Category: California Natives

California Natives, General History, Native Issues, Oregon indians, Rogue Valley, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Repealing National Monuments? Why Tribal People Should Care!

David G. Lewis, PhD

Mr. Trump has ordered a review of many National Monuments that are protected under the Antiquities Act of 1906. The law was enacted in 1906 to prevent looting of Indian artifacts from archaeological sites. The act has mostly been used since then by presidents to turn public land into national monuments protected forever from commercial development or future mineral exploitation. President Theodore Roosevelt, who signed the Antiquities Act into law, created 18 monuments, including the Grand Canyon and Olympic National Park in Washington, totaling more than a million acres. Since then many more National Monuments have been created. The only … Continue reading Repealing National Monuments? Why Tribal People Should Care!

California Natives, General History, Native Issues, Oregon indians, Rogue Valley, Uncategorized4 Comments

The Land is Our Heart: Protect the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument

David G. Lewis, PhD

The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument spans more than 66,000 acres of forest lands in southern Oregon and Northern California. These are the traditional homelands of the Takelmans, Athapaskans, Shastans, and Klamath peoples. The Rogue River tribes, as they are known today at Grand Ronde and Siletz reservations, were the Takelma, Athapaskan, Shasta and some Umpqua tribes of the region. Therefore, this monument, established in 2000 at around 24,000 acres, and expanded by president Obama in 2016 to over 66,000 acres, spans the territory of three tribes from Grand Ronde, and including the western edge of the Klamath territory. In this territory … Continue reading The Land is Our Heart: Protect the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument

California Natives, General History, Native Issues, Oregon Coast, Oregon indians, Uncategorized1 Comment

A State of Open Warfare: the Chetko Massacre revisited

David G. Lewis, PhD

Rape, threats of violence, and Murder were the tools used by the Whitemen who came to the region encompassing northern California and southern Oregon in search of opportunity and gold. The coastal towns of the tribes, in the vicinity of the much more recent white settlements were particularly susceptible to violence owing to the concentration of a variety of white settlers and the continual push for greater opportunity for any who visited the region. The tribes were in the way of White settlements and many of the Whites sought to hunt them out and to exterminate them like wolves. Indian … Continue reading A State of Open Warfare: the Chetko Massacre revisited

California Natives, General History, Oregon indians, Uncategorized1 Comment

Memorial on behalf of the Indians of California, 1850

David G. Lewis, PhD

The appeal below, suggests the reservation system for the tribes of California. Pastor Woodbridge’s detailed memorial addresses what scholars today are discovering about the 19th century tribes. The Tribes were not simply savages as suggested for some 100 years of histories written about the region, but instead they were losing resources and food sources and would periodically, forced by hunger, raid the American farms and ranches for food. They were undergoing massive environmental changes and cultural adjustments. At the same time they were being starved, they were under a constant barrage of attacks from the Americans who killed indiscriminately. The … Continue reading Memorial on behalf of the Indians of California, 1850

California Natives, General History, Native Issues, Oregon indians, Rogue Valley, Uncategorized2 Comments

Sparking the Rogue River War

David G. Lewis, PhD

In 1854, many of the southern Oregon tribes were already on the Table Rock Reservation. They had signed several treaties selling their lands and were moved to Table Rock, awaiting the completion of the Siletz Agency on the Coast Reservation. The reservation was somewhat porous and many of the tribes were allowed to come and go in search of food and supplies. As well many of their brethren tribes further away remained off-reservation, having refused to remove, and were engaged in conflicts with the American settlers and gold miners. On about May 12th Lt. Bonnycastle at Fort Jones in Northern … Continue reading Sparking the Rogue River War