In 1819, the Spanish missions in California were continuing their practice of enslaving Indians in order to convert them to Christianity. At this time, the Spanish had begun to congregate the Yokuts from the San Joaquin Valley at the San Juan Bautista Mission. Congregation involved resettling the Indians in the mission compounds so that they … Continued
In 1850, the United States Congress passed the Oregon Donation Land Law which granted non-Indians the right to occupy lands in the Oregon territory regardless of the Indians who might be living there. The following year, non-Indian settlement began at what would become Pendleton, Oregon. The Oregon Donation Land Law ignored American Indian land rights. … Continued
About 8500 BCE, in the Columbia Plateau region, the Windust phase began to replace Clovis. Clovis spear points, with their characteristic flute, were replaced with leaf-shaped and stemmed points. Archaeologist James Keyser, in his book Indian Rock Art of the Columbia Plateau, writes: “Living in the numerous rock shelters throughout the central Columbia Plateau, and … Continued
Located inside the Shilo Battlefield National Military Park is the Indian Mounds National Park. This is a Mississipian-culture village, inhabited between roughly 1000 and 1400 CE with the remains of a number of artificial mounds. Some were ceremonial, some were burial sites, and some were houses. Some photos from a visit: The park The village … Continued
In 1869, Flathead chief Victor dictated a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in which he discussed the problems facing the Flathead in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana. He asked for justice for his people. Background At the time when the Corps of Discovery under the leadership of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark made … Continued
In 1914, the nations of Europe began the conflict which would become known as the Great War and later as World War I. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson called for the United States to enter what he called “the war to end all wars” and “to make the world safe for democracy.” The military estimated … Continued
Both spoken language and sign language are capable of communicating a great deal of information, but they have a limited physical range. American Indian hunting parties, for example, often needed to communicate across long distances to coordinate their hunts, and this communication needed to be quiet so as not to alert the game to the … Continued
Indians, according to the non-Indian social philosophers, bureaucrats, and politicians of the nineteenth century, were going to simply disappear by the end of the century or in the early twentieth century. Many history books about Indians stop their stories at the end of the nineteenth century, adding to the illusion that Indians somewhat stopped being … Continued
In major museums, only a small fraction of the artifacts held by the museum are on display and interpreted for the public. Most of the museum’s artifacts are in vaults where they are available only to researchers. The Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History maintains a Visible Vault in which visitors can view hundreds … Continued
In 1527, The Spanish soldier Pánfilio de Narváez, with a reputation for brutality and a strong desire to find gold and wealth, began his ill-fated invasion of Florida. Failing to find the mythical gold and militarily defeated by the Indians, the surviving Spanish built five boats with the intention of sailing from the panhandle of … Continued
