TFG relished mocking a US senator by a nickname that shall not be repeated here, and held an event supposedly honoring Navajos but in front of the portrait of the "Indian Killer" Andrew Jackson.
It was a relief beyond description when Joe Biden defeated TFG and walked into the Oval Office.
Since that election, we have seen and experienced a very different government. A government whose policies are far, far away from his immediate predecessor's. Like the presidential proclamation about today, which will drive TFG and his fanatical followers crazy:
I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, proclaim October 10, 2022, as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. I call upon the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.
The day was referred to as Columbus Day for a long time. It was possible because history is written by victors, and it took a long time to re-tell history in terms of what really happened after Columbus landed in the Caribbean. History that we studied even in the old country, on the other side of the planet, and which continued to be taught as I blogged here more than a decade ago.
We have slowly come to understand the importance of informing kids in particular how in a matter of a few years after Columbus, the lives of the original peoples of the Americas changed. Forever. Dramatically. And for the worse.
In 2002, when I came to interview at the university where I worked for nearly 20 years, my academic "job talk" was scheduled on the fateful Ides of March in the Calapooia Room.
Until then, I had never heard of Calapooia. I gave my talk, met with people, and returned to California.
I didn't think much about "Calapooia" until I took up the job--from which I was laid off in 2021--and until I started interacting with the campus and its people in the fall of 2002.
After moving to Oregon, for the first time, I was exposed to place for what it was, and I had a lot to learn. And I had to learn them fast, if I wanted to engage with students with ease and to be able to converse with them about what they knew and were curious about.
I had a lot to learn about how Oregon, too, was Native American lands.
The Calapooia were one of the many who had lived here for, well, ever. It took a while for European settlers to come out west. But, they did. And when the settlers reached these lands, the story was no different. Remember Jill Lepore writing this:
Between 1500 and 1800 roughly two and a half million Europeans moved to the Americas; they carried twelve million Africans by force; and as many as fifty million Native Americans died, chiefly of disease.
When Native Americans did not die of disease that Europeans brought with them, wars with the European settlers did them in, or they were simply forced out of their lands. The history of the Calapooia was no different.
Once, when we were driving around on a gorgeous summer day, we came across a sign for Fort Umpqua, which was a trading fort and the southernmost outpost of the Hudson’s Bay Company. As one can imagine, the arrival of Europeans meant the end of life as they knew it for the indigenous people. Often, the literal end of life.
Beginning in February 1857, federal troops forced native people to march from a temporary reservation at Table Rock in southern Oregon 263 miles north across rough terrain to the newly created Grand Ronde Reservation.
Thus began Oregon’s “Trail of Tears.” The Rogue River and Chasta Tribes were the first to be removed from their aboriginal lands. They were joined by members of other Tribes and bands as the march passed other tribal homelands. The journey took 33 days and many died along the way.
It took a while to truly understand that I live on the lands where the Calapooia once lived and prospered.
Such an acknowledgment is "the start of action – a concrete step to bring
forgotten histories into present consciousness."
Land acknowledgment is a recognition of a truth, a kind of verbal memorial that we erect in honor of indigenous peoples. Like a memorial, land acknowledgment pays respect to indigenous peoples by recognizing where they came from and affirming who they are today. And like a memorial, land acknowledgment is an education – enlisting speakers and audiences to learn about a region’s indigenous history.
I hope that we will do a lot more acknowledgment, and a lot more direct action too. Remember this when you vote in the upcoming election in November.
Thanks to HB 2526, it is officially #IndigenousPeoplesDay in Oregon. I'm grateful for the partnership between Oregon's nine federally recognized tribes and the state as we work together to create a just, equitable Oregon.
— Governor Kate Brown (@OregonGovBrown) October 10, 2022
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