Blood and Thunder

Fremont, Carson, and their group sought revenge for the May 9 attack at Klamath Lake. Splitting into two groups, one led by Carson and one by Fremont, they circumnavigated the lake, attacking any Indians—regardless of tribe—they met along the way. Everyone, including Carson, was in agreement that the attackers needed to be severely punished. “‘Very sick before,’ one of their Delaware allies said, after killing and scalping two Klamath. ‘Better now’” (131).

Carson’s group soon stumbled on the fishing village of Klamath Dokdokwas, another local tribe, when many of the men were out hunting or fishing. Carson and his men quickly killed 21 Indians and burned down the village. Carson claimed they spared the woman and children, but one member of his band recalled seeing a dead old woman, and the Klamath themselves maintained that many women and children were slaughtered. It was “by any standards, pure and literal overkill,” and, in Carson’s words, “a beautiful sight” (131-2). Sides references another historian, David Roberts, who writes in his book A Newer World that scholars now agree that the Dokdokwas were likely the wrong target. The Indians who attacked Fremont’s expedition were likely Modocs, bitter enemies of the Klamaths; thus, Caron and Fremont attacked innocent people.