| Hells Canyon Massacre | |
| Partof: | Anti-Chinese violence in Oregon |
| Date: | May 27, 1887 - May 28, 1887[1] |
| Place: | Chinese Massacre Cove, Wallowa County, Oregon, United States |
| Coordinates: | 45.7797°N -116.665°W |
| Causes: | Greed |
| Goals: | Exclusion, gold theft |
| Methods: | ambush, mass shooting |
| Side1: | Horse thieves[2] |
| Side2: | Chinese gold-miners |
| Howmany1: | 4-7 |
| Howmany2: | 34 |
| Casualties1: | None |
| Casualties2: | 10-34 |
| Fatalities: | 10-34 |
| Arrests: | 3 |
| Charged: | none |
| Fined: | none |
The Hells Canyon Massacre (also known as the Snake River Massacre) was a massacre where thirty-four Chinese goldminers were ambushed and murdered in May 1887. In 2005, the area was renamed Chinese Massacre Cove, and a memorial was placed there in 2012 in three languages, Chinese, English, and Nez Perce.
Two groups of Chinese miners, led by Chea Po and Lee She, departed Lewiston in October 1886 and headed upriver along the Snake into Oregon's Hells Canyon to search for gold. Chea's group stopped on the Oregon side of the Snake, near Robinson Gulch and the cove where Deep Creek empties into the Snake. Lee's group continued upriver to Salt Creek. Chea Po had chosen a location just upstream of Dug Bar, a ford used by horse and cattle thieves to cross the Snake. Dug Bar was named for Thomas J. Douglas, a thief who had used the area to graze his horses. Douglas was killed in 1883, and a gang led by Bruce Evans, known locally as "Old Blue", began using Douglas's abandoned cabin in the spring of 1887, approximately downstream from Chea Po's camp. The gang consisted of Evans, J.T. ("Tigh") Canfield, C.O. (Homer) LaRue, Frank Vaughn, Carl (or Hezekiah) Hughes, Hiram Maynard and Robert McMillan, a fifteen-year-old boy.
In late May 1887, May 25 according to Stratton, the gang of seven white horse gang members robbed, murdered, and mutilated between 10 and 34 Chinese employees of the Sam Yup Company, reportedly for their gold.[3] [4] Estimates of the value of gold stolen range from $4,000 to $50,000. According to a contemporaneous news article, the gold dust was given to Canfield for safekeeping, but he double-crossed the rest of the gang and fled the county.
Robert McMillan made a deathbed confession to his father Hugh recounting details of the massacre, which were published in 1891. According to Hugh McMillan, the Chinese miners were ambushed by a party consisting of Robert McMillan, Bruce Evans, J.T. Canfield, Max Larue, and Frank Vaughn in late April 1887. Hiram Maynard and Carl Hughes were traveling with the others, but did not participate in the ambush. Canfield and Larue first attacked the camp of thirteen Chinese from the bluffs overlooking the cove, driving them towards Evans and Vaughn, who were in the path of their retreat. Twelve Chinese were killed in the initial fusillade; then the remaining man had "his brains beaten out". The assailants stole gold dust worth $5,500.
The next day, eight more Chinese returned to the camp by boat, where the gang shot and killed them, throwing the 21 bodies into the Snake River. The gang then stole the boat and traveled to the next Chinese camp, where they killed 13 more and retrieved $50,000 in gold. Hugh McMillan stated that Robert was present only for the first day's events, but the gang had discussed the next day's plans before Robert left the others.[5]
According to a modern account, Vaughn stayed behind to prepare dinner while the other six rode to ambush the miners. McMillan minded the horses; Canfield and LaRue shot from the rim of Robinson Gulch, while Evans shot from the river level; Hughes and Maynard were positioned upstream and downstream to catch any miner who tried to flee along the river. Their surprise attack was successful, and all ten of the miners at the camp were killed, the last with a rock after the gang had run out of ammunition. The remainder of the modern account agrees with McMillan's deathbed confession: the gang returned to the Douglas cabin and restocked their ammunition; then on next day, Evans, Canfield, and LaRue ambushed a group of eight Chinese miners who returned to the cove, and finally sailed to a second camp, where they killed thirteen more miners.
Recently, attempts to formulate an accurate picture of the event were drawn from hidden copies of trial documents that contained grand jury indictment, depositions given by the accused, notes from the trial, and historical accounts of Wallowa County by J. Harland Horner and H. Ross Findley.[6]
Horner and Findley were both schoolboys at the time of the massacre but their accounts had glaring discrepancies. Findley believed the massacre was a planned event with more than just a motive to steal gold from the Chinese miners. He believed the arrested culprits wanted to eliminate the Chinese miners from the area as well, which they successfully accomplished. In contrast to most accounts, Findley recalled only 31 confirmed victims, and there was no mention of a trial. On the other hand, Horner believed that the event was a spur-of-the-moment event and affected 34 confirmed victims. The schoolboys initially only planned to steal horses, but they experienced difficulty crossing the river with the stolen horses. When the Chinese miners refused to loan their boats, the boys decided to take the boats by force.
The bodies of some murder victims began washing ashore soon afterward, swept downstream to places as far away as Lime Point (south of the mouth of the Grande Ronde River), Log Cabin Island (now the site of the Lower Granite Dam), and Penawawa, Washington. Each body bore unmistakable markings of great violence; J.K. Vincent, a federal official who investigated the crime, later wrote "every one was shot, cut up and stripped and thrown in the River." Lee She's group went to visit Chea Po's group at Robinson Gulch in early June 1887, and found three bodies in the deserted, ransacked camp; they fled in terror to Lewiston, where they reported the crimes.
A news article published in July 1887 called the corpses a "severe warning to Chinese miners" and blamed the victims: "More than likely it was the whites who look with an evil eye upon Chinese intrusion in American mines. The American miner kicks hard at the Chinese miner."[7] Other local Chinese Americans believed that all Chinese miners along the Snake had been killed once the mutilated bodies began to surface.[8] Initially, "a thorough investigation" described in a July 17, 1887 article concluded the Chinese had been murdered by rival Chinese miners, since the victims had been "shot in the back and mutilated by cleavers, a weapon in general use by the Chinese."[9] George S. Craig owned the Douglas cabin and discovered numerous skeletons in the area when he returned to winter his stock in the fall of 1887.
Disagreements can be attributed to the fact that the bodies of the Chinese miners were found downstream after only two weeks. It is unclear whether the bodies were mangled in the course of human manslaughter or was the aftermath of being thrown into turbulent waters. The rapids and brute force of the current could have mangled the bodies against the rocks. However, it was confirmed that the Chinese men were shot because gunshot wounds were found on their bodies. Only ten bodies were identified on February 16, 1888: Chea-po, Chea-Sun, Chea-Yow, Chea-Shun, Chea Cheong, Chea Ling, Chea Chow, Chea Lin Chung, Kong Mun Kow, and Kong Ngan. Little is known about these identified men.
Frank Vaughn confessed to the crime in 1888 and his testimony led to the indictment of the other six gang members on March 23, 1888.[10] In follow-up testimony given on April 16, Vaughn blamed Evans, Canfield, and LaRue for the massacre, and said that he, Hughes, Maynard, and McMillan had not participated. Vaughn himself was arrested on April 18. By the time he was arrested, almost the entire gang had left America, save Vaughn and Hughes.
Three of the gang (Maynard, McMillan, and Hughes) were brought to trial but none were convicted.[11] [12] The trio were arraigned on August 28, 1888, and pleaded not guilty on August 29. Their testimony was consistent with Vaughn's, namely, that blame for the crime fell squarely on Evans, Canfield, and LaRue, all absent. The jury found the three men not guilty on September 1, 1888, following a short trial.
In 1995, Charlotte McIver discovered a cache of documents relating to the 1888 trial in an old safe being donated to the Wallowa County Museum. When the news came to the attention of R. Gregory Nokes, a reporter for The Oregonian, he began his own research into the massacre, going on to publish a journal article in 2006 and a nonfiction book, Massacred for Gold. The Chinese in Hells Canyon in 2009 after his retirement in 2003 allowed him to conduct research full-time.[13]
The United States Board on Geographic Names officially named the five-acre Deep Creek massacre site to the Chinese Massacre Cove in 2005[14] over the objections of Wallowa County commissioners.[15] This was the first ever official recognition of the crime.
Deep Creek, a fictionalized account of the massacre and its aftermath written by William Howarth and Anne Matthews under the pen name "Dana Hand" was published in 2010.[16] It was selected by The Washington Post as one of the best novels of 2010.[17]
In 2012, Nokes organized the Chinese Massacre Memorial Committee (with private funds and donations) to install a granite monument measuring 4by in May 2012.[18] [19] It was engraved with words in three languages: English, Nez Perce, and Chinese. It was dedicated on June 22, 2012.[20] Two episodes of the television show Ghost Mine, first aired in October 2013, covered the investigation of paranormal activity at Chinese Massacre Cove.[21]
Peter Ludwin wrote and published a collection of poetry in 2016, Gone to Gold Mountain. He states he was inspired after reading Massacred for Gold, the 2009 book by R. Gregory Nokes.[22]
In 2016, the Oregon Historical Society and Oregon Public Broadcasting produced a 27-minute documentary Massacre At Hells Canyon.[23]
The television show Leverage aired an episode on Jan.1, 2012 called The Gold Job using the story of the Snake River Massacre as the back story for their con.