Showing posts with label Native American. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Native American. Show all posts

June 17 - It Was Called the Steal Treaty...

Posted on June 17, 2020


On this date in 1960, the Nez Perce tribe was awarded $4 million for land that had been "bought" from them - really, stolen from them! - for just 4 cents per acre, way back in 1863.

The seven million acres (about 28 thousand square kilometers) was very much undervalued by the treaty, even for 1863 prices. The land was in Eastern Washington and Oregon and a central chunk of Idaho. The compensation for the land was so unfair, the nickname for the treaty became "the steal treaty."

By the way, the reason for the land grab was that gold was discovered within the boundaries of the land that had been given to the Nez Perce by the Treaty of 1855! The U.S. government, instead of sticking to its promise to the tribe, enforcing reservation boundaries by keeping gold-seekers out, and allowing the Nez Perce to profit from the resources on their own land - yeah, instead of all of that, the U.S. just grabbed about 90% of the reservation!

You probably know that European settlers in the "New World," and their descendants, treated the native peoples who lived in North America really dreadfully. Obviously, not every interaction between European-American and Native American was awful, but as a whole, the British colonies and the United States has a terrible human-rights record. Stealing land; making and then breaking treaties; devaluing native cultures, languages, and religions; kidnapping and murder, war and massacres - yikes, what a lot of horrific stuff!

Chief Joseph is one of the most famous of the Nez Perce.


In modern times, a few steps have been taken to right a fraction of the wrongs, and one of these steps was this 1960 payment. Today the Nez Perce own and operate two casinos in Idaho, and many people in this tribe are involved with the hatching, harvesting, and selling salmon.







World Tessellation Day









Turtle Days

(June 17 - 20, 2020 - but it may be postponed or cancelled!)




Plan ahead:


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May 23 - Happy Birthday, Scott O'Dell

Posted on May 23, 2020

About a million years ago, when I was in elementary (or grammar) school, every schoolchild in California (it seemed) was reading this amazing book called Island of the Blue Dolphins.


It was about a 12-year-old Native American girl who was  stranded all alone on an island - for years!

This fiction story of courage and survival won the 1961 Newbery Medal and was required reading for California students for some years. Amazingly, it was based on a true story: a Nicoleño Native American woman was left alone for 18 years on San Nicolas Island in the 1800s!! And when the woman was finally discovered and taken to the mainland, in 1853, nobody spoke her language!


What caused author Scott O'Dell (born on this date in 1898) to write this story?

Well, O'Dell was born in California. He was actually born on Rattlesnake Island, near Los Angles. His family lived for a time on Rattlesnake Island, in a house built on stilts, and at high tide they could hear the waves washing the shore below their house.

Rattlesnake Island is now called Terminal
Island. Located in Los Angeles Harbor,
it has been enlarged for use in industry
and as a ferry terminal; now it is a mostly-
artificial island.
This background may have helped O'Dell connect to the story of the woman who lived alone on a California island...







O'Dell was a soldier; he joined the army near the end of World War I, and when World War II broke out, he enlisted in the Air Force. 

Between his two bouts of soldiering, O'Dell was quite the Southern California guy - he worked in Hollywood! He read and criticized movie scripts written by amateur writers, he worked in silent movies as a set dresser, and he was even a hand stand-in for Rudolph Valentine in one scene!! He was even a cameraman; he was sent to Italy as a cameraman on a silent version of Ben Hur. 

He loved Italy and stayed there for a year after the movie shoot ended. He actually lived in a villa where the famous scientist Galileo had once lived.

In Italy, since he wasn't working on movies and he wasn't serving as a soldier, O'Dell had time on his hands. He started to write - and he ended up writing an entire novel.

This first novel was never published (and O'Dell burned the manuscript at some point), but when O'Dell returned to California, he kept writing and writing and writing. He wrote articles, book reviews, a newspaper column, novels, children's novels, and non-fiction books for adults. He was best known for his historical fiction for kids.


By the way, the name "Scott O'Dell" was a mistake. What happened was this: parents May Elizabeth Gabriel and Bennett Mason Scott named their son O'Dell Gabriel Scott. But one of his earliest published articles had a mistake on the byline; the typesetter had mixed up the first and last names, and instead of "by O'Dell Scott" had set "by Scott O'Dell." 

Well, the author liked that mistake! He ended up using the name "Scott O'Dell" for all of his works and changed his named legally for use everywhere when he was in his twenties.



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November 2 - Bison Day

Posted on November 2, 2019

(First Saturday of November)



Often called "buffalo," the American bison was an important animal in the history of North America. For the Plains Indians, bison were an important source of meat, bones for toolmaking, hides and hair for shelter and clothing, horns for containers and implements, and more. The Native Americans not only hunted bison and relied on bison in many ways, bison also figured into their religious practice and ceremonies.





Certainly some European Americans who settled the plains also killed bison for food and hides (and other reasons - including sport) - and bison remained a symbol of "The West" for many even as guns and disease started to kills off the herds precipitously.




By the end of the 1800s, there were only about 1,000 bison left. This highly endangered species was protected in Yellowstone Park and also raised on ranches. Nowadays there are about 3,000 bison in Yellowstone's herd, and there between 150,000 to 200,000 bison in the U. S. altogether. They are no longer endangered!

There have been two campaigns to honor the bison in recent decades. One was to make it the national mammal of the United States - and that campaign succeeded when, in 2016, President Obama signed a law making it so. The second campaign was to make the first Saturday of November an official holiday called Bison Day. That hasn't happened yet, but the Senate has passed a resolution that declares Bison Day that particular year. I think that signal of approval means that Bison Day has lots of support and will eventually be enacted into law.







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