Japanese Mexicans

Japanese immigration to Mexico began in the late 19th century, to found coffee growing plantations in the state of Chiapas. Although this initiative failed, it was followed by greater immigration from 1900 to the beginning of World War II, although it never reached the levels of Japanese immigration to countries like the United States, Brazil or Peru. Immigration halted during World War II and many Japanese nationals and even some naturalized Mexicans citizens of Japanese origin were forced to relocate from communities in Baja California, Sinaloa and Chiapas to Mexico City and other areas in the interior until the war was over. After the war, immigration began again, mostly due to Japanese companies investing in Mexico and sending over skilled employees. Currently, there are an estimated 30,000 people who are Japanese or of Japanese descent in Mexico including a recent migration of young Japanese artists into the country who have found more opportunity there than in their home country. It is the fourth largest Japanese community in Latin America.
Beginning.
In the years 1613 through 1620, several diplomatic missions occurred on behalf of Japan to the Vatican in Rome, traveling through New Spain (arriving in Acapulco and departing from Veracruz) and visiting various ports-of-call in Europe. Although the final destination was not Mexico, this mission is viewed as the beginning of Japan–Mexico relations. They were led by Hasekura Tsunenaga, who was accompanied by more than one hundred Japanese Christians and merchants; as well as twenty-two samurai under the shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu. A fight occurred in 1614 in which a Japanese samurai stabbed a Spanish soldier. This was witnessed and recorded by historian Chimalpahin, who was the grandson of an Aztec nobleman. Some of Tsunega's delegation would stay and marry with the local Mexicans.
Japanese were among the Asian slaves who were shipped from the Spanish Philippines in the Manila-Acapulco galleons to Acapulco. These slaves were all called "Chino", which meant Chinese. In reality, they were of diverse origins, including Japanese, Koreans, Malays, Filipinos, Javanese, Timorese and people from Bengal, India, Ceylon, Makassar, Tidore, Terenate and China. Filipinos made up most of their population. The people in this community of diverse Asians in Mexico was called "los indios chinos" by the Spanish. Most of these slaves were male and were obtained from Portuguese slave traders who obtained them from Portuguese colonial possessions and outposts of the Estado da India, which included parts of India, Bengal, Malacca, Indonesia, Nagasaki in Japan, and Macau. Spain received some of these Chino slaves from Mexico, where owning a Chino slave showed high status. Records of three Japanese slaves dating from the 16th century, named Gaspar Fernandes, Miguel and Ventura who ended up in Mexico showed that they were purchased by Portuguese slave traders in Japan, brought to Manila from where they were shipped to Mexico by their owner Perez. Some of these Asian slaves were also brought to Lima in Peru, where there was a small community of Asians made out of Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Malays, and others.
The history of modern Japanese migration begins near the end of the 19th century. In 1868, Japanese isolation from the world was broken which prompted large scale social and economic upheaval, with the Japanese government encouraging emigration . These emigrants included those from Okinawa, who fled oppression by the Japanese government after the island was taken over in 1878.
Mexico was the first country to recognize Japanese sovereignty after the end of its isolation, signing a treaty with it in 1888 to allow citizens of both countries the ability to travel to the other and establishing consulates. Mexico was the first Latin American country to receive Japanese immigrants in 1897, with the first thirty five arriving to Chiapas under the auspices of Viscount Enomoto Takeaki, with the permission of Mexican president Porfirio Díaz . These first Japanese communities mostly consisted of farm workers and other laborers. Japanese authorities were interested in creating a coffee plantation in Chiapas, for export to Japan. They established the Sociedad Colonizadora Japón-México to recruit Japanese farmers to migrate with government support to obtain land. Others went without government assistance and were called “free emigrants” able to buy land without obligation to the Japanese government. However, economic conditions in Chiapas forced many immigrants to abandon their contracts with the Japanese government and, under the leadership of Terui Ryojiro, instead formed a new organization called the Sociedad Cooperativa Nichiboku Kyodo Gaisha which allowed them to diversify their economic activities. The very first settlement was based on coffee production but failed for various reasons including the fact that not all of the colonists were farmers and many became sick with tropical diseases. Many from this colony dispersed but there remains a small Japanese community in Acacoyagua, Chiapas . However, its establishment marks the first Japanese immigration to Latin America.
1900 to World War II.
Most of the immigration to Mexico occurred from 1900 to the beginning of World War II. Many of the immigrants in the first half of the 20th century were skilled laborers or illegal immigrants. Mexico Japan relations were superficial in the latter 19th to mid 20th century but immigrants to Mexico had favorable treatment, as Mexico needed additional workers for modernization efforts.
In the first decade of the 20th century, a large number of Japanese immigrants came as workers contracted to companies doing business in the country which needed skilled labor. This was first in the mining and sugar cane industries and later in construction and railroads. The main Japanese companies involved in this were Kumamoto, Toyo and Tairiku Shokumin Kaisha which did business in mining and agriculture. The three companies sent a total of 530 people to Mexico between 1904 and 1907. However, many of the immigrants could not do the hard labor of the mines and sugar cane fields, prompting them to abandon their contracts, heading to California or even Cuba . During this time period, the number of people of Japanese background went down in Mexico.
In 1908, Japan and Mexico informally agreed to end immigration by contract, but “free” immigrants continued to come. From 1914 to 1938, another 291 people immigrated to Mexico from Japan. Legal skilled laborers after 1917 often worked in the health fields, along with those Japanese invited by the Japanese community in Mexico. Most of these were in Baja California where the economic development was greatest. A number of other Japanese came to the country illegally from the United States, after being rejected by this country, coming to Mexico hoping to enter the U.S. again. These were mostly concentrated in the north of Mexico and those who could not re-enter the United States stayed in Mexico permanently.
Significant Japanese immigration into the Ensenada, Baja California area took place between 1920 and 1940 with only two known Japanese residents before that. Ensenada, Rosarito and Mexicali attracted Japanese immigrants, legal and illegal. The number of Japanese by 1940 was about 300, most of whom worked in farming and fishing. Japanese fishing enterprises included the capture of lobster and mollusks. A significant portion of Japanese agricultural production was exported to the United States and even led to a Japanese-owned chili pepper dehydration facility for the same purpose.
Before WWII, the highest concentrations of Japanese and Japanese descent were in Baja California, followed by Mexico City and Sonora. Most worked in fishing and agriculture followed by non-professional workers, commerce, professionals and technicians. Up until the war, the treatment of Japanese in the country and their descendants had been favorable, very different than the treatment of Chinese in the country, which suffered discrimination and even expulsion in the early 20th century. The Japanese were relatively free from discrimination in Mexico, unlike the United States, Brazil and other countries in the Americas. One reason for this is that the Japanese population was not as prominent as the Chinese one in numbers and the work that they did, which included the construction of factories, bridges and other infrastructure was viewed favorably. The Japanese were not considered to be foreign exploiters, rather partners in Mexico's development because of their technical skills in fields such as medicine and engineering.
In Chiapas where the earliest Japanese immigration occurred in the prior century, intermarriage was common, breaking down ethnic barriers. This has led to the end of a distinct Japanese population in the state, leaving only family names as a reminder. The official census of 1940s counts only 1,550 Japanese nationals in the country, the overwhelming majority men, although other studies put the number higher, as many as over 6,000. Even with the 6,000 figure, it pales against the number of Japanese in other countries in the Americas at the time such as the United States (285,000), Brazil (205,000), Canada (22,000) and Peru (18,000) .
Japanese immigration halted by World War II to near zero, and those who were in the country were faced with restrictions and relocation after Mexico broke diplomatic ties with Japan in 1941. Japanese national and even those with naturalized Mexican citizenship were forced to move from areas along the Pacific coast such as Baja California, Sinaloa and Chiapas inland, with some forced into exile to Japan. The goal was to keep the Japanese in Mexico away from ports and from Mexico's border with the United States so that they could not be used as a “fifth column” by the Japanese government.
Japanese nationals were forced to move to interior cities such as Puebla, Guadalajara and Cuernavaca. Most went to Mexico City and Guadalajara but there were concentrations in Guanajuato and Querétaro. It is estimated that about 1,100 people moved to Mexico City and Guadalajara alone. The Japanese community worked to buy properties to house the displaced including the former Temixco Hacienda near Cuernavaca which allowed the Japanese there to grow crops and live semi-independently. The fear of Japanese-Mexicans faded during the war, with some allowed to go back home before 1945 and the rest after.
Mexico was one of a number of countries to take this action, but in the end only about 3,500 people were affected as opposed to 120,000 in the United States. With some exceptions, those forcibly relocated were allowed to return after the war and retake possession of their property. However, in a number of cases, this proved impossible as people created new lives in the central states and/or they lost farming land and/or water rights to the unscrupulous. Those most able to return to their old life were the fishermen of the Ensenada area. This treatment of the Japanese is not in most accounts of Mexican history and is not taught in schools.
One consequence of the war was that it caused many Japan-born to remain in Mexico, even if they had plans to one day return to Japan. The main reason for this was that the war completely destroyed the old Japan, and what they knew no longer existed. After the war, there was a strong division among the Japanese-Mexican community as to whether Japan had really lost the war, (with about ten percent refusing to believe Japan could lose). However, the division was enough to keep the Japanese-Mexicans from seeking restitution from the Mexican government or promote the memory of the displacement.
Post war to 1978.
After the end of the war, Japanese immigration to Mexico began again. From 1951 to 1978, this immigration was associated with Japan's economic growth, giving it money to invest abroad. From the 1950s to the present, over three hundred Japanese enterprises have established themselves in Mexico and Japan is Mexico's third largest trading partner. These companies brought highly skilled workers into the country, usually on two-year renewable visas.
Since Japanese immigration began, it was a small and dispersed phenomenon, with few to no formal policies or support to Japanese immigrants. Shortly before the war, many Japanese in Mexico began to form associations called “nijonjinkai” (Japanese associations) or “kenjinkai” (associations of people from the same prefecture). However, before the war, there was no nationwide Japanese immigrant organization similar to those in the United States. The closest organization to this function was the “kyoeikai” which arose in response to the displacement of Japanese during WWII, especially in Mexico City. Later, the leaders of these organizations would form the Asociación México Japonesa, which remains today.
Mexicans of Japanese descent and current immigration.
In 1997, descendants of Japanese immigrants celebrated a century of Japanese immigration into Mexico, with an estimated 30,000 people of Japanese nationality or ethnicity living in Mexico. Despite the immigration starting in the latter 19th century, it never reached the numbers it did in other countries such as the United States and Brazil. Japanese immigrant influence is strongest in Baja California, and can be seen in both the last names of many of its residents and the operators of maquiladoras near the U.S. border. There are still scattered communities of Japanese descendants from the first half of the 20th century in other areas. In addition to the Asociación México Japonesa, there are some regional Japanese associations such as the Asociación Japonesa del Sur de Veracruz established in 1996.
There has been little research into this ethnic group in Mexico. The main researcher is María Elena Ota Mishima who has written various works on the topic, including the book Siete Migraciones Japoneses en México 1890-1978.
There has been one notable influx of Japanese into Mexico since 1978, which is young artists from Japan who have settled mostly in Mexico City. They have come because they have found it easier to develop their careers in Mexico, as the art market in Japan is very small and very hard to break into. More people in Mexico visit museums than in Japan and the range of artistic styles is much less restricted in Mexico. In 2011, the Museo Universitario del Chopo held an exhibition called Selva de cristal: artistas japoneses en México to promote the work of artists of Japanese and Japanese descent in Mexico. Artists represented included Luis Nishizawa, Kiyoshi Takahasi, Carlos Nakatani, Kyuichi Yahai and Kiyoto Ota .
Notable Japanese and Japanese-Mexicans include theater promoter Seki Sano, painters Tamiji and Tawaja and Luis Nishizawa. Tanetoshi Kirawawa founded one of the most successful Japanese businesses in Mexico, and is also known for his philanthropic work such as the publication of books and magazines about Japan including Japónica and the creation of institutions such as Liceo Mexicano-Japonés, with teaches both Japanese and Mexican children, as well as the Japan study program of the Colegio de la Frontera Norte.
As a result of Japanese investment in automotive and associated industries, there has been a significant influx of Japanese immigrants to the Bajío region. The largest increase has been in Guanajuato, which has seen a 400% increase in Japanese residents since 2013. The opening of Honda and Toyota plants in Celaya and a Mazda plant in Salamanca greatly increased the Japanese presence. As a result, branches of Japanese banks as well as the first Japanese consulate-general in Mexico have opened in León.
Education.
The Liceo Mexicano Japonés is located in Mexico City. As of 1983 some Nikkei families living in other Mexican states have their children move to Mexico City and live with their relatives so they can attend this school.
In addition, the "Escuela Japonesa de Aguascalientes" (アグアスカリエンテス日本人学校 "Aguasukarientesu Nihonjin Gakkō"), an overseas Japanese school, is in Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes. As of 2013 it has 59 primary school students and 13 junior high school students for a total of 72 students.
Part-time Japanese schools include the Colegio Japones de Guadalajara A.C. (グアダラハラ補習授業校 "Guadarahara Hoshū Jugyō Kō") in Zapopan, Jalisco and the Asociacion Regiomontana de Lengua Japonesa A.C. (モンテレー補習授業校 "Monterē Hoshū Jugyō Kō") in San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León. Colegio Japones de Guadalajara is held at Secundaria y Preparatoria Femenil Colinas de San Javier. Formerly it had its classes held at the Escuela Primaria "Antonio Caso" in Guadalajara. Asociacion Regiomontana was previously based in Apodaca.
Literature.
A novel "Mudas las Garzas" by Selfa A. Chew is based on the oral histories of Japanese Mexicans in the middle of the 20th century.


Grupos Beta

Grupos Beta (Beta Groups) is a service by the National Institute of Migration (INM) of Mexico offering water, medical aid, and information to immigrants at risk. The first Grupos Beta was started in Beta Tijuana in 1990. Grupo Beta's primary role is to protect the Human Rights of migrants regardless of their immigration status as stated in their motto, “vocation, humanitarianism and loyalty.” Members of Grupos Beta are generally selected from local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. They are then given extensive training that primarily emphasizes providing first aid, social services, access to shelters, search and rescue, and have specialized training in water and air rescue services. After their promotions and intense training, members of Grupos Beta earn a pay increase, a life insurance policy, and they get 15 vacation days every six months. Grupos Beta provide transportation aid to get migrants back home and stress they do not provide transportation aid to migrants to get into the United States. Grupo Beta's blue flags alert migrants to water stations in the desert and advise migrants that the area is patrolled by Grupos Beta. There are now 21 Grupos Beta operated on three agency levels within the Mexican government in the states of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Chiapas and Oaxaca.
Authorization By Mexican Law.
“The legal basis for the creation of the Beta Groups Migrant Protection, is established in Article 71 of the Migration Act, published in the Official Journal of the Federation on May 25, 2011.
Article 71. The Secretariat will protect migrant groups who are in the country, which will support the protection and defense of their rights, regardless of nationality or immigration status.
The Secretary shall enter into agreements of collaboration and consultation with the departments and agencies of the Federal Government, the states and municipalities, with civil society organizations or individuals, with the aim of participating in the installation and operation of the migrant protection groups. “
Human Rights Abuse Allegations.
Amnesty International and other human rights groups are concerned about the violence migrants face while en route to the United States. Tens of thousands of migrants from Central America face human rights abuses at the hands of gangs, kidnappers, robbers, sexual predators and face other forms of abuses while in transit within the Mexican borders. Amnesty International cites the insufficient funding of services such as the Grupos Beta as not meeting the needs of the migrants within the Mexican government’s jurisdiction and which is their responsibility. Grupos Beta workers have also been accused of extorting migrants, and for reporting migrants to immigration officials for detainment and deportation.
Migrant Knowledge of Program.
Despite the criticism, the program is popular with the migrants that travel the commercial trains, as noted in the movie Which Way Home, and in particular with unaccompanied minors and youth. The officers are a welcomed sight to the migrant travelers in dire need of services. GRUPOS BETA also arrange for shelters for those in need of long term assistance, or who can no longer continue on their journey.
OPIS.
Officials of Child Protection 'OFICIALES DE PROTECCIÓN A LA INFANCIA' (OPIS) are Mexican Federal Migration Agents whose main task is to ensure respect for the human rights of children and adolescent migrants, especially children unaccompanied by an adult.
Currently, the National Institute Migration (INM) has 543 OPIS in the 32 regional offices. The OPIS are selected according to a profile developed by the National System for Integral Family Development (SNDIF) and receive ongoing, specialized training.
List of GRUPOS BETA.
The recent mass migration of unaccompanied children from Central America was reported as early as 2009 and increased in 2014 which has led to many children being at risk to be lost, injured or at risk of being trafficked by criminals, sex traffickers, gangs, corrupt officials and drug cartels. Mexico has provided a list of GRUPOS BETA where the missing can be reported, lists checked for process of reunification with relatives, Embassy services for unaccompanied children in care, shelter placements and the process of returning remains to next of kin for burial. GRUPOS BETA report that they are seeing more transitory migrants that are children, women and older men who are potentially at risk as they make their journey north.
 GRUPO BETA TIJUANA
Puerto fronterizo s/n, Puerto México, Col. Empleados federales C.P. 22010, Tijuana, B. C.
Tel. (664) 682 9454 / 3171
683 3068
 Módulo El Chaparral (664) 682 3171
 GRUPO BETA TECATE
Calle 18 esq. con Tanama s/n, Col. Bella vista, C.P. 21440 Tecate, B. C.
Tel. (665) 654 2449, 654 3780
 GRUPO BETA MEXICALI
Av. Melgar No. 1, Garita Internacional, Zona Centro, C. P. 21100, Mexicali, B. C.
Tel. 01 (686) 554 2624, 552 5596
 GRUPO BETA SAN LUIS DE RÍO COLORADO
Av. Ignacio Zaragoza No. 2708 entre 27 y 28, Col. Burócratas C. P. 83450, San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora
Tel. (653) 534 5062 / 534 4870
 GRUPO BETA NOGALES
Cale Reforma 465, Col. El Rosario, C. P. 84020, Nogales, Sonora
Tel. (631) 312 6180 y 81
 GRUPO BETA SONOYTA
Puerta Int. Boulevard Benemérito de las Américas No. 285 Línea Internacional, Col. Hombres Blancos C. P. 83570, Sonoyta, Sonora
Tel. (651) 512 1520, 01/512 1051
 GRUPO BETA AGUA PRIETA
Calle Dos, Avenida 6 y 7 No. 697 Col. Centro C. P. 84200 Agua Prieta, Sonora
Tel. (633) 338 1618, 338 8962
 GRUPO BETA PIEDRAS NEGRAS
Oficinas federales, Pte. Internacional Coahuila 2000 Planta Alta, C. P. 26000, Piedras negras, Coahuila
Tel. (878) 782 8832, 782 8846
 GRUPO BETA CIUDAD ACUÑA
Puente Int. Calle Hidalgo No. 1, Col. Zona Centro, C. P. 26200, Cd. Acuña, Coahuila
Tel. (877) 772 7524 /1239
 GRUPO BETA MATAMOROS
Av. Álvaro Obregón s/n, Puete Internacional Puerta México, Col. Jardín 1er piso C. P. 87330, Matamoros, Tamaulipas
Tel. (868) 812 3664, 812 3468
 GRUPO BETA TAPACHULA
Calle Vialidad No. 435 Fraccionamiento Las Vegas C. P. 30798 Tapachula, Chiapas
Tel. (962) 625 7986, 626 7332
 GRUPO BETA COMITÁN
Calle Central Benito Juárez Poniente No. 130 esquina con Novena Poniente, Col. Barrio Candelaria C. P. 30060 Comitán, Chiapas
Tel. (963) 632 5751, 632 7709
 GRUPO BETA CIUDAD JUÁREZ
General Rivas Guillén 950, Col. Centro C. P. 32000, Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua
Tel. (656) 612 7618 /612 7619
 GRUPO BETA PUERTO PALOMAS
Av. 5 de mayo e Internacional s/n, Col. Centro C. P. 31830, Puerto Palomas de Villas, Chihuahua
Tel. (656) 666 0889
 GRUPO BETA ACAYUCAN
Carretera costera del golfo no. 180 km. 221 C. P. 96000 Acayucan, Veracruz
Tel. (924) 247 9174, 247 9173
 GRUPO BETA SÁSABE
Calle 1era. s/n entre Av. A y calle Hidalgo, Col. Solidaridad C.P. 83870, Sásabe, Sonora
Tel. (637) 374 8076
 GRUPO BETA TENOSIQUE
Calle 25 No. 638 entre las 46 y 50 Col. Cocoyotl, C. P. 86902, Tenosique, Tabasco
Tel. (934) 342 0110
 GRUPO BETA PALENQUE
Carretera federal Playas de Catazcaja - Ocosingo Km. 26+100 Lado A, Col. Guayacán C. P. 29960, Palenque, Chiapas
Tel. (916) 345 3035 Ext. 209, 210
 GRUPO BETA ARRIAGA
5ta. Poniente No. 722 entre 14 y 16 Sur, Barrio de Santo Tomás C. P. 30450, Arriaga, Chiapas
Tel. (962) 625 7986, 626 7332
 GRUPO BETA TUXTLA GUTIÉRREZ
5ta. Avenida Norte y 13 Poniente No. 1402, Col. El Magueyito, C. P. 29000, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas
Tel. (961) 602 6111, 602 6119
 GRUPO BETA IXTEPEC
Carretera Ixtepec - Juchitán Km. 1.5 s/n C. P. 70110 Cd. Ixtepec, Oaxaca
Tel. (971) 713 3047


Priest Rapids

Priest Rapids was a narrow, fast-flowing stretch of the Columbia River, located in the central region of the U.S. state of Washington. It was flooded by the construction of the Priest Rapids Dam in the 1950s.
Before the dam's construction, the river dropped 20 feet (6 m) over a short distance. In total Priest Rapids consisted of seven separate cataracts along a 9-mile (14 km) stretch, over which the river dropped 72 feet (22 m) altogether.
It was given the name Priest Rapids by Alexander Ross of the Pacific Fur Company in 1811, for a native shaman. Ross wrote of his visit to the "strong and rocky rapid" where he met a man "called Haquilaugh, which signifies … priest." Haquilaugh was an influential Wanapum leader, for whom Ross gave the rapids its English name.
At Priest Rapids the Columbia River narrowed and flowed quickly, making it an ideal salmon fishing site. There were several rapids and fishing sites, and a dozen or so Wanapum villages along the west bank of the Columbia River at Priest Rapids.
Priest Rapids Dam, built in the 1950s, submerged Priest Rapids, taking advantage of the river's drop for hydroelectric power production. Thus today there are no rapids at Priest Rapids.


Antonio Demo

Father Antonio Demo (April 23, 1870 – January 2, 1936) was a New York City Italian American priest and civic activist.
He studied at seminaries in Italy and entered the Scalabrini Order in 1894. Prior to his ordination, Demo served in the Italian military. He was ordained a priest on July 20, 1896, the same year he emigrated to the United States. He initially did missionary work for two years in the parish of the Sacred Heart in Boston, which served a congregation of Italian immigrants mostly from Genoa. On July 19, 1899, he was assigned as assistant pastor of Our Lady of Pompeii Church, established in 1892 by Father Pietro Bandini in New York City's Greenwich Village on Bleecker and Carmine Streets. In 1900 he was appointed pastor of the church, which served what was then one of largest Italian-American communities in America.
Father Demo exercised his apostolate among the Italian immigrants, serving until 1923 also as the director of the St. Raphael Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants, an organization that had been specifically formed in 1891 by Bandini to assist newly arrived immigrants and that he helped to strengthen. His spiritual care and leadership were put to test on March 25, 1911, when he had to respond to the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, which claimed the lives of 146 female employees. Because of his many merits in the care of the Italian community he was decorated with the "Cross of Knight of the Crown of Italy".
In 1923 Father Demo learned that the church would have to be demolished to allow extension of the Sixth Avenue. Father Demo organized a campaign to buy a nearby property and with the help of a leading Italian American architect, Matthew Del Gaudio, build a new church and rectory. The new church was available for the congregation in May 1927. In late Summer 1931 the parochial school also was opened.
In 1935 Father Demo became Pompei's pastor emeritus and superintendent of its parochial school. He died in 1936 in Greenwich Village in New York City, and thousands of parishioners and friends, including Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, paid their respects.
In 1941, the intersection of Bleecker Street and Sixth Avenue was named Father Demo Square. In 2009, after a renovation, Father Demo Square was honored with a Village Award by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.
References.
Notes
Bibliography


Charles DeWitt

Charles DeWitt (April 27, 1727 – August 27, 1787) was an American statesman and miller from the U.S. state of New York. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress.
Early life.
DeWitt was born in Kingston, New York, the eldest son of Johannes DeWitt and Mary (née Brodhead) DeWitt. Among his siblings was brother Andries J. DeWitt, who married Blandina Elmendorf Ten Eyck (parents of Jenneke (née DeWitt) Bruyn and grandparents of U.S. Representative Andrew DeWitt Bruyn). He was a first cousin once removed of Charles Clinton, DeWitt Clinton, George Clinton, Jr. and Jacob Hasbrouck DeWitt.
DeWitt attended school in Kingston and pursued classical studies. He helped his family operate a flour mill in Greenkill (in what is now Rosendale, New York). The first mill at the site was built by Mattys Mattysen Van Keuren in 1677. Van Keuren had no children and when he died the mill was passed on to his nephew, who was a DeWitt.
Career.
He was first elected to the New York General Assembly to represent Ulster County in 1768. He was returned to that seat in every election until the Assembly was replaced in the American Revolution by a Provisional Congress for the colony in 1775. That year he was one of the members who voted to approve the work of the Continental Congress. As the revolution drew near, and the Ulster militia was expanded, he was named Colonel of the 2nd Ulster Militia regiment on December 21, 1775.
DeWitt served in the New York Provincial Congress from 1775-1777 while continuing his militia duties. In the New York Provincial Congress he served on the committee that drafted the state's first constitution. He also served on the Committee of Safety. After active warfare slowed, he was elected to the New York Assembly under the new government. He served in the assembly from 1781-1785 and 1785-1787. The assembly sent him as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1781 and 1784.
DeWitt supplied a great deal of flour to the Continental Army from his grist mill on the Greenkill.
Personal life.
On December 20, 1754, DeWitt was married to Blandina DuBois (1731–1765) in Hurley. She was the daughter of Gerrit DuBois and Margaret Elemendorf, and was a great-granddaughter of Louis DuBois, a Huguenot who was one of the earliest settlers and founders of New Paltz, New York. Together, the couple had five children:
He died on August 27, 1787 in Kingston and is interred in the Dutch Reformed Cemetery in Hurley, New York. He wrote his will on July 7, 1776 as he prepared to set out for the defense of New York City. He left the mill to his son Gerret, who expanded it in 1806, and the water-powered mill would continue in operation until 1922.
Descendants.
DeWitt's grandson, Charles G. DeWitt, served in the U.S. Congress. Another grandson, Charles DeWitt Bruyn (1784–1849), was a New York Assemblymen from Sullivan and Ulster counties from 1821 to 1822. His great-grandson, Matthew Pawling DeWitt, served as Hurley Town Supervisor from 1856-1857, and Matthew's son (Charles's great-great-grandson), Christopher Newkirk DeWitt, served in this position from 1880-1886 and 1896-1899. Another great-great-grandson, Matthew TenEyck DeWitt, was Hurley Supervisor on multiple occasions (1910-1911, 1914-1915, 1924-1927, and 1933-1935, his death).


Olive Oatman

Olive Ann Oatman (September 7, 1837March 21, 1903) was a woman born in Illinois. In 1851, while traveling from Illinois to California with a company of Mormon Brewsterites, the family was attacked by a small group from a Native American tribe. Though she identified them as Apache, they were most likely Tolkepayas (Western Yavapai). They clubbed many to death, left her brother Lorenzo for dead, and enslaved Olive and her younger sister, Mary Ann. The two were captive for one year and then traded to the Mohave people. While Lorenzo exhaustively attempted to recruit governmental help in searching for them, Mary Ann died from starvation and Olive spent four years with the Mohave.
Five years after the attack, she was repatriated into American society. The story of the Oatman Massacre began to be retold with dramatic license in the press, as well as in her own memoir and speeches. Novels, plays, movies, and poetry were inspired, which resonated in the media of the time and long afterward. She had become an oddity in 1860s America, partly owing to the prominent blue tattooing of her face by the Mohave, making her the first known white woman with Native tattoo on record. Much of what actually occurred during her time with the Native Americans remains unknown.
The town of Oatman, Arizona, is named after the Oatman family and the massacre that occurred therein.
Early life.
Born into the family of Mary Ann (née Sperry) and Royce Oatman, Olive Oatman was one of seven siblings. She grew up in the Mormon religion.
In 1850, the Oatman family joined a wagon train led by James C. Brewster, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose attacks on, and disagreements with, the church leadership in Salt Lake City, Utah, had caused him to break with the followers of Brigham Young in Utah and lead his followers – Brewsterites – to California, which he claimed was the "intended place of gathering" for the Mormons.
The Brewsterite emigrants, numbering between 85 and 93, departed Independence, Missouri, on August 5, 1850. Dissension caused the group to split near Santa Fe in New Mexico Territory with Brewster following the northern route. Royce Oatman and several other families chose the southern route via Socorro and Tucson. Near Socorro, Royce Oatman assumed command of the party. They reached New Mexico Territory early in 1851 only to find the country and climate wholly unsuited to their purpose. The other wagons gradually abandoned the goal of reaching the mouth of the Colorado River.
The party had reached Maricopa Wells, when they were told that not only was the stretch of trail ahead barren and dangerous, but that the Native Americans ahead were very hostile and that they would risk their lives if they proceeded further. The other families resolved to stay. The Oatman family, eventually traveling alone, was nearly annihilated in what became known as the "Oatman Massacre" on the banks of the Gila River about east of Yuma, in what is now Arizona.
Oatman massacre.
Mary Ann and Royce Oatman had seven children. Mary Ann was also pregnant with their eighth child during their journey from Illinois to the Gila River. The Oatman children ranged in age from 17-years-old to 1-year-old, with Lucy Oatman being the oldest. On the Oatmans' fourth day out from Maricopa Wells, they were approached by a group of Native Americans who were asking for tobacco and food. Due to the lack of supplies, Royce Oatman was hesitant to share too much with the small party of Yavapais. They became irate at his stinginess. During the encounter, the Yavapais attacked the Oatman family. The Yavapais clubbed the family to death. All were killed except for three of the children: Lorenzo, age 15 (who was left for dead), Olive, age 14, and Mary Ann, age 7, who were taken to be slaves for the Yavapais.
After the attack, Lorenzo awoke to find his parents and siblings dead, but he saw no sign of little Mary Ann and Olive. Lorenzo attempted the hazardous trek to find help. He eventually reached a settlement, where his wounds were treated. Lorenzo rejoined the emigrant train, and three days later returned to the bodies of his slain family. In a detailed retelling which was reprinted in newspapers over the decades, he said, "We buried the bodies of father, mother and babe in one common grave." The men had no way of digging proper graves in the volcanic rocky soil, so they gathered the bodies together and formed a cairn over them. It has been said the remains were reburied several times and finally moved to the river for re-interment by early Arizona colonizer Charles Poston. Lorenzo Oatman became determined to never give up the search for his only surviving siblings.
Abduction and captivity.
After the attack, the Native Americans took some of the Oatman family's belongings, along with Olive and Mary Ann. Although Olive Oatman later identified her captors as members of the Tonto Apache tribe, they were probably of the Tolkepaya tribe (Western Yavapais) living in a village southwest of Aguila, Arizona, in the Harquahala Mountains. After arriving at the village, the girls were initially treated in a way that appeared threatening, and Oatman later said she thought they would be killed. However, the girls were used as slaves to forage for food, to lug water and firewood, and for other menial tasks; they were frequently beaten.
During the girls' stay with the Yavapais, another group of Native Americans came to trade with the tribe. This group was made up of Mohave Native Americans. The daughter of the Mohave Chief Espaniole saw the girls and their poor treatment during a trading expedition. She tried to make a trade for the girls. The Yavapais refused, but the chief's daughter, Topeka, was persistent and returned once more offering a trade for the girls. Eventually the Yavapais gave in and traded the girls for two horses, some vegetables, blankets, and beads. After being taken into Mohave custody, the girls walked for days to a Mohave village along the Colorado River (in the center of what today is Needles, California). They were immediately taken in by the family of a tribal leader (kohot) whose non-Mohave name was Espianole. The Mohave tribe was more prosperous than the group that had held the girls captive, and both Espaniole's wife, Aespaneo, and daughter, Topeka, took an interest in the Oatman girls' welfare. Oatman expressed her deep affection for these two women numerous times over the years after her captivity.
Aespaneo arranged for the Oatman girls to be given plots of land to farm. A Mohave tribesman, Llewelyn Barrackman, said in an interview that Olive was most likely fully adopted into the tribe because she was given a Mohave nickname, something only presented to those who have fully assimilated into the tribe. Olive herself would later claim that she and Mary Ann were held captive by the Mohave and that she feared to leave, but this statement could have been colored by the Reverend Royal B. Stratton, who sponsored the publication of Olive's captivity narrative shortly after her return to White society. For example Olive did not attempt to contact a large group of whites that visited the Mohaves during her period with them, and years later she went to meet with a Mohave leader, Irataba, in New York City and spoke with him of old times.
Anthropologist A. L. Kroeber wrote in an article about the Oatman captivity: "The Mohaves always told her she could go to the white settlements when she pleased but they dared not go with her, fearing they might be punished for having kept a white woman so long among them, nor did they dare to let it be known that she was among them".
Another thing that suggests Olive and Mary Ann were not held in forced captivity by the Mohave is that both girls were tattooed on their chins and arms, in keeping with the tribal custom. Oatman later claimed (in Stratton's book and in her lectures) that she was tattooed to mark her as a slave, but this is not consistent with the Mohave tradition, where such marks were given only to their own people to ensure that they would enter the land of the dead and be recognized there by their ancestors as members of the Mohave tribe. The tribe did not care if their slaves could reach the land of the dead, however, so they did not tattoo them. It has also been suggested that the evenness of Olive’s facial markings may indicate her compliance with the procedure.
Olive Oatman 1860s lecture notes tell of her younger sister often yearning to join that better "world" where their "Father and Mother" had gone. Mary Ann died of starvation while the girls were living with the Mohave. This happened in about 1855–56, when Mary Ann was ten or eleven. It has been claimed that there was a drought in the region, and that the tribe experienced a dire shortage of food supplies, and Olive herself would have died had not Aespaneo, the matriarch of the tribe, saved her life by making a gruel to sustain her.
Olive later spoke with fondness of the Mohaves, who she said treated her better than her first captors. She most likely considered herself assimilated. She was given a clan name, Oach, and a nickname, Spantsa, a Mohave word having to do with unquenchable lust or thirst. And she chose not to reveal herself to white railroad surveyors who spent nearly a week in the Mohave Valley trading and socializing with the tribe in February 1854. Because she did not know that Lorenzo had survived the massacre, she believed she had no immediate family, and the Mohave treated her as one of their own.
Release.
When Olive was 19 years old, Francisco, a Yuma Indian messenger, arrived at the village with a message from the authorities at Fort Yuma. Rumors suggested that a white girl was living with the Mohaves, and the post commander requested her return, or to know the reason why she did not choose to return. The Mohaves initially sequestered Olive and resisted the request. At first they denied that Olive was even white. Over the course of negotiations some expressed their affection for Olive, others their fear of reprisal from whites. The messenger Francisco, meanwhile, withdrew to the homes of other nearby Mohaves; shortly thereafter he made a second fervent attempt to persuade the Mohaves to part with Olive. Trade items were included this time, including blankets and a white horse, and he passed on threats that the whites would destroy the Mohaves if they did not release Olive.
After some discussion, in which Olive was this time included, the Mohaves decided to accept these terms, and Olive was escorted to Fort Yuma in a 20-day journey. Topeka (the daughter of Espianola/Espanesay and Aespaneo) went on the journey with her. Before entering the fort, Olive was given Western clothing lent by the wife of an army officer, as she was clad in a traditional Mohave skirt with no covering above her waist. Inside the fort, Olive was surrounded by cheering people.
Olive’s childhood friend Susan Thompson, whom she befriended again at this time, stated many years later that she believed Olive was "grieving" upon her return because she had been married to a Mohave man and had given birth to two boys.
Olive, however, denied rumors during her lifetime that she either had been married to a Mohave or had been sexually mistreated by the Yavapai or Mohave. In Stratton's book, she declared that "to the honor of these savages let it be said, they never offered the least unchaste abuse to me." However, her nickname, Spantsa, may have meant "rotten womb" and implied that she was sexually active, although historians have argued that the name could have different meanings.
Within a few days of her arrival at the fort, Olive discovered that her brother Lorenzo was alive and had been looking for her and Mary Ann. Their meeting made headline news across the West.
Later life.
In 1857, a pastor named Royal B. Stratton sought out Olive and Lorenzo Oatman. He co-wrote a book about the Oatman Massacre and the girls' captivity titled "Life Among the Indians". It was a bestseller for that era, at 30,000 copies. Stratton used the royalties from the book to pay for Olive and her brother Lorenzo to attend the University of the Pacific. Olive and Lorenzo accompanied Stratton across the country on a book tour, promoting the book and lecturing in book circuits. Olive was a curiosity. Her boldly tattooed chin was on display and people came to hear her story and witness the blue tattoo for themselves. She was the first known tattooed American woman as well as one of the first female public speakers. Olive entered the lecture circuit as feminism was developing. Though she herself never claimed to be part of the movement, her story entered the American consciousness shortly after the Seneca Falls Convention.
In November 1865, Olive Oatman married a cattleman named John B. Fairchild. They met at a lecture she was giving alongside Stratton in Michigan. Fairchild had lost his brother to an attack by Native Americans during a cattle drive in Arizona in 1854, the time in which Oatman was living among the Mohave.
Stratton did not receive an invitation to the wedding, and Olive never reached out to him again. Though it was rumored that Olive died in a mental asylum in New York State in 1877, it was actually Stratton who became institutionalized after the development of hereditary insanity and died shortly after.
Olive and John Fairchild moved to Sherman, Texas, a boom town ripe for a businessman like Fairchild to start a new and prosperous life. Fairchild founded the City Bank of Sherman and together they lived quietly in a large Victorian mansion.
Olive began wearing a veil to cover her famous tattoo and became involved in charity work. She was particularly interested in helping a local orphanage. She and Fairchild never had children of their own, but they did adopt a little girl and named her Mary Elizabeth, after each of their mothers, and nicknamed her Mamie. Her husband went on to track down copies of Stratton's book and burn them.
Death and legacy.
Her brother Lorenzo died on October 8, 1901. She outlived him by less than 2 years.
Olive Oatman Fairchild died of a heart attack on March 20, 1903, at the age of 65. She is buried at the West Hill Cemetery in Sherman, Texas. The town of Oatman, Arizona, named for her family, was once a bustling mining and gambling town that turned into a ghost town. It was part of the Oatman Gold District. The town is now a tourist stop.
The historic town of Olive City, Arizona, near the present town of Ehrenberg, was a steamboat stop on the Colorado River during the gold rush days, which was named in her honor. Other Oatman namesakes in Arizona are Oatman Mountain and Oatman Flat. Oatman Flat Station was a stage stop for the Butterfield Overland Mail from 1858 to 1861.
In popular culture.
The character of Eva Oakes, portrayed by Robin McLeavy, in the AMC television series "Hell on Wheels" is very loosely based on Olive Oatman. Outside of being captured by a group of Indians, bearing the distinctive blue chin tattoo, and having been raised Mormon, there are very few similarities between the character of Eva and the actual life of Olive Oatman.
Novelist Elmore Leonard based a short story, "The Tonto Woman," on a white captive woman who was tattooed in the manner of Oatman.
In an episode of the series "The Ghost Inside My Child: The Wild West and Tribal Quest", a southern American Baptist family claims that their daughter Olivia says she is the reincarnation of Olive Oatman.
In 1965, the actress Shary Marshall played Oatman, with Tim McIntire as her brother, Lorenzo, and Ronald W. Reagan as Lieutenant Colonel Burke, in "The Lawless Have Laws" episode of the syndicated western series "Death Valley Days", hosted by Reagan near the end of his acting career. In the storyline, Burke leads Lorenzo in a search for his sister, whom he has not seen in five years since an Indian raid on their family.


Pacific Creosoting Company

Pacific Creosoting Company was a company founded on Bainbridge Island that treated logs with creosote as a preservative.
History.
It began operations as The Perfection Pile Preserving Company in 1904. It moved in 1905 to Eagle Harbor at Winslow in the city of Bainbridge Island.
The company was taken over and renamed by Horace Chapin Henry in 1906 around when he introduced the new Bethell Process. The company's Vice President and General Manager was a victim of the 1912 RMS Titanic sinking.
After Henry died in 1928, his company and its competitor, J.M. Colman's creosote company (located in West Seattle), were combined in 1930 to form the West Coast Wood Preserving Company. In 1947, Walter Wyckoff bought out the Colman family's interest and, after joining with J.H. Baxter in 1959, renamed the company the Baxter-Wyckoff Company. In 1964, Wyckoff bought out Baxter and renamed the company the Wyckoff Company.
The Eagle Harbor site was one of the largest producers of treated wood products in the US. Treated wood from the site was used to build wharfs in San Francisco, flood control channels in Los Angeles, and the Panama Canal.
The facilities remaining buildings, located along the southside of Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island, were documented in a 1996 Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) project. The historic documentation was done before their removal by the EPA for pollution remediation.
Superfund site.
The Environmental Protection Agency started investigating environmental issues at the Eagle Harbor site in 1971. Studies showed a high concentration of PAH pollution in the harbor and related it to liver lesions in fish. The Eagle Harbor site (called the "Wyckoff" site by the EPA) was put on the Superfund list in 1987 for PAH, heavy metals and PCB pollution. The West Seattle site (called the "Pacific Sound Resources" site by the EPA) was put on the Superfund list in 1994. The company renamed itself as Pacific Sound Resources and, due to expenses associated with clean-up, the company went bankrupt in 1993.
Between 1994 and 2002, the US Army Corps of Engineers created a one to three foot cap of clean sediments over the bottom of the Eagle Harbor to contain polluted sediments. As of December 2013, the choice of remedial action at the site of the plant on Eagle Harbor has yet to be determined. The West Seattle site was capped and use of the site restricted.


Immigration Holding Centre


Samuel Livingston Breese

Samuel Livingston Breese (August 6, 1794 – December 17, 1870) was a rear admiral in the United States Navy. His active-duty career included service in the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War, and the American Civil War.
Early life.
He was born in Utica on August 6, 1794, and grew up in Whitesboro, New York. He was the son of Arthur Breese (1770–1825) and his first wife, Catherine (née Livingston) Breese (1775–1808). Among his siblings was younger brother Sidney Breese, who later became a U.S. Senator from Illinois, and sisters, Sarah Breese (wife of Bleeker Lansing and James Platt), and Elizabeth Breese (wife of William Malcolm Sands) as well as a half-sister, Sarah Ann (née Breese) Walker. Samuel Morse was a cousin.
His maternal grandfather was farmer and author Henry Beekman Livingston, a descendant of Robert Livingston the Elder, the 1st Lord of Livingston Manor.
He attended Union College as part of the Class of 1813, but did not graduate.
Career.
Breese was appointed midshipman in the United States Navy on September 10, 1810. During the War of 1812, he served under Commodore Thomas Macdonough at the Battle of Lake Champlain, and for gallant conduct at Plattsburgh received a sword and a vote of thanks from the United States Congress.
He was commissioned as lieutenant on April 28, 1816, commander in December 1835, and captain on September 8, 1841. He was attached to the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1836, and to the naval rendezvous at Baltimore in 1841.
He served in the Mediterranean against the pirates of Algiers from 1826 to 1827, and was in the Levant during the war between Turkey and Greece. He commanded the frigate of the Mediterranean squadron in 1845, and was in the Atlantic Ocean commanding the during the Mexican–American War in 1846 and 1847 where he took part in the capture of Tuxpan, Tabasco, and Vera Cruz. For a short time, he was Military Governor of Tuxpan.
In 1848 he performed special duty on the lakes, and from 1853 until 1855, commanded the Norfolk Navy Yard. From 1856 until 1859 he was commander of the Mediterranean Squadron, and from 1859 until 1861 served as commandant of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Flag rank and retirement.
On July 16, 1862, he was commissioned a Commodore and placed on the retired list, and on 3 September 1862, was one of the thirteen Commodores first selected to fill the list of Rear Admirals, when that rank was introduced into the United States Navy in 1862. Placed on the retired list, he was appointed lighthouse inspector in the same year. He was made Port Admiral at Philadelphia in 1869.
Personal life.
Breese was twice married, and had no children from either marriage. In about 1825, Breese married his first wife, Frances Hogan Stout (1806–1853), the daughter of Capt. Jacob Stout and Fanny (née Carpender) Stout. Her elder brother was Charles Raintaux Stout.
After the death of his first wife, he remarried on June 21, 1855, to his second wife, Emma Lovett (1819–1892), daughter of Thomas Sydney Lovett and Louisa (née Doubleday) Lovett. She survived him.
Rear Admiral Breese died in Mount Airy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, aged 76, and was buried in Forest Hills Cemetery, Utica, New York.


Trial of Satanta and Big Tree

The Trial of Satanta and Big Tree occurred in May 1871 in the town of Jacksboro in Jack County, Texas, United States. This historic trial of Native American War Chiefs of the Kiowa Indians Satanta and Big Tree for the murder of seven teamsters during a raid on Salt Creek Prairie near Jacksboro, Texas, marked the first time the United States had tried Native American Chiefs in a state court. The trial attracted national and international attention. The two Kiowa leaders, with Satank (Sitting Bear), a legendary third War Chief, were formally indicted on July 1, 1871, and tried shortly thereafter, for acts arising out of the Warren Wagon Train Raid.
Background.
Fort Richardson, near Jacksboro, Texas, was built to stop the Kiowa, Comanche, and Kiowa-Apache warriors, from violating their confinement to the reservation lands in Oklahoma, which they did nearly every "Comanche moon" (as the settlers fearfully called the period of the full moon). The warriors of those three tribes, along with the Cheyenne, crossed the Red River and made bloody raids into the sparsely settled northwestern counties of Texas, down into Mexico.
Never was the frontier more tense than in 1871 because there was a prodigious look out for Indians smoking peyote. The time of the free Native American Plains Tribes had come and gone. But the warriors still made bloody efforts to stave off confinement. The Warren Wagon Train Raid was one such effort. This incident occurred on May 18, 1871. Wagon Master Henry Warren had contracted to haul supplies to Army forts in the west of Texas, including Forts Richardson, Griffin, and Concho. So on May 18, Warren and his men were traveling down the Jacksboro-Belknap road heading towards Salt Creek Crossing, on Salt Creek Prairie, and were a few miles from Fort Richardson. That morning, the Warren Train encountered General William Tecumseh Sherman with an escort of a dozen troopers. General Sherman, general-in-chief of the United States Army, was on a three-week inspection tour of federal military posts on the Texas frontier. The Kiowas and Comanches, already waiting in ambush, followed the advice of their medicine man and waited for the more profitable prey of civilians he had seen in his dreams instead of attacking the small army group. This dream doomed the Warren train, but saved Sherman, who would almost certainly have been killed had the large war party attacked his escort.
Warren Wagon Train Raid.
The warriors attacked the wagon train less than an hour after Sherman had left them. Despite efforts to defend themselves, the Warren Train was quickly overrun. Seven teamsters were killed, including one who was burned alive. The survivors rushed on to Fort Richardson, where they encountered General Sherman. The General, realizing that he had escaped death by fate, ordered Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie and the 4th Cavalry to pursue the war party and bring back those responsible for the attack.
Bragging leads to chains and a trial for Satanta and Big Tree, Satank opts for death.
The Army did not catch the war party, the war party caught themselves. Leaders Satank and Satanta had come back to the reservation, and had they kept quiet, no one would have ever found out officially who had committed the Warren Wagon Train Raid. But Satanta could not bring himself to be quiet. He asked the Indian Agent on the Kiowa-Comanche Reservation for ammunition and supplies, bragging that he, Satank, and Big Tree had led the war party which had recently killed the teamsters at Salt Creek, and that they could have killed General Sherman if they had wished.
Lawrie Tatum, the Quaker Indian Agent for the Kiowa, wrote a letter on May 30, 1871, in which he described the speech of Satanta's on the Warren Wagon Train Raid:
Satanta made, what he wished understood to be a "Big Speech," in which he said addressing me "I have heard that you have stolen a large portion of our annuity goods and given them to the Texans; I have repeatedly asked you for arms & ammunition, which you have not furnished, and made many other requests which have not been granted, You do not listen to my talk. The white people are preparing to build a R. R. through our country, which will not be permitted. Some years ago we were taken by the haid & pulled here close to Texans where we have to fight. But we have cut that loos now and are all going with the Cheyennes to the Antalope Hills. When Gen Custer was here two or three years ago, he arrested me & kept me in confinement several days. But arresting Indians is plaid out now & is never to be repeated. On account of these grievances, I took, a short time ago, about 100 of my warriors, with the Chiefs Satank, Eagle Heart, Big Tree, Big Bow, & Fast Bear, & went to Texas, where we captured a train not far from Ft Richardson, killed 7 of the men, & drove off about 41 mules. Three of my men were killed, but we are willing to call it even. If any other Indian come here & claims the honor of leading the party he will be lieing to you, for I did it myself.
Nor was Tatum the only white man Satanta admitted his role in the raid to, for according to a letter written by General Sherman, dated May 28, 1871, originally published in the San Antonio Express, and reprinted in the New York Times on June 27, 1871, Satanta admitted to General Sherman in person, via an interpreter, that he led the party that attacked the Warren Wagon Train. According to General Sherman, Satanta openly admitted leading the attack, denying only that they had burnt a man alive.
Sherman then ordered the arrest of Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree, and personally carried it out on the Agent’s porch, in spite of Guipago's intervention (the head chief came in well equipped with loaded rifle and guns, fit to fight for his friend's liberty, but had to surrender in front of the massive presence of military troops). Sherman then hit on the ingenious idea of sending the Indian Chiefs to Jacksboro, Texas to be tried in state court for murder. He ordered them tried as common felons by the Court of the Thirteenth Judicial District of Texas. This would deny them any vestige of rights as a prisoner of war, which they might keep in a military court martial, and send a message that acts by a war party would be regarded as common crimes rather than legitimate resistance by representatives of a Sovereign state. This would mark the first time Indian Chiefs had ever stood trial in the white man’s court.
General Sherman also determined that there would be no lynching, or mob justice, involving the Indian Chiefs, but made clear his determination to see them convicted in a civil court. In a letter to Colonel MacKenzie, dated May 28, 1871, General Sherman said:
They must not be mobbed or lynched but tried regularly for murder and as many other crimes as the Attorney can approve; but the military authorities should see that these prisoners never escape alive, for they are the very impersonation of Murder, robbery, arson, and all the capital crimes of the Statute Book.
Satank, a proud member of the elite Koitsenko warrior society, had no intention of allowing himself to be tried and humiliated by the white man’s court. He refused to get in the wagon to be transported to trial, and was ignominiously thrown in by guards. He famously told the Tonkawa scouts to tell his family they would find his body along the road to Jacksboro. As they left the Indian Agency, Satank began singing the death song of the Koitsenko, while he covered his head with the blanket. The guards did not realize he was gnawing his wrists to the bone in order to get his hands free. Once this was done, he attacked one trooper with a knife hidden in his clothes, and after stabbing him, got his rifle from him. Before he could turn it on the remainder of his guards, he was shot and killed. The troopers tossed his body out of the wagon and left it in the road, as he had foretold. His body lay unburied there where it fell, with his people afraid to claim it, for fear of the Army, though Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie assured the family they could safely claim Satank’s remains. Nonetheless, they were never claimed.
Trial at Jacksboro.
No transcripts remain of the trial of Satanta and Big Tree, and all that is left are verbal accounts. On those, several things are undisputed. First, neither the town nor the army ever counted on the attorneys appointed to defend them. Thomas Ball, a new-to-Texas attorney from Virginia who knew nothing about the Texas frontier or the Indian Wars, and Joseph Woolfolk, a rancher, Confederate veteran and Indian fighter who never wanted to be an attorney, and who but for financial pressure would have long since ceased to practice, were appointed to defend the two Indians. They were appointed to answer the political pressure being brought by Quakers, but Ball and Woolfolk defended Satanta and Big Tree zealously against the best efforts of prosecutor Samuel Lanham (Lanham went on to become Governor of Texas). The efforts of Ball and Woolfolk created even more of a stir than the case would have caused in any event, and even foreign reporters were present in Jacksboro, Texas. Secondly, all accounts agree the case became not just a national, but an international, cause célèbre. Third, and ironically, Ball and Woolfolk, white men, defended the two warriors by arguing precisely what the Kiowa would have—that the Indians were but defending their land from invasion, that the United States had never followed a single comma of any of its treaties with the Indians, and that a state of war existed between the Kiowa and the Americans. Finally, all accounts agree that at the trial Satanta warned what might happen if he was hanged: "I am a great chief among my people. If you kill me, it will be like a spark on the prairie. It will make a big fire—a terrible fire!".
Nor was the government entirely unified on what should be done with the Indian Chiefs; while General Sherman and the Army were pressing strongly for their conviction and execution, the Bureau of Indian Affairs agreed with the attorneys for Satanta and Big Tree and said they should be acquitted since their actions were undertaken during wartime, that their people had been at war with the United States.
But the jury was local, and despite the efforts of Ball and Woolfolk, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the pressure of the press and the Quakers, and the warnings of Satanta, the two Indians were convicted. The trial became known in Texas for its "cowboy jury." The War Chiefs had been formally indicted on July 1, 1871, their trial began on July 5, 1871, and they were convicted on July 8, 1871. The two Indians were convicted of seven counts of first degree murder, and sentenced to death.
Aftermath.
The trial court set the date for execution on September 1, 1871. It was never kept, though it would have been far kinder, by the tribal customs of the Kiowa, to have executed Satanta and Ado-ete (Big Tree). The two chiefs were deprived of their final chance for dignity, according to their customs, tribal martyrdom, when Ulysses S. Grant, the president of the United States, decided that a wiser course than hanging would be the commutation of their sentence to life imprisonment. The President "advised" the Reconstruction governor of Texas, Edmund J. Davis, to commute their sentences. Davis then commuted their sentences and ordered them to prison. The two chiefs (really being Ado-ete a minor war leader) were sent to the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, a fate far worse than death for a Native American, especially in those days.
The Plains Tribes, Kiowas, Comanches, Kiowa-Apaches, and Cheyennes were finally at the time when they would recognize that they were condemned to internal exile on the lands "reserved" for their forcible relocation; or to assimilation in the general society; or to a worse fate: an indeterminate existence in some dismal urban ghetto. The imprisonment of Satanta had caused enormous rage among the Kiowa and Comanche, and Kiowa head chief Guipago threatened all out war unless the Chiefs were freed, while Tene-angopte (Kicking Bird) himself, the leader always friendly towards the whites, lost much of his influence. Guipago refused to go to Washington before having met with Satanta and Big Tree, and was allowed to meet them in St. Louis; in Washington he was firm and steady, until the Secretary of the Interior asked if they were freed, if the Kiowa would walk the "peace path." Guipago and Kicking Bird promised they would, and so Texas authorities released Satanta and Big Tree on parole from the Huntsville penitentiary in late 1873. General Sherman, along with most Texans, was enraged, and he wrote to the Governor, "I believe Satanta and Big Tree will have their revenge, if they have not already had it, and if they are to take scalps, I hope that yours is the first that will be taken." In spite of this general protest, the officials were following the advice of the Secretary of the Interior, who was so anxious to secure peace on the frontier that he accepted a pledge by the Kiowas and Comanches that upon the release of the two chiefs, they would yield and follow the path of peace.
Hostilities continued nonetheless, and a year after their release Big Tree and Satanta were arrested for parole violation, participating in the attack on Adobe Walls and other acts occurring during the so-called Red River War. After an investigation Big Tree's parole was reinstated, but Satanta was returned to Huntsville for his involvement in the Second Battle of Adobe Walls. Sadly, the Kiowa People deny he was involved in that battle, other than being present. He yielded up his war lance and other symbols of leadership to younger, more aggressive men, and did not take an active part in the battle. But his very presence there broke the terms of his parole, and back to prison he went. By 1878 Satanta could not go on any longer. The Kiowa Chief who had been named the "orator of the Plains" at Medicine Lodge was reported by guards to be in a state of despair. In his book, the "History of Texas", Clarance Wharton reports of Satanta in prison:
After he was returned to the penitentiary in 1874, he saw no hope of escape. For awhile he was worked on a chain gang which helped to build the M.K. & T. Railway. He became sullen and broken in spirit, and would be seen for hours gazing through his prison bars toward the north, the hunting grounds of his people.
The details of the story of his suicide are fairly well known, that he managed to crawl through a high window of the Huntsville facility and leap headfirst to his death on the bricks of the prison yard.
While Satanta suffered in prison, Big Tree, returning to the reservation and accepting pacification, lived on in the sadness of a warrior in exile. He later became a Christian and eventually a minister in the Baptist church. There were days he would proudly recount his cruel acts against the white man, although it is faithfully recorded that he always concluded those tales with the solemn note that God had forgiven him for those "hideous" acts.
Satanta is buried near Satank's remains (which were finally gathered from the road by the army, on Colonel MacKenzie's order) on Chief's Knoll, in the Fort Sill Cemetery, at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
Surviving his comrade Satanta by fifty years, Big Tree died in 1929. Fort Richardson, its purpose gone with the surrender of the Plains Tribes, was closed in 1876.


SS Clovelly (ferry)

SS "Clovelly" was a steam ferry that operated on Okanagan Lake in British Columbia, Canada. She was commissioned by Captain L. A. Hayman and built by DeFoe in Vancouver, British Columbia in the fall of 1907. She was named after Clovelly, a small village on the Bristol Channel in England. She was launched by Captain J. B. Weeks and began a service of two trips a week hauling lumber, feed, and fruit between the communities of Westbank, Bear Creek, and Kelowna. She was the fourth ferry on the lake. Shortly after her launch, it was discovered that her vertical boiler leaked, so a water tube boiler was built by A. Brunette of the Leckie Hardware Company of Kelowna. She was inspected and passed by J. H. Thompson, Dominion Government Steamboat Inspector for the Province. In 1911, "Clovelly" was sold to E. Hankinson. Complaints about poor service reached the government and Hankinson lost the charter. "Clovelly" went to J. Y. Campbell, who operated her from 1912 to 1916 and also built in 1912.


R v Kapp

R v Kapp, 2008 SCC 41 is a Supreme Court of Canada case dealing with an appeal from a British Columbia Court of Appeal decision that held that a communal fishing license granted exclusively to Aboriginals did not violate section 15 of the "Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms". The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal on the basis a distinction based on an enumerated or analogous ground in a government program will not constitute discrimination under section 15 if, under section 15(2): (1) the program has an ameliorative or remedial purpose; and (2) the program targets a disadvantaged group identified by the enumerated or analogous grounds. In other words, the Court found that the "prima facie" discrimination was allowed because it was aimed at improving the situation of a disadvantaged group as allowed by section 15(2) of the "Charter".
This decision recognizes difficulty found with "Law v Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration)" in trying to employ "human dignity" as a legal test. No doubt human dignity is an essential value underlying section 15, but it is an abstract and subjective notion that, even with the guidance of the four factors outlined in "Law", is confusing to apply and has proven to be an additional burden on equality claimants. This case reinterprets "Law" so that it does not impose a new and distinctive test for discrimination, but rather affirms the approach to substantive equality set out in "Andrews v Law Society of British Columbia" and developed in the following decisions.
The central purpose of combatting discrimination underlies both sections 15(1) and 15(2). Section 15(1) focuses on preventing governments from making distinctions based on the enumerated or analogous grounds that have the effect of perpetuating group disadvantage and prejudice, or impose disadvantage on the basis of stereotyping. Section 15(2) focuses on enabling governments to proactively combat existing discrimination through affirmative measures.


Timeline of the Black Donnellys

The "Black" Donnellys were an Irish immigrant family who settled in Biddulph township, Upper Canada in the 19th century. The family became involved in a series of personal and business disputes which frequently escalated to violence, culminating in the 1880 burning of the family home by an armed vigilante mob, resulting in the deaths of five family members.
The following is a timeline of key events in the lives of the family.


K49FV

K49FV was a low-power television station licensed to Roseburg, Oregon. It was a repeater that broadcasts programming from the Trinity Broadcasting Network, via satellite. The station broadcast on UHF channel 49, with no digital channel.
TBN took K49FV silent April 13, 2010, due to declining support, which has been attributed to the digital transition. Its license was canceled on August 28, 2012.


Credit Indian Village

The Credit Indian Village was a settlement on the banks of the Credit River in modern-day Mississauga, Ontario. The settlement was initially founded in 1826 by a band of Mississaugas of the Credit who had converted to Christianity. Notable figures in the early settlement include Peter Jones, the son of Ontario surveyor Augustus Jones and his wife, Tuhbenahneequay.
In 1847, the Mississaugas were evicted from the site by the Ontario government due to pressure from neighbouring white settlers; the tribe was forced to relocate to their current home, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, after being gifted land from the Six Nations of the Grand River.
Since 1905, the original site of the village has been occupied by the Mississaugua Golf & Country Club.


Nicola (Okanagan leader)

Nicola (1780/1785 – ~1865) (Spokan: Hwistesmetxe'qen, "Walking Grizzly Bear"), also Nkwala or N'kwala, was an important First Nations political figure in the fur trade era of the British Columbia Interior (early 19th century to 1858) as well as into the colonial period (1858–1871). He was grand chief of the Okanagan people and chief of the Nicola Valley peoples, an alliance of Nlaka'pamux and Okanagans and the surviving Nicola Athapaskans, and also of the Kamloops Band of the Shuswap people.
Name.
The name "Nicolas" ( in approximation of the French) was conferred on him by French-Canadians in the employ of the Hudson's Bay and Northwest Companies who worked at a temporary unnamed trading post at the head of Okanagan Lake. The Scots and English in the employ of the companies adapted this to "Nicholas" and "Old Nicholas," while First Nations people adapted it to "Nkwala’."
Biography.
Lineage.
Nicola was one of the four children and chiefly heir of Pelka'mulox ("Rolls-Over-The-Earth"), third chief in the lineage of Okanagan chiefs to bear that name (which was by linguistic origin Spokane), the first and second being born c.1675-1680 and c.1705-1710 respectively. The date of birth of the third Pelka'mulox, Nicola's father, is uncertain but his death was sometime in the first decade of the 19th century, caused by an arrow fired by a chief of the Lillooet (St'at'imc) at the historic fishing grounds around Fountain and Pavilion. The argument between the two chiefs had begun when chief of the Lakes Lillooet provoked a violent argument by denouncing Pelka'mulox, who had hunted buffalo on the plains and met North West Company traders Lagace and MacDonald in what is now Montana, for describing the existence of white people and their new civilization, and calling his story a lie.
Upon his death, the chieftaincy of the Okanagan people passed to Hwistesmetxe'qen (Nicola), while his uncle, Pelka'mulox's brother Kwali'la, who had helped him survived the wars of his youth with the Thompson, Shuswap and Kutenai, assumed the joint Thompson-Shuswap chieftaincy at Kamloops. Kwali'la also had helped Pelka'mulox establish the Okanagan people in the area round Nicola Lake, which had been Shuswap territory until that time (the people at Kamloops were a mix of Shuswap and Okanagan at the time). With his dying breath Pelka'mulox entrusted Kwali'la with the guardianship of his son, and ordered that he be raised to avenge his father's death.
Pelka'mulox's status as chief of the Okanagan people in the Nicola Valley and the upper Okanagan Lake area, was passed to Nicola, who came to reside in the valley around the lake that now bears his name or at Kamloops, as Kwali'la's title as chief of the Kamloops eventually passed to Nicola upon the former's death. In addition to being presiding chief of that group of Okanagan, he was also grand chief of all the Okanagan nation, although since the drawing of the border a separate, independent American chieftain emerged, founded by Tonasket.
Because of his 15-17 wives, drawn from Okanagan, Sanpoil, Colville, Spokane, Shuswap, Stu'wix, Thompson and maybe others, and the about 50 surviving children he had by them (from those who died in infancy or childhood), many people throughout the Interior of both British Columbia and the adjoining regions of the United States are descended from Nicola. His hereditary chieftaincy passed, however, to an adopted son, his nephew Chilliheetza (Tselaxi'tsa, spelled by Teit as Chelahitsa) who was his sister's son, and continues today amid local bands .
Trust and Duty.
Nicola became trusted by the fur traders, who left him to be in charge of the trading post for the winter. He kept the place well and collected many furs, and upon their return in gratitude the traders gave him 10 guns and a supply of ammunition. Around this time Kwali'la (Duncan to the traders) the chief of the Kamloops Shuswap (Secwepemc), who was also his uncle and foster-father, reminded him of the need to avenge his father's death, and he formed an alliance of neighbouring peoples to attack the Lillooet (St'at'imc). In no small part his power to form this alliance resided in the web of in-laws and offspring throughout the native peoples of the Interior.
Nicola's War.
Nicola's alliance against the Lillooet comprised Okanagan, Shuswap, Stu'wix and Upper Thompson (Ashcroft-Spences Bridge). They swept through the mountainous Lillooet Country all the way to the valley of the Lillooet River, the country of the Lower Lillooet or Lil'wat, killing 300-400 and taking many women and children captive and occupying the region for some time, driving the survivors into exile in the woods away from the salmon-rich streams of the region for a generation.
The Lower Lillooet are said to have first heard a gun and seen a horse because of this war, although the Upper Lillooet (around today's town of Lillooet) were familiar with horses and may have owned them at this time, and as seen by Simon Fraser and his men, they had guns of possibly Russian make in 1808. Fraser's journals describe also the town of Lillooet being heavily fortified and the men armoured, and their hosts full of anxiety about hostile neighbours and a state of war, but this would have been before the gift of ten guns (the temporary post on Okanagan Lake was started after Fraser's journey), so there may be no direct connection to Nicola's War. The date of the council which led to the death of Pelka'mulox is unknown - but certainly before Fraser came through the Lillooet area (as the context of the story is that Pelka'mulox was the first of all assembled to have seen white men, and this included upriver Shuswap as well as the Nlaka'pamux just down river, both of whom would have met Fraser and, in the case of the northerners, also known to Alexander Mackenzie).
The Great Elk Hunts.
Nicola organized great hunts in the Nicola Valley of the once-vast elk herds that once roamed there, using techniques adapted from the buffalo hunt by driving them over cliffs, or simply driving them into enclosures. The efficiency of these hunting techniques is believed to have led to the extermination of elk in that region.
Travels.
Like his father, Nicola travelled widely and was well-known and also visited the Prairie for buffalo hunts. He is credited with being on the winning side in a battle with the Blackfoot while there. It was also he who came to Nicola Lake to bury the Thompson and Stu'wix victims of a Shuswap raid on their settlement at Guichon.
The Fur Trade and Fort Kamloops.
Nicola attempted to take over Fort Kamloops from Chief Trader John Tod, but was outwitted , but otherwise lived in harmony with and was highly respected by the fur traders. Among his own people and neighbouring peoples his word was law, and as with the fur traders he was known for "sagacity, honesty, prudence and fair dealing, and was rather a peacemaker than a fighting man".
The Gold Rush, the Okanagan Trail and the Fraser Canyon War.
Before the discovery of the major placer gold find at the Nicoamen River, which enters the Thompson just a few miles upstream from Lytton, the Kamloops people under Nicola's dominion were already trading for goods at Fort Kamloops using gold from nearby creeks. It was news of these finds which began further exploration and resulted in the find at Nicoamen, and the even bigger find at Hill's Bar, south of Yale at the lower end of the Canyon. Within months the lower Fraser was swarmed by up to 30,000 goldseekers of all nationalities, most by way of California where news of the gold had hit a time of depression as well as political turmoil. Many of the 30,000 gave up by the onset of winter but over 10,000 remained to work the bars of the Fraser between present-day Lillooet and Hope. Of those in the upper canyon around Lillooet and the fishing grounds at Fountain, especially early in the rush before the Lakes Route through St'at'imc territory to the west was opened up, many or perhaps most came overland via the Okanagan and Kamloops, or else by a more southerly cutoff via the Similkameen River through what was by then known as Nicola's Country, and came in time to be known as the Nicola Country. The Similkameen Trail is sometimes marked on maps as the "trail to the Couteau Country", meaning the country of the Thompsons, who were also called the Couteau Indians - "Knife" Indians.
The number who came overland through the Okanagan Valley and other land routes is unknown, but in the case of the Okanagan Trail numbered a few thousands, generally travelling in war parties of hundreds of men. Some of the early parties ransacked native food caches and villages and engaged in battles and potshots at natives en route, with some driven back. Nicola confronted one party ) when they arrived at Kamloops and admonished them, saying they didn't know how close to outright war they were, and demanded the punishment of the guilty men, and invoking his own observance of British law, because without it he had the power to see them all killed. The guilty men, who had been chastised by the main group and its leaders during the journey for their rogue behaviours, were handed over to face justice. Nicola then hosted the party as guests and rode with them to the goldfields by the ancient trail from the mid-Thompson across the Hat Creek-Pavilion plateau into the great fishing grounds at Fountain, which were also at the upper end of gold-mining activity on the Fraser and a hub of activity. This location was also where his father Pelka'lumox had been killed.
In 1858, Nicola used his power and influence to protect those miners coming to the Thompson and Fraser goldfields via the Okanagan Trail, despite their own bad conduct. This essentially prevented a spreading of the Yakima War across the international frontier and, though exhorted to quash the miners' parties, who had attacked natives and raided and spoiled food caches on their way through Okanagan and Yakima country, he refused to engage them at war and instead, in the case of one party, escorted them from Kamloops to the Fraser at Fountain. Also exhorted to join in the Spokane War as well as the Fraser Canyon War, he demurred on both occasions but apparently was ready in 1858 to join forces with the Thompson against the whites if events in the Canyon War had not turned out relatively peaceably. He felt sorry for the Spokanes that their country had fallen to the Americans but he held fast to his alliance with the Queen and, originally, with King George, which he had struck before the boundary was created. It is believed he remained staunchly neutral during the Chilcotin War of 1864 and may have used his influence to keep some of the Chilcotin chiefs neutral; this was in the year before his death.
Legacy.
Nicola was the most important and influential chief in the Interior of British Columbia in the time period spanning the opening of the inland fur trade to the time of the Cariboo Gold Rush. It is safe to say, because of his stance in the Yakima, Spokane and Fraser Canyon Wars and in mediating an end to the violence of the Okanagan Trail, that without him the history of British Columbia might have been considerably more war-torn and BC's native peoples might have become entangled with American troops (thereby increasing the existing American threat to British control of the Interior). His son Chilliheetza continued his father's policy of loyalty to his father's alliance with the Crown, and as his father had done before him, prevented all-out war against the whites - fomented by the Thompsons and Okanagans - at the time of the Sproat Commission and also in resisting the call by the "Wild McLean Boys" (the sons of celebrated Fort Kamloops trader Donald McLean, whose wife was one of the Kamloops Shuswap and a near relation) during their attempt to transform their own murder of rancher Johnny Ussher into a full-scale Indian uprising.
Because of the boundary treaty partitioning Okanagan territory, Okanagans south of the line became organized under a new chieftaincy founded by Tonasket, who was not of chiefly lineage but rose to prominence because of his campaigns against the miners travelling the Okanagan Trail. Most American Okanogan people reside at Omak, Washington, or on the Colville Indian Reservation, where they are intermingled with other Salishan peoples of the region.
Other uses.
The region of his reign became known as Nicola's Country, with the river that ran through it named for him, and the largest lake and the valley it flows through named for the river, still called in regional English today "the Nicola Country". The ongoing alliance of Thompson and Okanagan peoples in the Nicola Valley today are colloquially also called "the Nicolas". Their Nlaka'pamux component call themselves the Scw'exmx, while the Okanagan component are the Spa7omin (older spelling use Spahomin where the 'h' represents the glottal stop for what is now commonly rendered as the '7').
The name Nicola people is also used in ethnology and linguistics to refer to a now-extinct Athapaskan group who once lived amid the Scw'exmx and Spaxomin, and also in the Upper Similkameen before being driven out by the Similkameen Okanagan; they are also called the Stuwix or Stuwix'emux - "the strangers", "strange people", because they were recent arrivals in the territory and spoke an unrelated language). They are also called the Nicola Athapaskans.
Although they got along with their immediate neighbours, who had given them refuge a couple of centuries or so before after fleeing hostile neighbours in the north, they were wiped out by the late 19th Century by raids by Thompson and Shuswap, intermarriage with the Scw'exmx and Spaxomin, and also by attrition. Only a handful of placenames from their language remain in the area, and are all that is known of their language, other than it was Athapaskan, although outside of official ethnology an account by "Okanagan Mourning Dove" says that they were Chinookan.
References.
[[Category:Indigenous leaders in British Columbia]]
[[Category:Secwepemc]]
[[Category:Nlaka'pamux]]
[[Category:Syilx]]
[[Category:First Nations history in British Columbia]]
[[Category:People of indigenous conflicts in Canada]]
[[Category:Pre-Confederation British Columbia people]]
[[Category:1780s births]]
[[Category:1865 deaths]]
[[Category:18th-century Native Americans]]


Elijah Steele

Elijah Steele (November 13, 1817 – June 27, 1883) was an early Northern California pioneer, jurist, legislator and Indian agent. Born near Albany, New York, Steele was raised in Oswego. After reading law in the office of Grant and Allen, he was admitted to the New York bar in 1840. He moved west in 1841, practicing law in both Illinois and Wisconsin. Steele was a member of the first Wisconsin constitutional convention of 1846, and briefly served in the Wisconsin State Senate.
In 1850, Steele traveled to California, prospecting at Shasta, Scott River, Greenhorn and Yreka, among other claims. Before returning to the practice of law on a permanent basis during the mid-1850s, he engaged in a variety of occupations, including express company operator and driver, butcher and rancher. As a Republican Party leader, Steele campaigned actively for Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and was himself elected to the California State Assembly in 1867, where he served as chairman of the judiciary committee. Steele was elected a Superior Court judge for Siskiyou County in 1879 and held the office until his death. In 1865, he was the founder of the Siskiyou County Agricultural Society and served as its first president. During the early 1860s Steele was Agent of Indian Affairs for the Northern District of California, in which office he secured a treaty (known as the Valentine's Day Treaty) with the Modoc Indians which may well have averted the later Modoc War, had the treaty been ratified. During the war with the Modocs (1872–1873), Steele worked tirelessly to secure both peace and justice for the tribe, drawing accusations and recriminations, particularly from Oregon settlers who sought the executions of Modoc raiders.
Steele was married three times, to Lucia Hart (1843–1853), to Louisa B. Hamblin (1858–1866) and to Louisa Lanze (1875–1883). Steele's first name is frequently erroneously reported as Elisha. This is due to an original misreading or misrecording of an early California voter list. This error first received wide circulation in Keith A. Murray's groundbreaking, "The Modocs and Their War" in 1959 and it has often been repeated. Steele's grave marker, in Yreka, California's Evergreen Cemetery, clarifies this discrepancy, as does his obituary in the "Yreka Journal" of June 30, 1883.