Fort Bragg: Discovering the Hidden History
Visitors to the city currently named Fort Bragg, CA, often ask “Where is the fort?” Perhaps they are expecting the typical enclosure of vertical tree trunks often seen in old western movies, or other such walled defensive fortifications. They seem a bit disappointed when they learn that not only was there never such an enclosure here, the only remaining structure from the days of the fort is a small house now being used for a Congressman’s local office.
There is a plaque on a stone next to the old Town Hall on Main Street that simply informs visitors: "Fort Bragg - Established in this vicinity June 11, 1857 by 1st Lieut. Horatio Gates Gibson, 3D Artillery, later Brig. Gen. U.S. Army, named by Gibson in honor of his former company commander Braxton Bragg, later General C.S.A. - Abandoned in October 1864.”
The full history of this area of the Mendocino Coast has three main periods. First, there is the history of the indigenous tribes, stretching back some 10,000 years. Next, there is the short and bloody history from about 1848 to 1867 that covers the arrival of the white “settlers” and the eradication of the previous culture and its members. The last period, and the only one that is open to view, runs from the incorporation of the city to the present day — a whitewashed account that carefully omits some very unpleasant details.
The Beginning Point of Coastal History
Indigenous tribes had been living along the California coast for uncounted centuries. Theirs was a hunter-gatherer culture, where various tribes lived on the coast during the spring and summer and inland during the fall and winter. Their villages and landmarks had names in their languages, and oral histories were told by the elders so that the young would come to understand their roots and the values of the community. All of that, however, was thoroughly canceled and erased in the years between 1850 and 1867 — ten thousand years of history and culture, wiped out in just a 17 year span following the invasion of the white “settlers” seeking to tap the timber and fishing resources of the area for their own enrichment.
The Story of a Fort
The next period of the history of the Mendocino Coast has to do with the invasion of white settlers into the area, the establishment of the Fort in 1857, and the naming of it to honor Braxton Bragg. Why was there a fort established here? What was its purpose? Why was it abandoned? Visitors who might ask such questions will find that most of the “locals” don’t have any answers to offer, for the full history of this part of the California coast is not taught in any of the local schools. The locals that do know bits and pieces of the hidden history definitely don’t want to talk about it. In all of the town, there is only one sign that offers any real information about what was done here by the Army and the local population. To find that sign requires that you take a long walk out on the headlands trail.
Why was there a fort established here? Because the locals formally threatened to launch a full-scale war of extermination against the indigenous tribes if the Indians were not forcibly moved into a reservation (concentration camp) and kept there. To accomplish this goal, the Bureau of Indian Affairs established a 25,000 acre reserve between the Noyo River and Ten Mile Creek. An Army unit, Company M, 3rd Artillery division from the Presidio of San Francisco was sent here to oversee moving the Indians onto the reservation and to “maintain order.” The commanding officer, Lt. Horace G. Gibson, decided to name his new base Fort Bragg, a minor Mexican-American war hero, with whom Gibson had previously served in that war.
Starvation from insufficient rations, disease, and forced labor soon reduced the population of indigenous inmates, as did the theft of their children to be turned into unpaid “apprentices” or indentured servants by the local settlers. In 1864, the Army abandoned Fort Bragg, and three years later the surviving Indians were forced-marched over the hills to another “Reservation” in Round Valley — there to face further murders and oppression. While the Army itself had requested the name of the Fort be changed, following the treason of Confederate General Braxton Bragg, the fort was disestablished before the change could be accomplished. Even the Army thought that continuing to honor the name of a traitor who had caused the deaths of US Army servicemen in the Civil War was inappropriate. Within a few years, only one of the buildings of the former fort remained to hint at the history of genocide, ethnic cleansing and involuntary servitude done on the site.
The White History of a Town
The third phase of the area history, the only one acknowledged by the majority of local inhabitants, began in 1889 with the formal incorporation of the City of Fort Bragg. This is the “beginning point” that many locals will point to when talking of the “history” of the area. As the remnant survivors of the indigenous tribes, once confined to the reservation, had all been removed by then, this “history” only records the activities of the white community. It’s important to note that when those that cherish the whitewashed version of this era speak of the town as having a “rich multicultural tradition,” they are referring only to various white subgroups such as the Finns or the Portuguese community.
The hatred wasn’t limited to the indigenous people. For example, three years after the incorporation of the town, the Union Lumber Company wanted to build a tunnel through the hills for their railroad. As they were unable to find any of the locals willing or able to do the work, the company imported a group of Chinese laborers for the project. The local citizenry reacted by physically beating the Chinese away over the Noyo and down to Mendocino. The attack was only halted by the Sheriff, who managed to persuade the whites to get out of the way so that the tunnel could be built that would be to their advantage. The intervention cost the Sheriff his job as he failed to be re-elected.
The Ku Klux Klan had an active presence in the town as late as the 1920’s, with crosses being burned on the hills above Fort Bragg.
Looking for Answers
Why was there a fort established here? What was its purpose? Why was it abandoned? Why was the Mendocino Indian reservation (concentration camp) abolished and the land sold to white “settlers? Who was the traitor Braxton Bragg and what did his treason mean? The information given above is an overview, for more details, it will be necessary for interested people to dig deeper. The Resources tab of the Change Our Name Fort Bragg website has a good list of easily available books and publications. Robert Winn’s paper The Mendocino Indian Reservation, published by the Mendocino Historical Review in the Fall/Winter volume of 1986, is an excellent starting point. It’s available through the Kelly House Museum in Mendocino and also at the Guest House Museum here in Fort Bragg. The Mendocino County Library in Fort Bragg also has a copy.
