Tag: massacre

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

General History, Native Issues, Oregon Coast, Oregon indians, Uncategorized1 Comment

Coquille Massacre Narratives

David G. Lewis, PhD

The Massacre Narrative is a specific type of story where is documented as a traumatic event in history. Generally, dozens if not hundreds die. massacres occur because of conflicts between cultures. One culture is working to destroy the competing culture. This is not something that Americans like to believe in their country. For the Coquille River people, they lived in this location for thousands of years and had there own set of laws and ethical codes of behavior. They are inter-related to their neighbors in many ways and even spoke dialects in the same language family as many neighbors. Occurrences … Continue reading Coquille Massacre Narratives

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