The Kalapuya Village of Champoeg

Champoeg is a monument to early Oregon settlement by French- Canadians and Americans from the 1820s to the 1850s. Champoeg, situated on the edge of the French Prairie, the breadbasket of early pioneer Oregon territory, served as a center of community governance, as a cultural center and as a trade port where shipments of grains and other trade goods (fleece, wheat, timber, vegetables) would be sent downriver to Oregon City. There these products may be processed in mills and factories (powered by the Falls) into flour, lumber or woolens and be shipped to world markets. Champoeg was the community which … Continue reading The Kalapuya Village of Champoeg

Review: Melinda Marie Jette’s “At the Hearth of the Crossed Races” OSU Press, 2015.

 

Melinda Marie Jette’s 2015 book, At the Hearth of the Crossed Races, expands upon previous historical analysis of the beginnings of the Oregon territory, the fur trade and tribal relations in Western Oregon. Jette’s premise, that there has been an “inclination to overlook the French Canadian trappers, and by extension their bicultural families and Native kin,” is well founded. This is a timely addition to the literature of the Oregon Territory.

Continue reading “Review: Melinda Marie Jette’s “At the Hearth of the Crossed Races” OSU Press, 2015.”