The year is 2025, we are now 195 years from the malaria pandemic which hit the Oregon Territory, 161 years from Oregon Statehood, and 249 years from US Independence. In the intervening years, the United States and its citizens have led a series of campaigns to acquire all lands of the continent, and take them from Native nations who have been living here for more than 30,000 years. Native populations have suffered an estimated loss of some 90 million from the Americas, some by disease, some by warfare, many by constant sandpapering of Native populations by settlers colonizing the continent. Settlers initiated a series of conflicts and acts of violence and aggression, acts outlawed by their own laws and moral codes. Most settlers were Europeans, and were Christians in some form, but many still engaged in acts of aggression and genocide against Native peoples.
They were aided in their righteous war on Native peoples by their religion and religious interpretations of natural laws. They believed that land ownership, and rights of sovereignty and autonomy only belonged to civilized peoples, and Native peoples did not fit their definitions of civilized or people. Religious doctrine and reasoning applied directly to early anthropological studies suggested that Native peoples did not possess traits and characteristics of civilized peoples. Anthropologists like Lewis Henry Morgan instead called Native peoples savages and barbarians, more akin to animals like wolves. Under this reasoning, Native peoples were a pestilence needing extermination.
Naturalist and early anthropology descriptions of Native people were of a filthy, degraded race, who did not follow a single-god religion, and lived like animals. These characteristics included a series of denials of the humanity of Native peoples, they did not own land, did not have a sense of time, they did not have money, they did not have laws or government, they were untrustworthy, they were simple people of the forest, they did not work hard, they could not handle their liquor, and they did not obey the one Christian god, among others. These denials made it easier to continue to deny Native peoples basic human rights and any respect for their previous tenure on the land. Land may be freely taken from “barbarians” if they possessed none of the attributes of a civilized people, as defined by western culture. It was not a coincidence that European civilization was always seen as the height of civilization.
Much of the religious reasoning and assignment of “savage” ways to Native peoples was a false front for the selfish desires of colonizing settlers to own their own lands and gain wealth like the royalty and aristocracy of Europe. Many settlers, either newly American, or a few generations on the continent, did not stray too far from their European cultures, where the aristocracy had all the power, owned all the land, and were wealthy beyond thought. Settlers sought in many ways to recreate and practice the power of the aristocracy in the United States, re-engineering the land to be wholly agricultural, creating businesses which exploited natural resources, exporting products, remaking their cities in the European models, and imposing western civilization as the education model. Indigenous technologies and agriculture were co-opted and relabeled as European in origin. Indeed, many of the place-names from the “Old World” were imposed on this new world, replacing Native names that had existed for centuries.
European immigrant desires for wealth and ascendancy knew no boundaries, as they legitimized taking everything from Native peoples for centuries. From their exploitation of the world came theories of capitalism and competition, many based on Christian principles. If Native people were not good competitors, they did not have the faith to compete and survive in the new colonial economy. This was seen as a fault and a reason why Native population declined, while Europeans, white people increased. Natives did not possess enough or the correct faith to survive and compete in the world. While the opposite was true for Europeans, they had the right type and enough faith and this was seen as proof they deserve to take all the land and all its resources and get wealthy. These false assumptions remain today in our society.
Darwinian and Spencerian theories of the survival of the fittest and natural selection were hijacked using a mixture of science and religion to substantiate the righteousness of colonization. From this came the need for conversion and religious education of a whole continent full of Native peoples through forced assimilation. Native children were forced into boarding schools, and missionaries were assigned to reservations to convert the populations of Native people to become Christians. Religious education was the way to civilizing the children and therefore saving them from their plight. Adult Natives were influenced to attend church and take up worthwhile occupations, like farming. Generations of Native children were forced from their parents homes to be placed in boarding schools to eliminate their language, culture, and savage characteristics. Assimilation was largely successful, with many people becoming Christians and many Native languages going extinct by the mid-2oth century. We are now some seven generations into assimilation and many Native people cannot name their original tribes, know nothing of their languages or cultures, and have little knowledge of their tribal history beyond a couple generations.
Assimilation is deep, even what counts as history was radically changed and rewritten to fit a settler need to feel they did not destroy and exploit, but instead developed, saved, and benefited Native peoples. Taking of Native lands was rewritten as “saving” savage peoples from damnation. Killing Native people was written about as making bad Indians into “good” Indians. Genocide was a righteous liberation of the land from being wasted, to becoming the appropriate agricultural and extractive wealth producing lands. (I think this is the very definition of gaslighting!) If Native people tried to adapt quickly to the new capitalist culture they were denied rights, denied citizenship, their properties taken, while they were removed to reservations where they could no longer bother or compete with white settlers. Their labor was valued, but they were not allowed to remain in white cities, having to live in encampments on the edge of city limits, or return to the reservation. Native people, after living for generations in this system of exploitation, forgot where they came from and accepted their plight as second class citizens in society. Many even claiming that the reservation was their true home and even refused to listen to any voices in opposition to their views. Assimilation and colonization is deep.
Still we survive. The present generation is now relearning the culture and language and now studying ways to recover their ancestral Native identities. They work to reverse the effects of settler colonialism in their culture, their land, and themselves. There are many false paths, and many in society who seek to ignore and obfuscate our history and struggles. Yet, it is undeniable that we remain Native people who deserve the rights promised to us in treaties and other agreements by the federal government. We also deserve a reckoning. We are as many citizens of this nation as anyone and our government has the responsibility of making their promises, and laws, a reality. Our history should be taught in schools, just like other histories are, accurately and without stereotypes, our culture and languages should be restored, and our rights to land and resources need to be returned. Our reservations, originally promised to forever in the treaties, were taken from us through various law and policy changes, and these changes should be reversed. We have not been allowed to gain wealth like other Americans and if we are to truly represent our ancestors and help the tribe survive, we need increased opportunities.
My father told me years ago that our history needs to be studied. For the longest time I did not know why, but now I do. Without the knowledge of how our tribe and people got to where we are today, we cannot find ways to return our rights as a sovereign people, the original peoples of this land.