•1830s
- First contact between the Wada'Tika and fur trappers in the Harney
Valley.
•1860s
- Increased non-indian settlement leads to negotiations between the Paiute
people and the government for a place where they could maintain their old
ways of hunting and gathering.
•1872
- September 12, President Grant established a 1.8 million acre Malheur
Reservation, the boundaries of which were soon reduced, first because of
pressure by settlers to increase grazing lands, and then due to the
discovery of gold
•1878
- The Bannock War: Many Paiutes fell victim to the war between the
government and the Bannock Tribe, despite the fact that most Paiutes did
not participate. At the end of the war, the surviving Paiutes suffered
their own "Trail of Tears" as they were removed from the
reservation and moved to Fort Simcoe, Washington.
•1880s
- Because there were no longer any Paiutes living on the reservation, it
was opened up to public use, and settlers promptly began to graze cattle
and homestead within its boundaries.
•1887
- Allotment Act: The Paiute were invited to return to the Malheur
Reservation or onto tribes' reservations in Washington, Oregon, or Nevada.
Those who overcame their suspicions and returned to Harney County received
160 acres of unirrigated alkali desert impossible to farm.
•1935
- A 771-acre "New Village" was acquired for the Tribe by the
federal government. Title to the land was finally received from Congress
in 1972.
•1968
- The Paiutes were finally fully recognized by the Bureau of Indian
Affairs.
•Today
- The Burns Paiute people are in the process of recovering their tribal
identity through a tribal research project which includes conducting oral
histories with tribal elders and analyzing historical photographs and
records. A 1982 video entitled "The Earth is Our Home" explores
ancient Paiute traditions.
Passages
to Think About:
Page 6 –
”In the beginning of the world
there were only four, two girls and two boys.
Our forefather and mother were only two, and we are their children.
You all know what a great while ago there was a happy family in
this world. One girl and one
boy were dark and the others were white. For a time they got along together without quarrelling, but
soon they disagreed, and there was trouble.
They were cross to one another and fought, and our parents were
very much grieved. They
prayed that their children might learn better, but it did not do any good;
and afterwards the whole household was made so unhappy that the father and
mother saw that they must separate their children; and then our father
took the dark boy and girl and the white boy and girl, and asked them,
‘Why are you so cruel to each other?’ They hung down their heads, and
would not speak. They were ashamed. He
said to them, ‘Have I not been kind to you all, and given you everything
your hearts wished for? You
do not have to hunt and kill your own game to live upon.
You see, my dear children, I have power to call whatsoever kind of
game we want to eat; and I also have the power to separate my dear
children, if they are not good to each other.’ So he separated his
children by a word. He said,
‘Depart from each other, you cruel children; - go across the mighty
ocean and do not seek each other’s lives.”
“So
the light girl and boy disappear by that one word, and their parents saw
them no more, and they were grieved although they knew their children were
happy. And by-and-by the dark
children grew into a large nation; and we believe it is the one we belong
to, and the nation that sprung from the white children will some time send
some one to meet us and heal all the old trouble.
Now the white people we saw a few days ago must certainly be our
white brothers, and I want to welcome them.”
A Paiute creation story explaining the reason
why Captain Truckee wanted so badly to work with the Settlers, and why
Sarah was educated in the white way and worked so closely with the whites.
Page 39.
“ Now, my dear reader, there is no word so endearing as the word
father, and that is why we call all good people father or mother; no
matter who it is, -- negro, white man, or Indian, and the same with the
women.”
This is a good definition of why Sarah refers
to people who help the Native peoples in a kindly manner (with honesty and
trust), as father or mother. It
does not imply that the natives are childlike or unqualified to make their
own decisions… it is a term of endearment only given to those who have
proven themselves. Although
why the term “Great Father” was given to the presidents I do not know.
Page 207.
“Oh, for shame! You
who are educated by a Christian government in the art of war; the practice
of whose profession makes you natural enemies of the saves, so called by
you. Yes, you, who call yourselves the great civilization; you who
have knelt upon Plymouth Rock, covenanting with God to make this land the
home of the free and the brave. Ah,
then you rise from your bended knees and seizing the welcoming hands of
those who are the owners of this land, which you are not, your carbines
rise upon the bleak shore, and your so-called civilization sweeps inland
from the ocean wave; but, oh, my God! Leaving its pathway marked by
crimson lines of blood and strewed by the bones of two races, the
inheritor and the invader; and I am crying out to you for justice, - yes,
pleading for the far-off plains of the West, for the dusky mourner, whose
tears of love are pleading for her husband, or for their children, who are
sent far away from them. Your
Christian minister will hold my people against their will; not because he
loves them, -- no, far from it, -- but because it puts money in his
pockets.”
Page
214.
“I say, my dear friends, the minister who is called agent, says
there will be or there is a time coming when everyone is going to give an
account of all he does in this life.
I am a little afraid the agent will have to give an account of
himself, and say, “I have filled my pockets with that worthless thing
called money. I am not worthy
to go to heaven.” That is,
if that book you civilized people call the Holy Bible is true.
In that, it says he who steals and tells lies will go to hell.
Well, I am afraid this book is true, as your agents say; and I am
sure they will never see heaven, for I am sure there is hardly an agent
but what steals a little, and they all know that if there is a God above
us, they can’t deny it before Him who is called God.”
Both of these passages are Sarah’s
descriptions of the Indian agents appointed by the US department of War to
protect, educate, and civilize Indian peoples by such means as:
Christianizing, Instruction in Farming and industrialization, and Issuing
of government funded rations.
Sarah gives several first hand accounts of the
horrible accounts that took place during the Westward expansion and the
Gold Rush. The abuses that
Native women had to endure, the indecisiveness of the government over
proper policies to protect or exterminate Native peoples that drove the
Native peoples to drastic survival means.
Page 219.
“You, Great Father of the Mighty Nation, my people have all heard
of you……
Oh,
good Father, have you wife or child?
Do you Love them? If
you love them, think how you would feel if they were taken away from you,
where you could not go to see them, nor they come to you…..”
This is part of a speech given to Secretary
Schurz at the Whitehouse in the winter of 1878-9 by Subcheif Natchez
Winnemucca, to help his people escape the harsh conditions of the Yakima
Reservation. Mr. Schurz
intern gave Natchez and Sarah a letter that they thought would allow them
to move their people back to the Malheur Reservation.
Mr. Schurz never forwarded his promised letter to Agent Father
Wilbur at the Yakima Reservation, and there for Sarah was not allowed to
move her people to their homelands.
There are many more passages in this book that
are very good, but these happen to be the ones that left the biggest
impression on me. I recommend
this book highly.
Marlette
Grant-Jackson – ITEPP-CRC
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