Reflections on Writing a Siletz Tribal History

Abstract

 OHQ vol. 111, no. 4 Charles Wilkinson Reflections on Writing a Siletz Tribal History© 2010 Oregon Historical Society As is the case with American Indian tribes generally, the history of the Siletz people of western Oregon holds a great deal of pain and injustice, tempered by the prosperous societies that pre-dated by millennia the arrival of non-Native people and,as well,by the robust modern revival that followed the dark years lasting from the late 1700s through the 1960s.Recounting this compelling body of human experience,and struggling to get it right,has been one of my life’s most cherished journeys. Part of that satisfaction has been my own learning, not just about the events, personalities, and profundity of Siletz history, but also about scholarship and the writing of history. In January 2005, I began work on what would become The People Are Dancing Again: The History of the Siletz Tribe of Western Oregon, a project that consumed much of my professional time for nearly six years. My hope is that the process of writing this book will be of use to future tribal historians, and I offer this piece in that spirit. The Siletz tribe is a confederation of approximately thirty distinct tribes and bands,representing ten different language groups.In 1856,after the end of the Rogue River War, the government forcibly moved these peoples to the recently established Siletz reservation on the Oregon coast. The largest removals came from southern Oregon, site of the war that gripped the residents, Indian and non-Indian, for five years and took the lives of more than six hundred people. The removals, some by ocean-going steamships and some by land, from the homelands occupied for thousands of years were incomprehensibly confusing and brutal. The reservation, their newly assigned residence encompassing 105 miles of the central Oregon coast, did not last; federal actions in 1865, 1875, and 1894 — the first two probably illegal and the third coerced — took almost all of it. Inthelatenineteenthandtwentiethcenturies,nationalpoliciesattempted to assimilate Indian people by stripping them of their culture, religion, and  Wilkinson, Reflections on Writing a Siletz Tribal History In an earlier book, Charles Wilkinson wrote that Indian tribes have endured “five centuries of survival under the most excruciating pressure of killing diseases, wars, land expropriation, and official government policy — forced assimilation, then outright termination. Yet the tribes are now the strongest they have been in a century and a half. Never has this land seen such staying power.” Ultimately, The People Are Dancing Again, with its textured exploration of Siletz history and all the loss and modern revival, stands as dramatic testament to that staying power. Courtesy of University of Washington Press, designer Tom Eykemans  OHQ vol. 111, no. 4 land.Siletztribalculturenecessarilywent underground.With tribal members supposedly — but not actually — “fully assimilated,” Congress terminated the tribe in 1954. (The termination policy, imposed on several dozen tribes before being repudiated,called for ending the federal relationship,abrogating treaties, and selling off reservation lands.) Then, beginning in the early 1970s,the tribe reorganized and requested restoration.Federal legislation in 1977 and 1980 repealed the termination statute,restored full federal recognition to the Siletz tribe, and established a small reservation. Modern times have also brought economic success (the tribe has a casino in Lincoln City and other business ventures) and an inspiring,far-reaching cultural revival. From the outset, a number of important factors worked in my favor as I researched and wrote The People Are Dancing Again. The tribe had asked me to write its history and provided a generous expense budget that allowed me and my research assistants to travel from Colorado to Oregon for interviews, meetings, and site visits. The tribe’s Cultural Department contributed mightily to the writing of the book, and its extensive collection supplied nearly half the book’s one hundred photographs. Midway through the project, we realized that the tribe’s substantial governmental staff included another significant asset,Brady Smith,a first rate cartographer. Delores Pigsley, the tribal chairman, assigned Brady to the book, and he crafted more than thirty maps that communicated aspects of Siletz history. Also,tribal sponsorship meant that Siletz members would be less suspicious...