Tag: Jennifer O’Neal

A True Northern Paiute Hero: An Analysis of Chief Egan and his Leadership in the Bannock-Paiute War of 1878

Presenter: Kevin Lai

Mentors: Kevin Hatfield, History; Jennifer O’Neal, Special Collections

Poster: 40

Major: Biology

This research paper examines the circumstances surrounding Northern Paiute Chief Egan’s rise to prominence and his heroic depiction leading up to the Bannock-Paiute War of 1878. I argue that despite his Cayuse ancestry, Chief Egan’s wisdom, loyalty, and bravery made him the prime choice to act as leader over the course of the rebellion against Agent William Rinehart and the U.S. government at the Malheur Reservation. Additionally, this paper demonstrates that although Egan knew such a battle against the Americans would surely end in defeat, he decided to take such a gamble solely to give his people another chance at survival–proof of his devotion to the Northern Paiute culture. The paper is based on examination of a wide range of primary sources including letters, hearings, governmental reports, and oral history from community members, to evaluate both tribal and non-tribal perceptions of Chief Egan not only as a member of the Paiutes but as an individual. Battle records were examined to assess Chief Egan’s prowess as a capable war leader. This research helps to redefine what it means to truly be part of a Native American tribe, by blood or acculturation, in addition to contributing original research concerning Northern Paiute cultural identity, loyalty, and responsibility.

Hidden Hunters: The Little-Known Native Soldiers that Changed Warfare in the West

Presenter: Tyler Jorgensen

Mentors: Kevin Hatfield, History and Jennifer O’Neal, Special Collections

Poster: 34

Major: Mathematics 

My research concerns the Native scouts involved in the Snake War who were hired by the United States Army to hunt Northern Paiutes. Why would these native scouts want to hunt down other native people? Why would they join sides with the government which, at the time, was surging into native lands and seizing territory? This paper asserts that the answers to these questions can be grouped into three categories: money, power, and hatred, my essay will argue that these three factors are what drew the scouts to the American side. One example of a significant primary source I will use is William McKay’s journal. William McKay was the commanding officer over a force of Warm Springs scouts hired to hunt down Northern Paiutes. In addition to primary sources, I will attain information from secondary sources to provide background information for my essay, as well as display evidence to explain why these scouts fought.

For instance, I had the opportunity to ask tribal elders Wilson Wewa and Myra Johnson what they believe made the native scouts want to side with the U.S. government. They provided me with vital information and several avenues of research for my topic. My research will conclude that the incentives I identified for scouts to work with the U.S. Military far outweighed any of the complications. It is my hope that my research can fulfill a gap of knowledge on the subject and allow other scholars to see a new perspective of the conflict.

Who Was Chief Paulina? Restoration History and the Reconstruction of Paulina’s Identity in Popular Memory

Presenter: Sarianne Harris

Mentors: Kevin Hatfield, History; Jennifer O’Neal, Special Collections

Poster: 28

Major: Human Physiology

This paper examines the life of Chief Paulina, a Northern Paiute of the Hunipuitoka band, beginning at the time of major conflicts caused by the creation of the Warm Springs Reservation within Central Oregon in 1855 and ending around the time of his death in 1867.Chief Paulina, throughout his life and in popular memory, has been demonized and distorted into a bullet-proof, blood-thirsty, violent war leader who cared for little but the thrill of raiding. I argue that Chief Paulina was, instead, a skilled leader who cared for his people and fought bitterly to protect his homeland. He made necessary decisions, based on the information and resources he had at his disposal, to care for his people and keep their land. I utilize secondary, but focus on primary, resources as I examine the Northern Paiute view of the Warm Springs Reservation, interactions between Chief Paulina and Captain Kelly of Fort Klamath, and Chief Paulina’s behavior regarding the capture of his people. These areas of focus reveal a more complete view of the person behind the legend than the portrayals of Chief Paulina found in history books, Oregon museums, and local histories.

The Warm Springs Boarding School: Constructing White Femininity While Destabilizing Female Tribal Identity

Presenter: Eva Bertoglio

Mentors: Kevin Hatfield, History; Jennifer O’Neal, Special Collections

Oral Presentation

Major: Humanities

My paper will examine the construction of white femininity amongst Indian boarding school pupils from the 1870s to the 1920s. This paper argues that female boarding school pupils at Warm Springs were subject not only to general forces of assimilation but also to specifically gendered constructions of white femininity in a Victorian context by their teachers and school culture. I will demonstrate this through the gender-segregated instruction, school rules about dress and attire, oral histories of former boarding school pupils and Warm Springs tribal members, and photographs which highlight how white femininity was performed and idealized to the pupils. Oral histories show how many women left the boarding schools with the ambitions of housewifery and domesticity rather than community leadership or traditional lives, which I argue is due to the cultural reprograming the boarding schools were founded on. The reclaiming of the boarding school as a space for cultural education by the tribal community will be examined as a mechanism to destabilize some of the gendered forces which were instilled upon school-age women for sixty years. This research will show how female students at Warm Springs had their culture and traditional roles destabilized and replaced with a white feminine ideal which had long-term consequences for tribal reintegration.

Shedding Snakeskin: The Hidden History of the Northern Paiutes

Presenter: Jordyn Roach

Faculty Mentor: Kevin Hatfield, Jennifer O’Neal

Presentation Type: Creative Work 8 (GSH 115)

Primary Research Area: Social Science

Major: Cinema Studies, Applied Physics

The Northern Paiutes are a First Nations People who used to claim a third of Oregon as their homeland until the mid-nineteenth century. In older and even recent texts, white historians have represented the Northern Paiutes as a demonic and destitute People, or as “Snakes,” who were responsible for baseless acts of savagery against the white settlers of Oregon. This documentary film intends to uproot this injurious “Snake” image to reveal the lost history of a tremendous struggle between the Paiutes, encroaching rival tribes, white settlers and the US government. Combining an array of visual, scholarly, oral and archeological evidence, this film strives to transform the negative historical image of the Paiutes to that of a people who put up an astounding fight to protect their homeland as invaders depleted their resources and threatened their ancient way of life. The time period of 1855-1868 would come to shape the perception and fate of the Northern Paiutes for over a century. By reevaluating the events of this time period concerning territorial claims, the origins of the Snake War, the demonized Chief Paulina and unacknowledged acts of genocide, a new Northern Paiute image may be achieved that will aid in revitalizing the Paiutes’ contemporary cultural identity.

Food and Power at Malheur: Examining the Nexus of Food Systems Implemented on the Malheur Reservation

Presenter: Anna Karvina Pidong

Faculty Mentor: Kevin Hatfield, Jennifer O’Neal

Presentation Type: Oral

Primary Research Area: Social Science

Major: Accounting

The late nineteenth century was marked by movements towards a more moral and perfect society: abolishing slavery, prohibiting alcohol, and Christianizing Indians. The message of these movements were disseminated in several different ways. In this paper, I argue that food systems on the Malheur Reservation were a source of power for the two Indian agents who served there, Samuel Parrish and William Rinehart, to manifest their thoughts on what made a more moral and perfect society. Research from government correspondence and Appointment Papers of the State of Oregon show how Parrish and Rinehart cultivated and distributed food on the reservation asserted their power. Parrish utilized farming activities on the reservation to change policies in favor of the Northern Paiutes while Rinehart used food as a means of exerting control over the Northern Paiutes. Food and farming also affected how the Parrish and Rinehart interacted with the pressures from settlers around Malheur.

School House Blues: How the Bureau of Indian Affairs used the Burns Indian School to Limit Responsibility to the Northern Paiute Indians of the Burns Colony

Presenter: Madeleine Peara

Faculty Mentor: Kevin Hatfield, Jennifer O’Neal

Presentation Type: Oral

Primary Research Area: Humanities

Major: Spanish

The role of the Burns Indian School in the Burns Paiute community was greatly impacted by Burn’s status as a colony rather than a reservation. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) considered the Burns Paiutes “landless” and as a result, denied financial assistance on the grounds of ineligibility. My research addresses the role of the Indian school in Burns given this unusual status; questions: what was the role of the Indian School in the Burns community during the early 1930s, and did its status as a colony affect its responsibilities? What were the goals of the school administrators and Indian agents in the school’s establishment? To what end did the school promote Western culture? In addressing questions, I analyze general correspondence, a survey conducted by a visiting teacher, governmental records and depositions. I argue that for the BIA, the school acted as the arm of the federal government in Burns and the creation of the Burns Indian School was a step in the process of relinquishing responsibility for the funding and provision of education for Paiute children, which included Americanization of the children so that they would be acceptable to the public school. My research is salient because it tells a different story than the predominant narrative about Indian education, and focuses on a community who are underrepresented and misrepresented in historical research.

The Plow in a Land of Sand and Sagebrush: Agrarian Ideology as an Agent of Assimilation on the Warm Spring Indian Reservation, 1850-1870

Presenter: Kiara Kashuba

Faculty Mentor: Kevin Hatfield, Jennifer O’Neal

Presentation Type: Oral

Primary Research Area: Social Science

Major: Planning, Public Policy, and Management

This paper examines how Euro-American agrarian ideology was an agent of oppressive assimilation and acculturation of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs in central Oregon. My research establishes agriculture at center stage, reexamining it as a paramount assimilation tactic rather than an afterthought. My secondary sources discuss agrarian ideologies such as Jeffersonian Agrarianism, the Yeoman and the Fee-Simple Empire, and Manifest Destiny, and my primary research draws from treaties, annual reports, diary entries, letters between government officials, and interviews with tribal elders.Most interestingly, throughout the course of my research I discovered a great deal of documentations of the failure of agriculture on the Warm Springs Reservation. Soil quality and weather deemed the region almost entirely unfit for agriculture, and yet, fully aware of the land’s inability to produce crops, the government relentlessly forced the indigenous tribes to adopt an agrarian lifestyle. Thus my research reveals that agriculture on the reservation was about more than just growing food, it was about assimilation and fulfilling Jeffersonian Agrarian ideals.

Slavery, Captivity, and the Fate of Northern Paiutes after the “Snake” War: A Case Study of the Expedition of 1871 and William McKay: Exterminator and Emancipator

Presenter: Catherine Jaffe

Faculty Mentor: Kevin Hatfield, Jennifer O’Neal

Presentation Type: Oral

Primary Research Area: Social Science

Major: Biology, Environmental Science

Lasting from 1855 until 1868, the “Snake” War was a devastating conflict during which many individuals from the Northern Paiute tribe were taken captive and inducted into an inter-tribal slave trade. In 1871, the U.S. government commissioned Dr. William McKay, a leader of the violent “Snake” war expeditions, to locate and liberate these displaced Paiutes. The fundamentally dehumanizing effects of enslavement and captivity have led to the near erasure of these captured Paiutes and their experiences from historical narratives. As a result, the events of McKay’s expedition and the fates of Northern Paiutes captured and enslaved in the war have been largely un-researched. Given the scarcity of secondary literature on this topic I draw on extensive primary sources from the McKay Papers: a collection of letters and government documents relating to Dr. William McKay housed in the University of Oregon microfilm collection. Using the unusual 1871 expedition as a case study, I argue that the effects of slavery, captivity, acculturation, and oppression were still vividly present during this “liberation expedition” and strongly informed the objectives of William McKay and the U.S. federal government. I further argue that primary documentation of this expedition reveals that government policies served to reinforce pre-existing perceptions of the Northern Paiute as less-than human and so undermined the sovereignty of these independent and complex peoples. Unearthing hidden histories like that of the 1871 expedition can help build a new understanding of these historical narratives that takes into account the sovereignty of the Northern Paiute people. The combined repercussions of intertribal slavery and government driven acculturation still linger with the Northern Paiute people, yet most significant is the fact that these peoples have survived such oppressive forces to continue their culture today.

A Chronicle of the Health Conditions among the Burns Paiute Colony, 1900–1955

Presenter: Victoria Carroll

Faculty Mentor: Kevin Hatfield, Jennifer O’Neal

Presentation Type: Oral

Primary Research Area: Humanities

Major: General Science

Native Americans have experienced the spread of disease and sickness ever since they were colonized by Euro- Americans. In the 19th century, the establishment of reservations introduced public health problems that were previously unknown to native communities. Particularly dramatic changes in the lifestyle, culture, and health of indigenous communities occurred during the Post-allotment Era from 1900–1955. This paper discusses the living conditions and health issues faced by the Northern Paiutes living outside of the town of Burns in Eastern Oregon during this time period. The lifestyle and living conditions, including sanitation, disease prominence, medicinal choices and healthcare availability will be discussed to shed light on the previously unknown conditions faced by the Paiute people. Additionally, an analysis of the correlation between legislature and public health status will show the direct impact that policy and administration had on the conditions experienced by the Paiutes. Specifically, this paper investigates how legislative changes such as the Indian Reorganization Act and Johnson O’Malley Act had an impact on the lives of the Paiutes and their health. This paper examines how public health among the Burns Paiute improved through changes in administration, influential politicians, increases in funding, and the development of new medical treatments. Thanks to the documents from the National Archives in Seattle, this paper will contribute to the record of public health among the Burns Paiute.