Navy issues apology for destroying Alaska Native village in 1882

Shells fell on the Alaska Native village as winter approached, and then sailors landed and burned what was left of homes, food caches and canoes. Conditions grew so dire in the following months that elders sacrificed their own lives to spare food for surviving children.

It was Oct. 26, 1882, in Angoon, a Tlingit village of about 420 people in the southeastern Alaska panhandle. Now, 142 years later, the perpetrator of the bombardment — the U.S. Navy —has apologized.

Rear Adm. Mark Sucato, the commander of the Navy's northwest region, issued the apology during an at-times emotional ceremony Saturday, the anniversary of the atrocity.