The Franklin County Historical Society and Museum in Pasco, Washington, includes several displays of American Indian artifacts, both historic and prehistoric. With record to prehistoric American Indians, the museum display mentions the Marmes Rockshelter, which is one of the oldest archaeological sites in the Columbia Plateau. For thousands of years, the ancestors of today’s American … Continued
Archaeologists use the term Mesoamerica in referring to Mexico and the adjacent areas of Central America which were the home to Native American civilizations prior to the Spanish invasion. The Formative Period in Mesoamerica is an era of spectacular social transformation marked by the development of social stratification and monument building. With regard to dating, … Continued
During the first part of the nineteenth century, the American government policy was to remove Indians from east of the Mississippi River and to “give” them reservations in Indian Territory. The primary argument in favor of Indian removal claimed that European Christian farmers could make more efficient use of the land than the Indian heathen … Continued
One of the displays in the San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands, California, is entitled Sacred Earth and subtitled Understanding our past and honoring cultures that thrive today. One section of this display looks at some of the technological changes which began about 1,500 years ago. According to the Museum display: “Tribes became increasingly tied … Continued
In providing a broad overview of the hundreds of distinct American Indian cultures found in North America, it is common for museums, historians, archaeologists, and ethnologists to use a culture area model. This model is based on the observation that different groups of people living in the same geographic area often share many cultural features. … Continued
The Salish language family is found on the Northwest Coast and in the Columbia Plateau. Salish is generally felt to have great antiquity in the Northwest Coast. Salish-speakers were the earliest settlers in the Fraser River area of British Columbia. Linguists estimate that this language family may be 6,000 years old, although some feel it … Continued
During the nineteenth century, the United States had attempted to settle all Indians on well-defined reservations on lands deemed unsuitable for non-Indian development. Here Indians were to remain until they became extinct or had fully assimilated into the Christian American lifestyle. By the end of the nineteenth century, the government began the process of dismantling … Continued
When Ulysses S. Grant became President of the United States in 1869, the Indian Office (also known as the Indian Service, and the Indian Bureau) was generally seen as the most corrupt branch of the American government. The Office of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior was headed by the Commissioner of Indian … Continued
In 1719, the French were continuing their exploration of North America. Historian William Eccles, in his chapter in North American Exploration. Volume 2: A Continent Defined, explains: “In the eighteenth century the French had four main aims in their thrust into the Far West: to discover new supplies of furs; to find new tribes to … 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
