by Kurt R. Nelson
Caxton Press, $18.95, 280 pages
Native Americans have had a long and tortured history with white settlers; from the Trail of Tears in the southeast to the Indian Wars that ravaged the Midwest and Great Plains. They have been decimated by diseases that they did not have immunity against and lack the strength in numbers to really fight back. In the end, they are forced to give up and live on reservations or die fighting.
In this book, author Kurt Nelson explores the relations between Native Americans and white settlers in the Pacific Northwest; an area that is largely ignored by historians. Along the way we see how the Governors of both territories attempted to force unfair treaties on the tribes and even then break them immediately. The white settlers often started the violence and did not distinguish between those that wanted peace and those that fought.
Mr. Nelson argues that most of the blame should be with the white settlers, and this is true. They generally brought it upon themselves by not treating the tribes with fairness. Also they felt the only good Indian was a dead Indian, no attempt at all for peace. The picture is stark, but Mr. Nelson brings it to life.
Kevin Winter
The reviewer has missed an essential elements of the book.
The Indians were not completely victims. We would not hold them in admiration if they were. As Mr. Nelson shows, the organization and support the tribes demonstrated stretched across great distances.
Some Indians understood the menace or disaster that was upon them more clearly than others. Likewise many fought with skill and at times were simply better and more effective military forces that the Americans.
The Americans showed the same tenacity and at times had less resources and certainly less ability to live on the country. Moreover, Nelson often contextualizes matters. For example what has come down to us as an example of a “typical” white military atrocity is shown to have been precipitated by the gruesome and seemingly unnecessary murder of white soldier prisoners.
The book also goes along way to explain how the area developed from a frontier, to territory, to state.
It’s an intelligent volume that treats its subjects with the degree of respect that they earned.