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,…
Tag: General History
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,…
Lower Chinookan Treaty Territories in 1851
The Columbia River has been divided into different culture areas by anthropologists since the 19th century. They are Upper, middle and lower Chinook areas, or sometimes written…
Ongoing Chinook Territorial and Recognition Claims, Pt. 1
The Chinook Nation is still seeking recognition in 2018, despite having one of the oldest and longest relationships with the United States of any tribe on the West…
Methodists in Oregon
Reverend Jason Lee established the first Methodist Mission near Champoeg in 1835. By 1839 the mission had been damaged by flood waters and Lee established another farm and school…
The Temporary Cow Creek Umpqua Reservation
The Cow Creek Umpquas were a Takelman speaking tribe of native peoples related to the Takelma peoples of the Rogue river valley. The Cow Creek peoples resided in…
The 1855 Umpqua Reservation Census
Some recent census research revealed a census I had not yet analyzed. Luckily, a brief search of my records found that I had previously collected the census, enabling…
When the Southern Molallas Moved to the Umpqua Reservation
In 1853, Joel Palmer Indian Superintendent for Oregon established the Umpqua Reservation in the inland Umpqua Valley. The September 19, 1853 Treaty with the Cow Creek Band of…
What did Omission from the Annual Tribal Census Mean to Grand Ronde?
In 1907, the Indian agent at Grand Ronde began redacting, or not listing, native peoples at Grand Ronde from the annual tribal census. The agent was treating the…
Surviving Indigenous Landscapes in the Willamette Valley: the Mid-Valley Buttes
In my short life, I have spent some 30 years traveling the Willamette Valley from north to south and east to west, and not really giving the buttes…
Sixteen Years in the Dark Night at Grand Ronde
The tribes at Grand Ronde trusted the words of the American agents and the agents did nothing to help them, all promises of the treaties, of services, land,…
Modocs, Klamaths, Native Voting and Sovereignty, KYAC Radio Broadcast 10/23/2018
David Lewis and Ken Cartwright, KYAC, Bridge to the Past, 10/23/2018
Native Voting Rights, Oral Histories, KYAC Radio Broadcast
David Lewis with Ken Cartwright at KYAC radio from Mill City, Bridge to the Past show, 11/13/2018
Pre-Anthropologists and Colonization
Anthropology as a science grew out of needs of colonizing countries to gain more information about the frontier. The United States in the early 19th century needed to…
Traditional Sharing of the Cascades Range by Tribes
The assignment by anthropologists, historians, and linguists of the whole of the Oregon Cascades to the Molalla peoples since 1846 (Hale 1846) needs to be critically rethought. I…
Estuaries Saved the Coastal Tribes: Section 2- Removal and Exposure
Removal of the western Oregon tribes to the reservations was a tumultuous affair. Caravans from the Umpqua and Table Rock reservations to place in the dead of winter…
Clearing the Land and Making all Indians Good: The Massacre at Bear River, Utah
In 1863, the California Volunteers under Colonel Patrick E. Connor (3rd Volunteer Regiment, California Cavalry), massacred either 300 or three thousand Ute (Shoshone) Indians in Cash Valley…
Ethnographic Molalla Homelands in Historic Scholarship
The Molalla tribes and bands, were native peoples lived in Western Oregon within the Willamette Valley, and within the Umpqua valley. Historic studies of the Molalla have assigned…
William Slacum’s Chart of the Columbia River 1837
As a spy in the Oregon Territory, and a Navy man, William A. Slacum was tasked with documenting the possessions of the British, but he also worked extensively…
Americans the Victimized
The story of the settlement of Oregon is largely one of victimization. The pioneers, settlers in many stories are escaping taxes and lack of opportunities in the east.…
Promise of Citizenship and Informal Allotment at the Grand Ronde Reservation
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Truth of History
This title is nearly an oxymoron. There are historic truths, but what we known of history is an invention of mostly people who did not personally experience that…
David Douglas Shaves Comcomley’s Brother
David Douglas traveled around Oregon, Washington, California, British Columbia and Hawaii from 1824 to 1834. Most of the time Douglas was accompanied by Native packers who helped transport…