Major Benjamin Alvord discusses Eastern Oregon Settlement, 1853
In 1853, the former Superintendent of Indian Affairs of Oregon Anson Dart had been forced to resign as none of his nineteen treaties with the tribes were ratified.…
Tag: Oregon indians
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…
John Collier and Indian Termination Policy
As Commissioner of Indian Affairs, John Collier was a long-term advocate for Indian tribes. In the 1920s, John Collier, a trained sociologist, led efforts in Washington, D.C. to…
Elijah White Romanticizes Oregon Tribal Peoples
Dr. Elijah White was a missionary and the first Indian sub-Agent of the Oregon territory. He was then (1837) part of Jason Lee’s Methodist Mission but had a…
Horatio Hale’s Description of Oregon Tribes
Horatio Hale has been the subject of much attention by me in recent months, in particular his Ethnology and Philology volume 6, United States Exploring Expedition, 1846. His…
Ancient History of the Molala (La’tiwi)
The Molala (Mollala, Molalla, Molele, La’tiwi) are a tribe of Western Oregon. They lived on the eastern periphery of the Willamette and Umpqua Valleys. There were at least…
J. Ross Browne Investigation as Reported to the SF Herald, 1857
Special Indian Agent J. Ross Browne famously came to the Northwest reservations in 1857 and wrote reports of the conditions of the tribes on the reservations. The following…
We Tricked them-We Are All One People
Aunt Pat in a low whispering voice was speaking to me before a Culture Committee meeting at Grand Ronde. Pat Allen was the chair and I was vice-chair,…
Oregon Catholic Indian Education History
The Catholic Indian education program was initially supported by a policy decision by the U.S. Department of War in 1819. Then the USDOW was in charge of Indian…
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…
Blanchet’s Mission to Vancouver, 1841
Reverend Blanchet traveled to Fort Vancouver after his mission to the Clackamas. In Vancouver, there was much more orderly town life, the chapels in the fort being served…
Blanchet’s Mission to the Cascades, 1841
Blanchet’s mission to the Cascades is perhaps his first visit to this location. His interactions with Tamakoun, also later called Tomaquin, are quite revealing of the tribe…
Blanchet’s Mission at the Walamette Village, 1841
The following is report from a Notice, Notice No. 4, part of a series of reports of the Catholic missionary Francois Norbert Blanchet (September 30, 1795 – June…
Blanchet’s Missions to the Clackamas, 1841-1842
The following is a Notice, Notice No. 4, part of a series of reports of the Catholic missionary Francois Norbert Blanchet from 1841 to 1842 about his missionary…
Petition to Survey the Reservation and to Live in Peace, September 20, 1869
Previous essays have addressed the poor treatment of the tribes on the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation into the late 1860s. In 1869 during his inauguration speech, newly elected…
Nichaqwali Watlala peoples at Blue Lake
The Nichaqwali people, a Cascades/Watlala Chinookan band, lived at the juncture of several cultural groups that lived in the larger region of the lower Columbia and who interacted…
Ka’hosadi Shasta Peoples of Oregon and California
Chief John, Tecumtum, was the leader of the Rogue River Confederacy for over a year in southwestern Oregon. The Confederacy formed when tribal bands on the Table Rock…
All Payments at One Time, the foresight of Chief Crooked Finger
Tribal treaties are said to never have been honored by the United States. Native communities from around the continent will state this, and it is a common enough…
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…
La’tiwi, Northern Molalla, Placenames and Housing notes
Phillip Drucker’s field notes from the 1920s and 30s had him questioning many Native people from the region, from Grand Ronde and Siletz. Many of these people were…
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 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…
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…