Native American Concentration Camps

The Aleuts are Indigenous people who live on the Aleutian island next to Alaska. Most people are familiar with the concentration camps the American government put Japanese Americans into during WWII. But I doubt many have heard about the concentration camps that the U.S. government put the Aleuts into during that same war.

In 1942 the battle of Midway had just begun, and the Japanese decided to attack Dutch Harbor, to draw American forces away from the battle of Midway. This was the only American territory besides Pearl Harbor, that Japan bombed during the war. When the Americans realized that the Japanese were on their way to bomb that Island, they did what at the time seemed like a noble thing, by moving the Aleuts to safety. The Aleuts were given one hour to pack 'one' bag to take with them. They were taken by Navy ships, not knowing where they were going or how long they would be gone. They took them 1,500 miles away to the southwestern part of Alaska, to five different isolated concentration camps.

Their lives would never be the same, and it would be 3 1/2 years before they would see their homeland again. Many of the Aleuts died and would never return home again. One of the camps was a decrepit old gold mine and another was an equally dilapidated abandoned fish cannery. Both places were unsafe just to walk through, much less attempt to live in. The cannery had rotten wood on the floors where people fell though to their deaths. These places were vermin-ridden and incapable of being heated. Survivors spoke of constantly being cold, hungry and sick because of all the holes in the walls. The death rate in these camps were the same as the American soldiers who were prisoners of war overseas.

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When those who survived finally returned home, they found their houses, churches and businesses ransacked and plundered, not by the Japanese, but by their own country's military forces, who lived in them and helped themselves while the residents were away. The U.S. government has never paid for any of that damage, or even apologized to them for that damage, or for putting them into those concentration camps. There has never been an official reason given by the military why they put these beautiful people in those camps. I know, but it's so obvious that it's not too hard to figure out. They weren't Japanese, and they weren't Germans, but they were amazing people just trying to survive and raise their kids. My great Uncle lived in San Diego, California during the war, and he told me there was a pow camp for captured Italian soldiers nearby. Most of those soldier were happy to be out of the war. The U.S. military actually gave them passes to go into town on the weekends by themselves. The government trusted soldiers who had fought against them, more than they trusted peaceful Native Americans, who's tribe had never fought against them even once in history.