In the Spring of 1853, a group of prospectors headed by a man by the name of "California Jack" started from Crescent City on a prospecting journey.
Not long after, a Native American was spotted in town carrying a pistol with the name "California Jack" engraved on it.
Yontocket was the location of the tribes arrival on the coast and it was a village on the south side of the Smith River.
The massacre was conducted by a "company", a militia organized by American citizens of Crescent City.
After the initial massacre, a Tolowa man reported that those responsible for the attack started a bonfire, in which they burned sacred ceremonial clothing and feathers, as well as babies, some of them still living.
[3] When they found out where the survivors of the Battery Point Massacre were located, they formed a thirty-three man company.
Finally, Burnett's men burned Yontocket to the ground and only a few Indians were scarcely left alive.
So many victims were incinerated, submerged, or have floated away that the attackers could not obtain a complete body count.
The survivors of the massacre were forced to move to the village north of Smith's River called Howonquet.
These massacres caused some unrest which led in part to the Rogue River Indian war.
Many Tolowa people were incarcerated at Battery Point in 1855 to withhold them from joining an uprising led by their chief.
Adding to the number of dead from the Yontocket Massacre and the Battery Point Attack are many more in the following years.