Tag: genocide

California Natives, General HistoryLeave a comment

General Wool in California

David G. Lewis, PhD

The following is a series of statements by General John E. Wool and his underlings in the 1850s, from their administrative moorings in Benecia, California, the offices of the Department of the Pacific. General Wool was in this time pacifying California for settlers, working on arrangements with Mexico following the Spanish-America War, and also dealing with the new territories on the west coast, Oregon, and Washington and Utah. In this territory there were innumerable tribes of Native peoples, and a huge number of American immigrants who flooded the territories in the tens of thousands causing numerous conflicts with the tribes. … Continue reading General Wool in California

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

Acknowledgement is Long Past Due for Attempts to Exterminate the Tribes of Oregon

David G. Lewis, PhD

Presently, there is an apology bill being considered in the Oregon State Senate for the Modoc Indian War of 1872-1873.  This apology is long past due to the Modoc people who were forcibly removed to Oklahoma Indian County after the battlefield trials of their leaders. Numerous leaders of the Modocs, including Captain Jack were hung in what amounted to a battlefield-hanging immediately after they were captured in a ruse of a peace negotiation.  Modoc people today rightly point out that, “They were tried by the very same people that they fought in the war against,” Tupper said. “And so when … Continue reading Acknowledgement is Long Past Due for Attempts to Exterminate the Tribes of Oregon

colonization, General History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Clearing the Land and Making all Indians Good: The Massacre at Bear River, Utah

David G. Lewis, PhD

In 1863, the California Volunteers under Colonel Patrick E. Connor (3rd Volunteer Regiment, California Cavalry), massacred either 300 or three thousand Ute (Shoshone) Indians in Cash Valley (Cache Valley-Battle of Bear River, February 20, 1863), Utah. The first account, a book written by William F. Drennan addresses over 30 years of his experiences in the West. William F. Drennan, a seeming mercenary-for-hire and mountain man in the mid-19th century, who traveled throughout the west. Beginning when he was 15 years of age, he traveled from California and Oregon to the Dakotas, joining many battles against numerous tribes, including the Modoc … Continue reading Clearing the Land and Making all Indians Good: The Massacre at Bear River, Utah

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, Native Issues, Oregon Coast, Oregon indians, Uncategorized12 Comments

The Most Persistent Attempt to Exterminate the Tribes, Beginning with the Yontocket Massacre 1853

David G. Lewis, PhD

As related in my previous essay about the Chetko Massacre, there was a massacre of the Tolowa in 1853. The Palmer account suggest the previous massacre was the work of the same 8 or 9 men who destroyed the two Chetko villages in March of 1853. Annette Reed, a Tolowa descendant (Tolowa Dee-ni Nation),  and Professor of Ethnic Studies at Sacramento State University, suggests that the way in which the history was written is suspicious. The pioneer account from the History of Del Norte County (Bledsoe), suggests that it was the Tolowa’s own fault that the massacre happened. In the … Continue reading The Most Persistent Attempt to Exterminate the Tribes, Beginning with the Yontocket Massacre 1853