The tribes removed to the Grand Ronde Reservation in 1856 never realized the safety and security of a reservation they were promised in seven treaties. They were forced into poverty, living on whatever the federal government was able to sent to them from the east coast. The first years were full of starvation deprivation, and … More Influenza on the Reservation
Notes transcribed from Smedley, Audrey. Race in North America, Origin and Evolution of a Worldview, 2nd edition, Westview press, 1999, Comments are my own. The origins of racism in America as employed by the United States Indian Service are in the English treatments of the Native people of Ireland.[1] The English people for centuries attempted … More Genealogy of Racism on American Indians
In the early nineteenth century, the United States assumed ownership of all of the Oregon Territory through “right of discovery”, first adjudicated in the United States Supreme Court in 1823 in Johnson v. M’intosh (Supreme Court of the United States 1823).[i] This ownership remained tenuous as it relied on the European protocols of exploration and … More Imagining the American Nation, and Ignoring the Tribes
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 stereotypes and now live in a new realm of their own creation. His analysis seems metaphorical and philosophical and I would extend it further. Many native peoples … More Post Indianism
This essay began some years ago when I was working on the Kalapuya lessons project with Esther Stutzman and her family. We discussed in our group the lack of gendered terms in the language. I was thinking perhaps we are just missing something, but even after consulting with Henry Zenk, an anthropological linguist who studies … More Gendered terms in Kalapuyan
