Recognizing Tribal Chiefs from the 19th Century

Tribes have their own holidays. As sovereign nations the events and dates significant to the tribes are dates of their establishment, dates of their treaties and date of restoration and termination,and important people. Some events are not necessarily celebratory, like a termination date, or even a date of removal from our homelands to the reservation, but more relevant to the tribe to remember the pain and suffering that tribes have endured during colonization. Beginning in the 1990s, about the time of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus “happened upon” the Americas, tribal people began working on modifications to the national holidays that seen as huge negatives to Native peoples. Columbus Day was renamed Indigenous People’s Day at the University of Oregon by the native student organizations and celebrated that way with a day of speakers. This project of renaming these holidays is now being picked up by cities like Seattle and Portland.

There is one day that has interested me for years, Presidents’ Day. A collaboration of several president’s birthdays into one day of celebration. Tribes have renamed this day internally as Tribal Chiefs’ or Tribal Leaders’ Day.  But in my experience there are few details ever noted about tribal chiefs and leaders. I know we had many of them over the last few centuries in Oregon, but who were they? For a population of Native people hungry for information about Tribal histories, I have composed a list of over 100 such leaders for the Grand Ronde Tribe.

The chiefs listed in the following table are only those who appear in treaties of the tribe or who are well known previous to the reservations with published accounts. The extent of this list is only 19th century. For those leaders of the tribe that deserve listing from the 1870s and into the 20th century we will have to expand the table. In the 1870s the Grand Ronde tribe adopted an elective government and elected representatives of the various tribes to sit on the council. All of the elected leaders from those early councils into the 20th century deserve mention. In 1935 the tribe adopted Indian Reorganization, and a constitution with an elected Business committee. The records from this time are incomplete and need to be assembled. And then there are the Council of the tribe from the 1970s to the present, the Restoration era.

My own family history has many relations to several chiefs and leaders of the Santiam tribe, Captain Santiam, and John B. Hudson. John B Hudson was a leader of the Grand Ronde in the 20th century, the last speaker of Kalapuya.  In the 1970s, and probably earlier, Gertrude (Hudson) Mercier was a cultural leader and political leader at Grand Ronde in the restoration era. Several people, aunts, uncles, cousins, in my related families of the Hudson and Mercier lines were elected leaders, traditional chiefs, and cultural leaders in the 19th and 20th centuries.

I hope in the future to add further references to the table.

Chiefs of Grand Ronde Table (incomplete)

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