Previous essays have addressed the poor treatment of the tribes on the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation into the late 1860s. In 1869 during his inauguration speech, newly elected President U.S. Grant stated that he would support a path to citizenship for tribes that became civilized. (In this essay I will not quibble with the idea of civilization even though we can rightly question which people were proving to be civilized and which were proving to be lawless and uncivilized.) Indian Agents took notice of Pres. Grant’s statement, which amounted to a change in federal Indian policy and began to ask … Continue reading Petition to Survey the Reservation and to Live in Peace, September 20, 1869