HORRIBLE SLAUGHTER OF INDIANS.

New Zealander, Volume 6, Issue 457, 31 August 1850, Page 3

HORRIBLE SLAUGHTER OF INDIANS.

We have just received particulars of the recent slaughter of a large body of Clear Lake Indians by an expedition sent against them from the U. S. Garrisons at Sonoma und Betiecia. The tribe that incurred this terrible punishment, comprises the natives of Sonoma aud Napavallies, and has maintained, in general, undisturbed peaceful relations with the white settlers of that section of California. Last summer, however a stubborn family Indian offered an indignity to the wife of one Kelsey, who had resided in the country some nine years, for which he was taken before a magistrate and sentenced to receive one hundred lashes. After this punishment, on the lame day, we are informed, Kelsey sought the wretched offender aud laid him dead at his feet, shooting him in tlie presence of several gentlemen, who remonstrated^vith him on the burbarity of the deed This man Kelsey was afterwards murdered as was nlso a brother-in-law by the Indians of the neighbourhood. Since then the repeated acts of violence have been visited upon the natives and our readers will remember the accounts which we published a few months since, of outrages committed in Sonoma and Napa by a party of desperate white men. The Indians were driven to the mountains, and tubsequently made depiedatory incmsions upon their old masters, dtiving away cattle, and indulging their natural propensity to steal. Complaints were made, — doubt lesi the accounts of their conduct highly coloured, — to the garrisons at Benecia and Sonoma, and on the Ist of the month an expedition was fitted out against them, composed of a detachment of Infantiy, and a company of Dragoons, under the command of Lieut. Davidson, (75 in all) with orders to proceed against the Clear Lake Indians, and exterminate if possible the tribe. The tronpi arrived in the vicinity of the Lake, and enme unexpectedly an a body of Indians numbering between two and three hundred. — They immediately surrounded them and as the Indians raised a shout of defiance and attempted escape poured in a destructive fire indiscriminately upon, men women and children. *' They fell," says our informant, " as grass before the sweep of the scythe." Little or no resistance was encountered, and the work of butchery was of short duration. The shrieks of the slaughtered victims died away, the roar of muskets had ceased, and stretched lifeleses upon the sod of iheir native valley the bleeding bodies of these Indians— nor sex, nor age was spared ; it was the order of extermination fearfully obeyed. The troops returned to the stutiani, and quiet is for the present restored.