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About Siletz news / (Siletz, OR) 199?-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 2000)
___ tribal history A Piece of Siletz History by Robert Kentta, Cultural Resources Director This is the third in a series of articles, each dealing with specific period in our Siletz Tribal history. The first article posturing that was the reality of the day. Employees of the fur was a general introduction to who our Siletz ancestors are comPanies also manned many smaller outposts and trap lines. bl ® *he U S- Constitution recognized our native and attempted to describe the incredible richness and diversity in languages, cultures and lifeways of our people. 7 people s right to our homelands (aboriginal title), the United The second article focused on the early period of contact Sta es also participated in constitutionally contradictory with non-lndians and the effects of that contact (deadly P°n!'Ca P,raC,tlCeS’ H subscribed to the same European diseases and severe cultural, political, social and economic concepts that permitted colonization of foreign lands and ^ruP*'°ns)- This article will discuss the beginnings of land- peoples and empire building by European nations. based trade and exploration by foreigners within our lands In 1832, John McLaughlin, chief factor at the Hudson Bav t S, Vancouver’ordered a" attack on the Yaquinas. Please contact me with comments or questions. Two HBC trappers were running a trap line in the Yaquina/ Alsea territory without permission of our local people. The Part Three - Fur Trade and Early Exploration trappers paid for their disrespect with their lives. When news of their deaths reached Fort Vancouver The previous article also addressed the fur trade and early McLaughlin ordered some HBC employees to teach the north exploration, but only the early period of contact. At that time central coast natives a lesson. He wasn’t sure who was WaS re'a"Vely brief and often “raited t0 trading XXth°U9ht ‘hat a reprisal anywhere in the conducted in canoes and sailing ships on the open ocean neighborhood, (ssued with sufficient force, would deliver the X y XT® occurred in our villages within a very short desired message. nX ? 9,UP ‘° *he time ,hat land-based foreigners took in h Jh k a V' age at Yaquina Bay (well-documented the next steps of colonization. The mass epidemics transmitted in both HBC records and our tribal oral histories) was brutal thernh X C°n.,aC,S dramatica"y reduced populations and enough that it (combined with the epidemics) was given as a thereby the people s ability to protect our own interests when reason that so few Yaquina people survived into the push came to shove. reservation period. Some of the fur trappers and traders took ?e.^cuPa"°n °f our lands took place gradually and bdian wives such as Jean Baptiste Garnier on the Umpqua the slow infiltration probably was not recognized in most areas River, as did many of the fur company employees in the until lt was difficult to resist. Also probably not understood were Willamette Valley. This eased some relationships in local the complex, artificial European laws and customs supporting areas, but strangers stomping through our lands with little desXXc laXT ^b’8 ” “^b*by COnquest ’ “«s^ respect or humility were not welcomed. ” ‘ "y’ T hat "0U d COfne in,° Play-Also not understood As the fur trade era faded, many of the trappers became which Christian conversion would be rmers and by the late-1830s, various missionary settlements expected of all native survivors of colonization revolved around the main Methodist mission at what is now tn 1805, Lewis and Clark made their way down the Wi lamette University (Salem). A mission school for our Columbia River to its mouth. They were the first to make the children in the valley was one of the first non-lndian structures overland trip from the middle of the continent to our shores The relationships between our tribal people and the settlers ¿XT'*8 thf ‘,hey made upon ,heir re,um led »° land-based c anged slightly or radically, depending on the rate of fur trading posts and (later) to Christian missions in our country, population influx and the main activity of the new population nf IS °ften described as a friendly period as the focus switched from fur trade to permanent / ’ ii X That may have been ,rue in some cases settlement activities. how ^7 eadles!Phases’Once ,he ,rappers discovered It doesn’t appear that our ancestors resisted settlement how to get from one place to another, however, they began to the point that they thought all foreigners should be kept own trAA9| US 'n economic warfare- They started running their T tned ’° accommodate settlers who were XX,P X 'n °Ur coun,ry-instead °»depending upon our respectful. Each year our people grew weaker in number p pie to sell furs to them. These were some of the early signs however, as the strangers grew stronger in number XX 9® eXPeC‘ °f ,he ,oreigners - taking without and presence. permission or apology. ~,Jhe Si9ni"9 be,ween Great Bri,ain and the United In the early trade on the coast, the Spanish and Russians States in 1846, and the subsequent establishment of the t(aS<X ‘b® BnoSh’ Americans and others) were involved X*0? and a Provisional government, would change p X df9rae’But by ,he mid-1820s. however, the only the direction of all future encroachment on our homeland^ • /RriX 9 XT comPe,i,ors were the Hudson Bay Co. Our people s interaction with the citizens of the new Oregon and F ah v C FUr C0’(USA)’ Fort As,oria (P F Co.) Territory end United States will be the subject of the and Fort Vancouver (H.B. Co.) were signs of the politica next article. 27
