Tag: Jennifer O’Neal

The Network of Resistance: Northern Paiute Opposition to Imprisonment at Yakima Reservation, 1878–1884

Presenter: Augustine Beard

Faculty Mentor: Kevin Hatfield, Jennifer O’Neal

Presentation Type: Oral

Primary Research Area: Humanities

Major: History

After the Bannock-Paiute ended in 1878, General Howard and the US army led approximately 550 Northern Paiute Indians on a trail of tears from Oregon Great Basin to the Yakima Reservation in southern Washington with intent for them to remain there permanently as prisoners of war. While at Yakima, the Northern Paiutes faced discrimination from the Yakima Indians as well as mistreatment by Indian Agency that failed to provide them with adequate food, shelter, and clothing. The Northern Paiutes refused to accept internment in Yakima and engaged in resistance, primarily through civil disobedience, in attempt to return home to Oregon. This paper investigates the nature of the Northern Paiutes’ resistance while at Yakima between their arrival in 1878 and departure in 1882. The current understanding of this history focuses on Sarah Winnemucca’s lectures and activism, and the role of the individuals in the Department of War and Department of Interior in advocating for the Northern Paiutes. I demonstrate that the Northern Paiutes refused to be passive victims, and that their resistance was one of the primary reasons for their return home as well as the Yakima Indian Agent James Wilbur’s resignation. I introduce a resistance network framework, which better accounts for the plurality of actors and motives. I use primary sources mostly in the form of correspondence between government officials, and partly from the existing body of secondary literature. Additionally, I draw upon sources from “resistance studies,” a critical theory on non-revolutionary acts of resistance, for an understanding of how resistance is typically discussed in history and anthropology.

“The Chieftain’s Weary Daughter”: The Feminist Legacy and Mainstream Appropriation of Sarah Winnemucca

Presenter: Sophia Albanis

Faculty Mentor: Kevin Hatfield, Jennifer O’Neal

Presentation Type: Oral

Primary Research Area: Social Science

Major: Women’s & Gender Studies

To say the least, Sarah Winnemucca of the Northern Paiute was controversial: she was a collaborator with the United States Army, she was an outspoken Native American rights activist and public figure, and she was, of course, a woman. This project investigates the political legacy of Sarah Winnemucca through the lens of her womanhood, employing as comparative tools the often-contrasting critical theories of “mainstream” feminism and Native feminism(s). Relying upon the understanding that Sarah Winnemucca constantly juggled a series of conflicting identities—and utilizing the theory of intersectionality to investigate those identities and their impact on her work—this research effort emphasizes the aspects of her identity that are often overlooked in the assumption that she was a “feminist heroine.” Popular imaginings of Sarah Winnemucca—like those found in the writings of her contemporary biographers—are often idealistic, oversimplified, and heavily influenced by feminist modes of thought that are distinctly white. Including the voices of Native feminists in the ongoing scrutiny of Sarah as an indigenous woman and thinker is necessary, both in understanding the real implications of her actions, and in doing justice to the narratives and perspectives of the Northern Paiute. Sarah Winnemucca was a mediator between settler society and the Paiute community, between the public realm and her traditional heritage, and between political assertiveness and conventional forms of femininity. Thus, in comparing mainstream feminism’s and Native feminism’s perceptions of Sarah Winnemucca, the complexity and contentiousness of her political legacy and modes of advocacy offer distinctive insight into what it means to be Native, female, and radical.

Research as Ceremony: Documenting and Stewarding UO Indigenous Community History

Presenters: Lofanitani Aisea, Cydney Taylor, Kata Winkler, Damian White Lightning, Toni Viviane Asphy, Allyson Alvarado

Faculty Mentors: Kirby Brown and Jennifer O’Neal

ARC Session 5M

Research Area: Social Science and Humanities

Native American And Indigenous Studies Academic Residential Community

Funding: Undergraduate Studies and University Housing

Members of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Academic Residential Community will present on the year-long collaborative project they developed regarding the core values, relationships, and responsibilities to Kalapuya Ilihi. They will present their collective UO Indigenous Mapping Project that highlights key Indigenous locations, history, and groups across campus. In addition, they will also share their Indigenous Oregon Language Map that highlights the unique native languages of the state of Oregon. Both projects will be shared gifted back to the indigenous communities which are represented.

The Infrastructure of Settler Colonialism: Roads, Dams, and Sawmills on the Warm Springs Reservation

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.

Inter-Tribal Dynamics of the Warm Springs and Grand Ronde Reservations: A Historical Legacy of Discrimination, Prejudice, and Settler-Colonialism

Presenter(s): Clara Gorman − History

Faculty Mentor(s): Jennifer O’Neal, Kevin Hatfield

Oral Session 1M

Research Area: Humanities

Funding: Vice President for Research and Innovation Undergraduate Research Fellowship (2017)

In 2016, Northern Paiute tribal elder Myra Johnson-Orange stated, “Before the coming of the white man, there were peaceful feelings among the tribes that are now, what I call, inter-tribal racism.” Myra’s statement seamlessly captures the central research question I am pursuing, comprised of two interconnected components. The first part examines how Oregon’s tribal history of the Western Slope and Northern Great Basin regions, specifically historical tribal animosities and alliances, has shaped and characterized contemporary inter-tribal dynamics on the Warm Springs and Grand Ronde Reservations. The second part explores what these contemporary inter-tribal dynamics look like in regards to cultural fusion, tribal and inter- tribal identity, cultural politics, and inter-tribal discrimination. There currently exists little academic or historical research that specifically examines the cultural inter-tribal dynamics of either The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs or The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. With the creation of the Indian Reservation System, historically hostile tribes are forced to live together as one representative sovereign nation. The dominant discourse assumes that inter-tribal dynamics are characterized by a notion of unity and a semblance of tribal equality. However, this widespread assumption fails to recognize the individuality of each tribe and tribal member, limiting equal tribal representation on a political, social, and cultural  level. In an attempt to record Native history from an exclusively Native perspective, I plan to conduct my research using a methodology of oral history within a framework of decolonization. Ultimately, my research will be discussed in a comparative framework, examining similarities and differences in tribal history and contemporary inter-tribal relations that exist on the two Reservations. I anticipate that the different geographic locations of each Reservation and the various levels of historical tribal engagement with the Bureau of Indian Affairs will indicate some degree of existing inter-tribal prejudice and discrimination in both communities.