An eventful year, 2016, for Indigenous peoples! We began the year with [nearly] a bang when the Malheur Wildlife refuge in Oregon was taken over and occupied by an American militia who basically wanted free land and free leasing of federal lands. This blog responded with a series of articles about the native indigenous history of the Malheur area, suggesting that if anyone deserved their land back, the Paiute do! We are now ending the year with Stand Rock still going full swing, the fight is not over and will likely intensify in 2017. Many articles are begin published daily on my associated Facebook site Oregon Indian Territory.
The NDN blog launched into research on Reuben Sanders, perhaps the best athlete in Oregon history, from any school or any ethnicity.
The Kalapuyans of the Willamette Valley were concentrated on for a few months as it was revealed that there were temporary reservations before the permanent reservations, throughout the Willamette Valley.
The Molallans also were attended to in the blog. not only did they have a temporary reservation, but they had an amazing history, one that has not been attended to by historians in our recent era. Read about Chief Crooked Finger and his early fight against American Colonization of his lands.
The earliest settlement histories of Oregon would not be complete without some details of their first settlements, like Wallace House. In addition, there was a daisy chain of fur trade forts that happen to have coincided with the location of native villages, and many of their names are still a part of Oregon.
Finally in the last few months the blog has features some crazy information about what the United States paid for all of the Oregon homelands of the tribes, which amounts to about 1 cent an acre. Then regardless of the promises made in the treaties and tribes went through horrible treatment on the reservation, likely as many as half of the tribes died in the first five years.
Questions still abound, the future of the blog in 2017 will feature longer more thoughtful articles that continue to extend what we know of tribal history of Oregon.
Personally I have a submission into Ooligan press for a Kalapuyan stories book. I am also working as an editor on a volume about the Kalapuyans from a multidisciplinary perspectives.
If folks out there would like to feature their own articles on my blog I would be happy to work with you as an editor to feature your work here. Contact me directly if you have some ideas. No time period is sacred, I am asking for well researched and reasoned articles about tribes.
The Blog is sitting right now at 161 articles and over 23,000 visitations for the year. I would like to get to 25,000, so take a look at a few articles that you have not had time to read until now.
Thanks again for the year
David