Essay about the process of research.
In 1855-56 Oregon Indian Superintendent Joel Palmer established a number of temporary reservations to hold Indians in Oregon. Many tribes had negotiated treaties and were awaiting the ratification of the treaties in Congress. The majority of treaties were ratified by April of 1855. With unrest on the Columbia in the final battles of the Yakima … [Read more…]
Southwest Oregon Research Projects & The Archival Collection In 1995, I attended an event that would impact me for many years. The event was a potlatch held by the Coquille tribe and the University of Oregon. There was given away copies of some 50,000 pages of information collected from the Smithsonian Institution to the … [Read more…]
Reverend Robert Summers, the Episcopalian Minister of McMinnville (1873-1881) had a varied history in Oregon. Robert went from being a settler, to becoming an Episcopalian minister, while he collected Indian artifacts from various reservations in the region while his wife Lucia engaged in botanical collecting. In 1853 the young Robert Summers, who was born in … [Read more…]
A letter addressed to J. W. Huntington, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Oregon in 1862. The letter was from John Campbell who had worked for John McLaughlin and was making an appeal to grant the Clackamas Tribe rights to return to their traditional village and fish for salmon. He writes, “An Indian named George … [Read more…]
In the story of the American West, the notion of depredations is significant. Depredations in the West refers to the conflicts when Native peoples attacked American settlements and caused damage, or stole the settler’s belongings. These actions resulted in depredations claims by the settlers, ranchers or miners within the next few years, to the Bureau … [Read more…]