Imperialism in the

Pacific Northwest
By Andrew Walsh
and Cherise Fuselier
 Terms Defined
Pacific Northwest: WA, OR, ID,
parts of Alaska and B.C.
Oregon Country, pre-1846: WA,
OR, ID, parts of MT, WY, B.C.
Tribes of the
Pacific
Northwest
 Lewis and Clark
 1803: commissioned by
President Jefferson
 1804-6: 7,000 mile journey
from Missouri river to
Oregon Country and back
 Peaceful coexistence
through commerce
 Interpreter misnamed Nez
Perce tribe
 Kate McBeth’s
documentation
 Reaffirmed importance of
land from 1803 Louisiana
Purchase
 Gathered information
 Strengthened claim to
Oregon Country
“For a colonized people the most
essential value…is first and foremost the Land Treaties
land…” – Frantz Fanon

 1803 Louisiana Purchase

 Treaty of 1818
 1834 Intercourse Act
 1846 Oregon Country acquired from
UK
 1848 OR territory; 1859 statehood
 1850 Oregon Donation Land
Claim Act
 1855 Isaac Stevens declares
OR territory open to settlers
 1853 WA territory; 1889 statehood
 1854 Treaty of Medicine Creek
 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott (pictured)
 1855 Nez Perce
 1863 revised treaty
 1889 individual allotment of lands
 1887 Dawes Act
Progression of Native Lands
Ceded
Nez Perce, Yakama, and Ceded
 Nez Perce Lands
 1855 treaty ceded lands
 1863 further cessions of
land
 1889 individual
allotments of land
 Yakama
 1855 treaty ceded lands
 Indian Wars
 1847 Whitman massacre
 Oregon Trail
 Measles
 1855 Yakama
 1857 Coeur d’Alene
 1858 Battle of Four Lakes
 1858 Bear River Massacre
 1877 Nez Perce
 Battle of Bear Paw
 Chief Joseph: “From
where the sun now
stands, I will fight no
more forever.”
 Missionaries
 Encouraged assimilation

 Northwest Coast missionaries

sought to end potlatch
ceremonies

 Potlatch ceremonies outlawed

for several generations

 1870’s Kate McBeth:

Presbyterian missionary
for the Nez Perce
 1830s: Nez Perce
delegates sent to St. Louis
Boarding Schools
 Five successive generations, 1880-1990

 33 boarding schools in PNW

 Objective to assimilate
 “Kill the Indian, save the man”

 Forced attendance

 Forced labor

 Vocational training schools

 Fueled cheap labor for wage-labor
economy

 Sexual predation

 Torture

 Conditions worse in Canada

 50% death rate in Canada

 Lack of statistics in US

 Residential School Syndrome

 Contributing to maladies today?
 Modern
Statistics
 1980 rates of death
 Alcohol, 6x higher
 Suicide, 14% higher
 Homicide, 50% higher
 Tuberculosis, 4x higher

 About 28% poverty rate

in PNW
 Family income
disparities
 Salmon
“Without salmon returning
to our rivers and streams,
we would cease to be
Indian people.” –Salmon
and his people (1999)

Negative impacts:
 Canneries
 Dams
 Various other enterprises
 Hanford Nuclear Site
 Natives and whites in
area forced to leave

 Pollution

 Indirectly created dams

 Still emitting radiation

 Western Representations

 Historically
 Major Lee Moorhouse’s photos
 Popular culture
 Film, novels, television
 Sports mascots
 Academically
 Standard texts
 Native writers ignored and/or
omitted
Racist Representations

“Sambo”
 Forms of Resistance
 Political Sherman
Alexie:
 Makah whaling controversy Seattle author
and Spokane
 Literature
Native
 Native writings: “instruments of resistance”
 Cultural Revival
 Canoeing, acting, blanketing, salmon/whales,
language, education
 Heritage University
 Yakama reservation

 Accredited, non-profit

 Mission statement

 Cultural
preservation/revival
Fin.