed and one wounded. The Haidahs left the country promising never to return to it, but they had hardly been set on shore in British Columbia before they began to threaten that they would have a "Boston tyee for every warrior they had lost. Knowing their implacable nature, the settlers realized that they would attempt to make this threat good, and they were for a long time thereafter the cause of much anxiety among the settlers, particularly during the war years. But it was impossible to make absolute defense against their attacks, and so no defense was made. On the 11th of August following, a party of northern Indians numbering about 200, as was supposed, called at Whidby Island and visited the home of Colonel Ebey, where they were kindly received. During the night they returned, called the colonel to the door, where they shot him, cut off his head and carried it away. George W. Corliss and his wife were in the house at the time, and together with Mrs. Ebey and her three children made their escape, the Indians firing a volley after them as they fled to the woods. These Indians made no hostile demonstration against any of the other settlers in the vicinity, but soon disappeared, carrying Ebey's head with them. It was afterwards recovered by agents of the Hudson's Bay Company, who found it at the home of the Indians in British Columbia. It is not positively known that the murder of Ebey was a direct consequence of the murder of the northern Indian by Butler and Burt, on Budd's Inlet three years earlier, but many believed it was. * A prominent American. |