Blackwater Massacre in Red Dead Redemption 2: Explained
This story will focus on the infamous blackwater massacre which took place before the events of RDR2.
The biggest help in understanding it you can find in Arthur's journal, During winter of 1898, the gang was stying mostly in the western foothills of northern grizzlies.
They had plenty of money and food, and they were doing well. Dutch even wanted to buy some land for them but never went through with it. During that time, they picked up two additional gang members.
Jenny, who they met on the roadside.
And Micah, who Dutch met in a bar, Eventually the gang settled just outside of blackwater, Arthur would visit the town often looking for opportunities to make money. Hosea discovered a real estate scam and Arthur was working with him on that.
Meanwhile Dutch and micah were busy with their own thing, a boat was delivering money to the blackwater bank, and Dutch wanted to rob it.
If you go to Micah's camp which is located here on the map.
You can find out that the boat was carrying $150,000.
The plan was for everyone, except Arthur and Hosea. Once that was done, the gang would flee to the wilderness in the west. The next day Arthur and Hosea would carry out their scheme, and meetup with the rest of the gang.
At first, the heist was going smoothly. After pinkertons and the police arrived, it all went south.
Among all the commotion, Dutch killed a woman named Heidi Mccourt, in cold blood. In RDR1, you can see him in a similar situation.
Its heavily implied that the moment he killed Heidi in blackwater was the beginning of his mental issues. Heidi's death is mentioned by strange man in RDR1.
One note in Arthur's journal is particularly interesting.
Before the blackwater massacre, Arthur mentions that he heard talks of a man who resembled Trelawny. But it couldn't be him, since the gang hadn't seen him in months.
It was strange man who was seen around blackwater before the massacre.
It's worth mentioning, that another RDR1 character was present during the massacre. His name is Landon Ricketts, we find out about it in one of the RDR1 newspapers, he was lawman who had survived the massacre.
Jenny was killed during the blackwater heist. Davey was fatally injured and died just before the gang reached Colter.
Davey's brother Mac got shot during the heist and killed later on by Jim Milton. Sean was captured by bounty hunters, John marston got shot in the arm, but the wound wasn't bad.
It's possible that the blackwater robbery was trap, it could've been Micah who set the whole thing up. But that's unlikely since Milton says that Micah was turned after they came back from Guarma.
Although, Micah did have Dutch’s wanted poster in his camp which might hint at him being the rat from the beginning.
The gang might getting sloppy. Dutch planned the heist without hosea, and he and Micah probably made some mistakes that got the pinkertons' attention.