The Wiyot (Wiyot: Wíyot,[2] Chetco-Tolowa: Wee-'at xee-she[3] or Wee-yan' Xee-she', Euchre Creek Tututni: Wii-yat-dv-ne – "Mad River People", Yurok: Weyet[4]) are an indigenous people of California living near Humboldt Bay, California and a small surrounding area.

[6] They recognized three divisions based on dialect and geography (from north to south): The Wiyots were among the last indigenous people in California to encounter white settlers.

Following a brief visit in 1806,[7] Russian fur traders, whose 18th-century invasion in search of the sea otter had devastated the Pomo, were uninterested in the area, which was not a sea-otter habitat.

Fort Humboldt was established on January 30, 1853, by the Army as a buffer between Native Americans, gold-seekers and settlers under the command of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Robert C. Buchanan of the U.S. 4th Infantry Regiment.

[10] On February 26, 1860, the Wiyot experienced a massacre which devastated their numbers and has remained a pervasive part of their cultural heritage and identity.

Three days before the massacre, on Washington's birthday, a logging mill engineer from Germany named Robert Gunther bought property on "Indian Island".

[12]The day before the massacre, 25 February, the Weekly Humboldt Times editorialized: "The Indians are still killing stock of the settlers in the back country and will continue to do so until they are driven from that section, or exterminated"; meanwhile prominent local residents had already formed a vigilante committee to deal with the problem, and were sworn to never reveal their membership.

[12] For several days before the massacre, World Renewal ceremonies were being held at the village of Tuluwat,[13] on Indian Island[10]: 220 [14] less than a mile offshore from Eureka in Humboldt Bay.

"[12] The 1860 massacre was well documented historically and was reported in San Francisco and New York City by the young American writer Bret Harte.

Harte published a detailed account condemning the event, writing, "a more shocking and revolting spectacle never was exhibited to the eyes of a Christian and civilized people.

Old women wrinkled and decrepit lay weltering in blood, their brains dashed out and dabbled with their long grey hair.

"[18] The vigilantes were also known as the "Humboldt Volunteers, Second Brigade," reported to have organized at Hydesville (the town called "Eel River" by Major Rains is now named Rohnerville).

Gaines reported that around five men had formed a volunteer squad to murder the sleeping women and children on the island.

[19] South Fork Eel River became Rohnerville and was later annexed by Fortuna; Eagle Prairie is now the site of the town of Rio Dell.

[20] Meanwhile, The Humboldt Times newspaper editorialized, "For the past four years we have advocated two—and only two—alternatives for ridding our country of Indians: either remove them to some reservation or kill them.

The loss of life and destruction of property by the Indians for ten years past has not failed to convince every sensitive man that the two races cannot live together, and the recent desperate and bloody demonstrations on Indian Island and elsewhere is proof that the time has arrived that either the pale face or the savage must yield the ground.

[17] He quit his job and left Union in March 1860 by the steamer Columbia for San Francisco,[17] where an anonymous letter published in a city paper is attributed to him, describing widespread community approval of the massacre.The Wiyot people were thus decimated.

[14] More recently, the long-awaited World Renewal Ceremony has returned to the island, and is in the process of being revived by current tribal members.

[25] A central act in the Wiyot people's spirituality is an annual World Renewal Ceremony held at Tuluwat village.

[26] The Wiyot suffered a devastating onslaught of violence by American settlers in the 1850s and 1860s, wiping out the majority of those alive in 1850 and dispossessing them of their lands.