eugene – NDNHISTORY RESEARCH

by Ethnohistory Research, LLC | David G. Lewis, PhD

Alexander Phimister Proctor in Oregon

Alexander Phimister Proctor (1860-1950), is born in Canada and becomes one of the most famed American sculptors of his time. He worked extensively in the American West and especially in Oregon. He studied in France under the Master Sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and thereafter sought to exemplify the traditional philosophy of his teacher of Simplicity, Nobility, […]

Chafin Band Reservation and Village 1855

The Chafin (Chifin, Chafan) Band of Kalapuya Indians lived in and around the Eugene-Springfield to the Coburg area. Their main village was likely on the Willamette River at the base of the Coburg Hills. This area includes the Coast Fork Willamette River (now MacKenzie) and included creeks and braided waterways as the river meandered through […]

The Mohawk Band of Calapooia Reservation 1855

In 1855, after the tribes of the Willamette Valley signed the Kalapuya Etc. Treaty (1/22/1855) they were resettled by Indian Superintendent Joel Palmer on temporary reservations in the valley. Local farmers were recruited and assigned as Special Indian Agents to take care of the tribes. They were able to get some money and supplies to […]

Native Community History of Eugene Area

Original Peoples The earliest history of Native people in the Eugene-Springfield area is that of the Kalapuya tribes from the area, Chifin, Winefelly, Pee-u (Mohawk), and Chelamela tribes. These people signed a treaty with the United States in 1855, and were removed to temporary reservations in the Willamette valley. The Yoncalla, in the Umpqua valley, […]

An Issue of Cultural Appropriation in Context

Over the past five centuries every manner of negative action was taken against Indigenous peoples. Murder, genocide, holocaust, slavery, indentured servitude, theft, extortion, kidnapping, deliberately introducing diseases, wiping out the food sources of the people, total war, razing of cities and civilizations, and the list goes on. Then once everything was taken and under the […]