Presenter(s): Seth Temple − Mathematics
Faculty Mentor(s): Kevin Hatfield, Jennifer O’Neal
Panel Session 1M
Research Area: Humanities
Most Americans think of military skirmishes with the Native tribes and the spread of small pox among the Indigenous population when they consider how the United States colonized the West. These images tell a part of the settler colonialism story; they do not tell the full story. Building infrastructure in the American West promoted the extraction of natural resources, made spaces for American settlers to occupy, and enabled the American military to restock on supplies and quickly traverse foreign landscapes. Roads, sawmills, dams, townships, forts, and other infrastructure changed the physical landscape of central and eastern Oregon during the 19th and 20th centuries. This paper provides case studies of Highway 26, the Powell Reregulating Dam, and the Warm Springs Forest Products Industries, contextualizing the infrastructure projects alongside Northern Paiute history. Creating infrastructure requires an author, a purpose, an implementation, and continued maintenance. Early infrastructure projects in the Oregon frontier came from white settlers and the federal military with the aim being to extract resources from Northern Paiute lands and subdue any resistance from the Indigenous peoples. In contrast, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs have exercised agency in the stewardship of reservation lands and natural resources since the mid-20th century. Though the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs now play a more significant role in the authorship, objectives, implementations, and maintenance of infrastructure projects on reservation lands than they once did, there is still evidence of the settler colonialist nation controlling some infrastructure on the reservation for its own pursuits.