Recent work on correcting histories of settlers’ societies has been highly popular. The 2019 Exhibit at Five Oaks Museum, Washington County by Stephanie Littlebird Fogel (Grand Ronde) “This IS Kalapuyan Land” – with some help from me- has presented a way to respond to settler-derived histories in interesting and important ways. The issue at play has always been that Tribal peoples are –still– not and have not been –historically– consulted about their histories. Many histories and narratives of discovery and settlement of the Oregon Territory and “other” Tribal lands -ie: every inch of the Americas– have continued to dismiss tribal permanency and primacy on the land.
Tribal Nations, First Nations, and Indigenous Nations have always held claims to their lands, even if they are decreased by disease, war, or other acts of the colonial settlers. Tribal land ownership, sovereign rights to occupy their lands, and use the resources of their lands for their cultural lifeways is a part of the Treaty negotiations, but is enshrined in federal laws under the concept of “aboriginal ownership.” Yet colonizing settlers, supported by their governments – ie: the U.S., Great Britain, Spain, France, etc.– invaded tribal lands and assumed ownership. That process of settlement and assumption of ownership by whites in Oregon set the model for the settlement and invasion of the West. After Oregon was taken, then Washington Territory, Idaho, Montana, and the rest of the West and the Plains were settled and taken from the tribes. California, Arizona, and New Mexico are largely a special case of double colonization- Spain then the US– and so the process was different but no less brutal colonization.
These are not strange or fringe concepts. Scholars have been addressing these issues for years and there is plenty of scholarship around the importance of telling the tribal story. I think some historians forgot that even when they are telling the story of the settlers and their trials on the Oregon Trail, Indigenous people were there as well, every inch of the trail is claimed by one or more tribes and tribal peoples experienced numerous effects from strange people traveling across their lands. Besides the more common effects mentioned, diseases, conflicts, murders, and fights that caused the death of someone, there were numerous environmental effects. Settlers brought strange animals, and plants and these invaders began to change ecological systems once established. Settlers also hunted the food of the tribes and would take tribal resources without any payment back to the tribe, who owned these lands. The effect of 10s of thousands of travelers had to have cumulative effects on tribal resources. Then, as well, the settlers did not have good diplomatic skills, would not recognize the primacy rights of the tribes, and there were few proper protocols practiced by settlers. The proper diplomacy- meetings and exchanging gifts- with the tribal chiefs which would engender respect was rarely followed.
Then finally, the descendants of the tribes are also citizens- Americans, or Canadians,- and on paper- if not in practice– they have the same rights as white people in their nation. And so, if the story of the Oregon Trail is to be told and have any legitimacy, the tribal story must be a significant and equal party of that story. The tribal history reflects the real experiences of tribal people which is also our collective history.
But, still, I encounter stories and histories written that minimize the tribal story and privilege the white story in numerous accounts. Many of the accounts are from older published histories and are still available. It is a significant problem when the Oregon Trail story continues- each new generation– to centralize, and then re-centralize the trials of the white people, exclusively, and not include tribal perspectives about what they experienced. As Native descendants, as a part of this society and nation, our ancestors were there as well.
The following is one example of a recent history, one which is a continued re-centralization of the settler story. The account is shown in redline to show how changes can be made within the text to integrate tribal perspectives into an Oregon Trail and settlement account.
The original paragraph, from The First Year in Oregon 1840-1869 A Narrative History, by Historical Research Associates Inc. for the National Park Service, in 2021.
“Who overlanders interacted with upon arrival depended on when they came to Oregon. Around 1840, the population of the Willamette Valley was primarily fur trade employees, former fur trade employees and their Indigenous wives, Methodist and Catholic missionaries, and Upper Chinookan and Kalapuyan people who continued to call the Willamette Valley home, although they had lost many community members to disease. As more and more American overlanders arrived to settle the Oregon and Washington Territories, the population makeup changed. The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) had dominated the local economy in the 1830s and early 1840s, but after the boundary between the United States and British-controlled Canada was settled in 1846, businesses run by American settlers replaced the HBC. The Oregon Donation Land Act of 1850 and the US government’s forced removal of Indigenous people from the Willamette Valley later that decade further tipped the scales in favor of White Americans.1”
Redline edits,
This is what the paragraph would look like with edits accepted,
“Who overlanders interacted with upon arrival depended on when they came to Oregon. Around 1840, the population of the Willamette Valley was a few fur trade employees, former fur trade employees and their Indigenous wives, and Methodist and Catholic missionaries. The majority of the population were indigenous peoples Upper Chinookan, Molallan and Kalapuyan peoples who had lived in the Willamette Valley for more than 10,000 years. Many of the Indigenous peoples had lost many community members to disease, malaria which broke out in 1830. The first large immigration in 1844, encouraged more and more American overlanders arrived to settle in the Oregon and later Washington territories, at first hundreds and then thousands annually, the population makeup changed. The Tribal trade economies began changing in the 1810s [edit] with the beginnings of the fur trade, and the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) dominated the local economy in the 1830s and early 1840s, but after the boundary between the United States and British-controlled Canada was settled in 1846, businesses run by American settlers replaced the HBC and the Americans inhabited and took over vast Tribal trade centers like Willamette Falls/Oregon City and Celilo/The Dalles. The Oregon Donation Land Act of 1850 assumed US title to lands that were still owned by the Tribes. The US government’s forced removal of Indigenous people from the Willamette Valley in 1856 after some treaties of land purchase were ratified and others were “promised” to be ratified, gave White Americans full rights while removing all rights from the Tribes, even over Tribes and lands were treaties were never written or ratified.1”
I can’t replicate Steph’s artwork on the original “This IS Kalapuyan land” panels. But I think I have made the point. Whenever we read these histories to minimize Tribal presence and influence, there needs to be a critical evaluation and a correction made. This may appear to some to be a minor issue, that individually this history is unimportant, it is not published and so few people will ever read it. But the culmination of this same re-centralization of the settler history in nearly every history for generations is not a minor thing and tends to make indigenous people appear minor and unimportant, and that the loss of their lands due to illegal immigration and taking of land is a minor thing.
The US government and many Americans like to say that the US is a country of laws, people follow the laws, which makes the country strong. But not in the case of Native rights it appears, when Tribal land rights are addressed, their rights to land and resources, that is not taken seriously, in part because many scholars have not seriously addressed these matters for a long time. Native scholars have been addressing them, scholars like Vine Deloria Jr., Linda Smith, Devon Mihesuah, and many others, and yet our people and histories are still being minimized.
To be fair to the above report, they do include a larger conversation about the Kalapuyans and Molallans, the effects of the fur trade, the myth of the disappearance of Indigenous people and a few more details about settlement and taking of tribal lands in Chapter 1. They also use some sources from native scholars, even some of my essays from the blog. Overall their history is well conceived, it is only in a few sections where I have issues. This section (p 17) is welcome,
“A central tenant of settler colonialism was the erasure of Indigenous people—through warfare, murder, physical removal, or cultural genocide—as means to justify the colonial project. In the United States, the myth of the “vanishing Indian”—a perception that “primitive” Indigenous people were destined to die out as “civilized” White people moved in—led White settlers to see taking Indigenous land as part of a natural progression. Writings from overlanders are full of stories about Indigenous people being feeble, weak, reduced in population, and near extinction. In the Willamette Valley, settlers cited the numerous Kalapuyans who died during epidemics in the 1830s as evidence of this, using the tragedy to reinforce the mythology and justify the taking of Indigenous lands.55 Literature encouraging Americans to settle in Oregon also reinforced the narrative, portraying the Willamette Valley as an orderly, English-speaking settlement in which the local Indigenous people “were ultimately destined to vanish from the landscape,” leaving the valley open for agrarian development by American settlers.56 As American overlanders continued to flood into Oregon, their settlements, culture, and racial ideologies increasingly marginalized Indigenous, Métis, Black, Hawaiian, Chinese, and other non-White people, excluding them from the new Oregon that they created in the Willamette Valley.”
I wonder if the authors would rethink their earlier introductory paragraph employing the lessons from their paragraph of the “Myth of the Vanishing Indian”?