Klickitat and Twality Legal battles Over Land
By the 1830s, right about the time that “fever and ague” a great plague, likely malaria (Boyd, the Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence,1999) hit the tribes of…
Tag: General History
Ignoring Tribal History in a Contemporary Exhibit
On 10/26, 2019 I visited the Open house at the Oregon State Archives, Salem, OR, and was supremely disappointed at their new exhibit Rust Rot Ruin. which documents…
Erroneous Tropes in Narratives of Removal to the Coast Indian Reservation
Digging through previously collected digitized documents, I found several accounts of removal of the tribes to the Siletz Reservation. These are worthy of commentary for the historical origins…
Two Schools at Grand Ronde Indian Reservation, 1863
There are a few reports that open the windows wide to a vision of the reservation, its changes, its struggles, and its peoples. In the 1863 Grand Ronde…
The 1867 Manual Labor School at Grand Ronde
In the 1860s the issue of education was at the fore of the duties of the Indian agents at Grand Ronde. Years of letters complained about irregular federal…
Redskins Etc. as Racial Stereotypes
Native peoples of the America were thought of in early philosophy as being Red Indians, fitting perfectly into a color wheel of peoples of the earth, White people…
The Trials of Tom Gilbert, Convicted of Murdering Wapato Dave and Wife.
On about December 8th 1882, Tom Gilbert, a native man enrolled in the Grand Ronde tribe allegedly murdered Wapato Dave and his wife on their allotment on the…
Agent McClane struggles with Native Culture, Grand Ronde 1886
Into the last decades of the 19th century the Indian agents at Grand Ronde struggled with many aspects of assimilating the tribes to American culture. In fact,…
Enforced Assimilation in Tribal Correspondence about the Grand Ronde Boarding School
The natives at the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation underwent extreme hardships. Most of the early years they starved from lack of good effective administration by the federal employees…
Chief Eagle Horse Baritone Singer from Alaska
Charlie Cutter, a student of Chemawa Indian school from about 1898 to 1902 was a noted baritone singer. Cutter was born in Shaken Alaska in1880 and had a…
John Wacheno on Fishing Rights and Land Inheritance, 1931
In 1931, John Wacheno of Grand Ronde tesified before a subcommittee from the Committee of Indian Affairs at Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon. The subcommittee is investigating…
Tribal Boys Thrown Off Census for Years
At the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation the Indian Agent in 1907, Andrew Kershaw (Kershaw was a long-term agent at the reservation, began omitting Tribal members from the annual…
Joel Palmer Returning Indians and Feeding Natives, Siletz 1871
Joel Palmer was the Indian Agent at the Siletz Agency in 1871 and had responsibilities, as emphasized in his 1871 journal, over continuing to removing Indians from the…
Joel Palmer’s Defiant Cattle Drive Through Grand Ronde, 1874
In 1874, Joel Palmer was again an independent contractor for the Indian service, after having completed a two-year stint as the Indian Agent for the Siletz Agency. Palmer…
Eliza Young: Brownsville Basketweaver
Eliza Young (Indian Eliza, Liza), was a native of the Mohawk Valley. The Mohawk Indians, were originally called the Peyu (Pee-you, Pe-u) Kalapuyans and were re-named by…
Nachicolcho or Siletz: a Place on the Oregon Coast
The Siletz placename is something of a mystery. Leo J. Frachtenberg, the ethnologist assigned to collect native languages on the Grand Ronde and Siletz reservations in about 1913, …
Acknowledgement is Long Past Due for Attempts to Exterminate the Tribes of Oregon
Presently, there is an apology bill being considered in the Oregon State Senate for the Modoc Indian War of 1872-1873. This apology is long past due to the…
Battle Rock the First Colonization on the Southern Oregon Coast
In July 1851, Captain William Tichenor decided to begin his project to colonize and claim the Port Orford area. He envisioned that the establishment of a town at…
Timeline of Treaties and Removals in Western Oregon
1850 June, the First treaty in the North West Coast and West Coast, a Treaty of Peace negotiated with General Joseph Lane and the Takelma- Rogue River Tribes…
Federal Policy Embedded in Oregon Tribal Territory Maps
Maps of Oregon tribal regions have existed since 1805. Lewis and Clark published the first maps in 1810 and their hand-drawn maps date to 1805-1806. Their drawings show…
Beginnings of the Umpqua District, Agency, and Reservation
The Umpqua Reservation was located on the central Oregon Coast and was established as a reservation in May of 1856. Previously, there had been another Umpqua Reservation located…
David Douglas and Sir Edward Sabine: A Discovery
In recent research, (May 2018- ) I found an interesting relationship between David Douglas and Edward Sabine. They shared many similarities, both were explorers, both were interested in botany,…
Fishery Politics with the Yakima Reservation Peoples: 1890s
Chilluckittequw: In what was to become Skamania County, the first residents called themselves Chilluckittequw (Ruby and Brown) and they lived along the rivers that drained into the Columbia…
Chinook Survey of Indian Claims 1962, Pt. 2
The Clatsop Chinook Indians won their case against the United States in 1958 (Findings of fact in the The Chinook Tribe and Bands of Indians vs. United States,…