A Petition to Change the Name of Lane County
In this new period of “wokeness” there are calls for the elimination of racist names and statues from our institutions. Christopher Columbus statues have been torn from…
Tag: Kalapuya
An Early Account of Native People Near Falls City
Each archive I enter I find new information about the native peoples of that county. Generally, the stories are of early encounters with a few native people, experiences…
Agent of Rebirth, Kalapuyan Culture in Linn County
The Kalapuyans, for their part, accepted the settlement of the whites at first, as they saw the great wealth in new things brought to them, metals, fabrics, weapons,…
Soc-te-la Chief of the Luckimute Kalapuya People
The following section of a letter to General Joel Palmer details that at least one chief Soc-te-la knew they were to remove and was working to gather his…
Chelamela and Chemapho of the Long Tom Watershed
Chelamela and Chemapho Kalapuyans The Long Tom Watershed was the original homeland to two major tribes of Kalapuyan Indians, the Chelamela and Chemapho tribes. The Chelamela occupied the…
Modeste Demers Ethnographic Descriptions of the Tribes, 1839
Modeste Demers was assigned with the Oregon Territory, in 1837, at the same time as Francois Norbert Blanchet and they traveled together overland to their assignment in canoes…
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…
Selquia’s Charges Against Indian Agent McClane At Grand Ronde
Some letters from the Natives at Grand Ronde are remarkable in the details they reveal of how the people are being treated by the Indian Agents. Shilequa’s…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
Tribal Environmental Health Summit 2018: presentation and video link
I participated in the last tribal Environmental Health Summit at OSU. Tuesday, June 26, 2018 11:40-1:00 pmLunch plenary (starting at 12pm) Lunch and Regional PlenarySpeaker: David Lewis, Ethnoh…
Chelamela and Chemapho Kalapuyans
The Long Tom River and its tributaries was the original homelands to two major tribes of Kalapuyan Indians, the Chelamela and Chemapho tribes. The Chelamela occupied the upper…
Stories of Change Among the Clackamas at Grand Ronde
The Clackamas Come to Grand Ronde Reservation Preparing to Leave The Clackamas are addressed in letters as living in small encampments near Oregon City. They likely had a…
Lt. William A. Slacum, United States Spy in the Oregon Territory, & Chief Slacum of the Clowewalla
Lt. William A. Slacum, a Navy purser, was sent by the President, through the Department of State, as a special investigator to the Oregon Territory to investigate the…
Drucker’s Records of Clackamas Villages
The Clackamas (Tlakamas) lived along the Clackamas river and along the lower Willamette. Their villages and associated territorial claims extended from Willamette Falls to the Willamette Slough. Schol…
Native Kinships and Wealth among the Middle Chinookans
Native kinships are incredibly complex. They do not follow the nice neat patterns of kinship that Americans have adopted from their European ancestors. Native peoples did not only…
Bison of the Western Rockies
For years, I have stated that the tribes did not have bison in Oregon, so they would not have made tipis. This is why the tribes have…
Ethnography of Oregon Indians 1841: Horatio Hale of the U.S. Exploring Expedition
Horatio Hale’s created what may be one of the earliest ethnographies of the tribes of the Pacific Coast. Remarkable as it is, Hale’s ethnography is both interesting and…
A Stable Kalapuyan Anthropogenic-Environmental Model?
It is noted that humans have had an extreme effect on the environment everywhere they have lived. These changes became much more radical some 12,000 years ago when…