Walls, Bill and Kawkeka, Denise — What Led To The Bloody Island Massacre?
25 years before the Battle Of The Little Bighorn, 40 years before the Battle Of Wounded Knee, there was the Bloody Island Massacre in the spring of 1850 in Lake County, California, near a community which is now called Kelseyville. The massacre of the Lake County Pomo people, which was an immediate prelude to the massacre of the Mendocino County Pomo people in the Yokayo valley (where the community of Ukiah, the county seat of Mendocino County is now situated), was in retaliation for the Pomo’s murder of Charles Stone and Andrew Kelsey, brought about by the way Stone and Kelsey and other European settlers of that time treated the Pomo people. Ukiah resident Bill Walls has written a play about the events that led up to the massacres – “A Time Before Dogs: A True Tale of Two Executions That Led To The Bloody Island Massacre”. This massacre occurred in 1850, the play however ends in December 1849. Our guests in this edition of Radio Curious are Bill Walls and Denise Kawkeka, they read portions of the play and talk about the issues that led up to the massacre. I visited with Bill Walls and Denise Kawkeka in the studios of Ukiah Valley Community Television and began by asking Bill Walls what drew his attention to the background of this play.
This interview was recorded in the studios of Ukiah Valley Community Television on January 18th 2010.
The book that Denise Kawkeka recommends is “The Mutant Message Down Under,” by Marlo Morgan. Bill Walls recommends “Homer and Langley,” by E.L. Doctorow.