The U.S. Navy apologized in a ceremony on Saturday for its bombardment of the Alaska Native village of Kake in the late 1860s, The Guardian reported. Reported.
“This has been 155 years in the making,” Joel Jackson, president of the Kakemura organization, said of the apology. “We've never talked about this, and now it's becoming a reality.”
The Navy's apology on Saturday was the first of two to be made to the Linggit (also known as Tlingit) communities bombarded by Navy forces on Kake Island in 1869 and Angoon Island 13 years later.
Rear Admiral Mark Scato will be making the apology, and is expected to make a second apology, on October 26, the 142nd anniversary of the Navy's bombardment of Angoon.
The Washington Post said Navy officials acknowledged the “wrongful” actions at Kake and Angoon, adding that they “inflicted generations of trauma.” Navy spokesman Julian Leinenweber said, “The pain and suffering caused to the Tlingit people deserves a long-overdue apology,” the paper reported.
The ceremony featured speeches by tribal leaders and elders, benedictions from tribal and Navy chaplains, and performances by local Indigenous Hex Juan dancers and a Navy band, The Guardian reported.
July, The Washington Post Reported The Pentagon will review 20 Medals of Honor awarded for actions during the Wounded Knee massacre, in which members of the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry opened fire on hundreds of Native Americans.
