Guest House “Facts” Collide With History
A recent flyer labeled “Just The Facts” produced under the aegis of the Fort Bragg-Mendocino County Historical Society of Fort Bragg for distribution to visitors at the Guest House Museum purports to set the record straight on the naming of the City while simultaneously claiming to be neutral on the current renaming efforts.
Unfortunately the handout is full of historical inaccuracies and it appears to rely on outdated sources, such as Lyman Palmer’s 1880 History of Mendocino County, California. At a time when the city is entering a new era in its interactions and support for the First Peoples of this area, the handout does nothing to reflect the hope many people have that the local tribes’ viewpoint be included and respected.
In addition, the handout minimizes the experience of the African American men, women and children (107 at its height) who were enslaved by Braxton Bragg on his sugar plantation and whose labor made him one of the richest men in Louisiana at the very moment our Fort was named for him. These enslaved people and the plantation itself were solely in Bragg’s name, not in “part ownership” as the Guest House handout claims. It is sad to see an effort made to distance Bragg from slavery when he himself embraced this “peculiar institution” fervently in his own letters.
In fact, the handout’s photo of Bragg in his uniform as major general and commander of the Louisiana State militia, shortly after he took part in an insurrection which overwhelmed a Federal arsenal and barracks at Baton Rouge in January 1861, is offensive. The choice to use the photo shows a lack of empathy and understanding of how the people of our town wish to be perceived. It only reinforces what most people here have always known: that the town is named after a Confederate general. The centennial plaque in front of the Guest House Museum leaves no doubt about that.
Having only briefly touched on Bragg as enslaver and traitor the handout spends a paragraph to remind us that Bragg never visited his namesake town. While a “fact,” this seems irrelevant to the larger issues of white supremacy which the display of his name on our municipality conveys.
Recent additions to the Guest House Museum’s books for sale selection include The Mendocino Indian Reservation by local historian Robert Winn, which should be required reading for all who want to begin a serious study of our history. Winn’s monograph was published in 1986, and it’s encouraging to find it on display. His notes cite many sources now accessible by an Internet search or by request from the National Archives.
While good to see Winn’s monograph on display, it’s sadly evident that the flyer’s “facts” do not agree with Winn’s scholarship on the reservation and fort. For instance, consider the statement from the handout: “There was no white settlement here before the mill.” Even a brief read and a rudimentary timeline would have revealed the true history. Of course there were myriad white settlements here. The mill at Mendocino was already up and running in 1852 and there were white settlements all up and down the coast. There was even a blacksmith and a saw mill operation a couple miles up the Noyo river when Indian Agent Henley arrived. His plan was to buy out the two existing settlements on reservation lands, even before the reservation was approved, but that did not happen. In consequence, mill tailings destroyed fishing in the Noyo river.
Native Americans who lived within 100 miles of the reservation were forced onto land which had already been seized from the tribes. They were then prevented from leaving and starved for lack of access to their usual natural food supplies. Henley was anxious to get the reservation going so he began operations in 1856. When the military post was approved in 1857, another mill, McPherson’s, at the mouth of the Noyo was built using forced Indian labor starting in the winter of 1857 and continuing into 1858. The new mill attracted more white workers and the Indians were “set to work getting out the timber.” Only those who could work got paid in food and the reservation was negligent in its provision for the subsistence of the tribes. As we know, the Fort Bragg Lumber Company, which was named after the fort that was named after a confederate general, didn’t start until 1885. By then there was a sizable white population; a quick glance at the 1880 censuses should make that clear.
Surely the Guest House Museum Board can do better in presenting “just the facts” without sugarcoating the horrendous and violent history of both the Mendocino Indian Reservation and General Braxton Bragg. We are more impressed by the recent statement of the Alabama Department of Archives and History which, rather than inserting itself into a political controversy like our current name change debate, rededicated itself to certain American values of fairness and racial justice in sharing the past with that state’s citizens. See
https://archives.alabama.gov/about/docs/ADAH_statement_recommitment.pdf
They committed themselves to “the mission of illuminating the path that brought us here, and thereby equipping all of us, together, to build a future characterized by justice, human dignity, and a commitment to the wellbeing of all people. Might we ask the same of the Fort Bragg-Mendocino County Historical Society and the Guest House Board?