Tag: Native IssuesPage 1 of 3
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , August 6th, 2022
A subject which has had little clarity in the past is when were the Umpqua and Southern Kalapuya, the Yoncallas, resettled to the Umpqua Reservation at Coles Valley….
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , May 3rd, 2022
I revisited Bush Park today to tour the other areas of camas. I began at the “Picnic” area, south side of the park at its upper level and…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , May 2nd, 2022
Today, I visited three camas areas in Salem. They present different characters and interesting contexts this spring. As I left the fields I noticed splotches of yellow on…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , February 28th, 2022
The Charles Wilkes Exploring expedition came to Oregon in August 1841. The expedition split into two parts with some of the expedition venturing up the Columbia, and a…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , January 6th, 2022
The Chetco Indians, perhaps more than nearly any other tribe on the Oregon coast, were repeatedly attacked by racist white settlers before their removal. In a previous set…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , January 5th, 2022
The experiences of the Grave Creek Indians of southwestern Oregon mirror those of the other tribes in the region. They however hardly survived the 1850s as most of…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , December 19th, 2021
In 1981 I took a job weeding onion fields out Hazelgreen Road on the outskirts of Salem, Oregon, as one of my first jobs. In the summer after…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , November 7th, 2021
This summer I was approached by the Bush Art Museum to do something for Native American month. Over the period of several months discussion we centered the exhibit…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , October 17th, 2021
The Santiam Forks Band of Molalla is not as well known as the Northern Molalla. We have had a few stories and while there is some information in…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , September 26th, 2021
Joel Palmer’s letters during his superintendency lend themselves to a timeline for the removal of most tribes. Palmer penned orders and received reports from his Indian agents, sub…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , August 30th, 2021
In Record Group 75 (Bureau of Indian Affairs) microfilm are many millions of records of the tribes as they were being managed by federal Indian agents. The M234…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , August 16th, 2021
In numerous essays on this blog I have noted that many of the tribes considered the most violent, and those who had participated in the wars in southwestern…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , August 15th, 2021
One of the most egregious of acts against the Rogue River tribes in southern Oregon was making them pay for the destruction of the property of the American…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , July 12th, 2021
An investigation at Grand Ronde and the agent precipitated this meeting of the chiefs. The Indian Agent was asking for them to produce their own food and was…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , July 12th, 2021
A letter was delivered in person to Joel Palmer, Indian Superintendent of Oregon, in 1855 of a complaint of Jacob Comegys about his pigs being chased and killed…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , July 4th, 2021
William John Harris was born in Juneau Alaska March 29, 1884 to Richard Tighe Harris an Irishman, and Kitty a member of the Tlingit tribe. Richard Tighe Harris…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , June 16th, 2021
A fellow scholar asked a question about if the decline of the tribes of Oregon could be termed as “gradual,” here is my response. The destruction of the…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , June 16th, 2021
Between the time of the formation of the Umpqua Reservation in the Umpqua basin (1854) and the removal of the four tribes to Grand Ronde Reservation, in late…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , December 1st, 2020
Gerald Vizenor has created the idea of the Post Indian, native peoples who are living a new consciousness beyond the stereotypes of victim-hood about Indians. Post-Indians defy the…

Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , September 18th, 2020
Information about the inner lives of the tribes in the 1860s is very sparse. A few federal reports exist but not a whole lot of information about the…

Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , June 7th, 2020
As a native person, a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and a descendant of the Santiam, Takelma, and Chinook peoples of western Oregon, I have…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , June 2nd, 2020
The following story appeared in the Oregonian in 1900. Nicholas Day was an Indian agent who was hired by Joel Palmer to manage the Umpqua Indians. Day took…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , May 21st, 2020
Thanks to Jim Sheppke, former State Librarian for the state of Oregon, I received a digital copy of the thesis“Mill Place” on the Willamette a new Mission house…
Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD , April 25th, 2020
Foreword As an instructor in Native Studies and anthropology, I get bombarded with having to explain why native peoples on the reservations live the way they live. People…