by Rich Wandschneider | Mar 9, 2026 | Uncategorized
In my blog post on Iran a week ago, I tried to be even-handed, not completely condemning the War that had just begun with the assassination of the Ayatollah, but raising its complexities and expressing caution for the future: “I think that it is all up in the air,...
by Rich Wandschneider | Mar 3, 2026 | Uncategorized
On Saturday, we and our Israeli allies made war on Iran with bombs and missiles. Later that day, our time, President Trump declared that Israeli strikes had killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some 40 of his close associates. On Sunday, Iran’s remaining...
by Rich Wandschneider | Feb 17, 2026 | Ellen Bishop, Imnaha, Indian history, Indian treaties, Lewis and Clark, Minam, Nex Perce history, Nez Perce, Nez Perce Homeland, Nez Perce treaty, Nez Perce Tribe, Wallowa Country, Wallowa County, Wallowa History Center, wallowa homeland, Wallowa Lake, Wallowas
Wondering what it must have been like has been a growing yearning as I’ve lived in this Wallowa Country for 54 years and met old-timers, history keepers, and Natives from the three reservations in Idaho, Washington, and Oregon that have stories and questions about...
by Rich Wandschneider | Jan 17, 2026 | African Americans, Alvin Josephy, American Indian history, assimilation, bureau of Indian Affairs, Civil Rights Movement, Civil War, Depression, Donald Trump, Eisenhower, expulsions, German immigrants, ICE, immigration, Indian assimilation, Indian boarding schools, Indian Relocation, Indian reservations, Indians and fire, Nixon on Indians, Termination, Termination act, termination policy
I thought about this as the president rampaged against the “garbage” people and country of Somalia. When he asked why we couldn’t get more people from Norway, Sweden, or Denmark. And a year ago, when he and the Veep went on about Haitian immigrants eating pets in...
by Rich Wandschneider | Dec 31, 2025 | Manifest Destiny, Marcus Whitman, Native Americans, Nespelem, Nex Perce history, Nez Perce
President Trump’s recent outbursts about Somali-Americans and their homeland being “garbage” have been the most xenophobic rants since those a year ago about Haitians eating pets in Illinois. There have been milder explosions about Venezuelans and South Africans and...
by Rich Wandschneider | Dec 22, 2025 | birthright citizneship, Bobbie Conner, Dawes Act, Doctrine of Discovery, John Marshall
As we close out another year and try to keep up with the activist flurries of the executive branch, the sluggishness of the legislative branch, and the fitful actions—and inactions—of the judicial branch, looking to Native America can provide comfort. After all, for...
by Rich Wandschneider | Nov 28, 2025 | Bret Stephens, Ken Burns, Revolutionary War, Sara Hale, Thanksgiving
At least we are beyond construction paper pilgrim hats and goose feathers! There is now real discussion of the relationships among the first Europeans in North America and the Wampanoags and other tribes in “New” England. We don’t stop to think when we say “New...
by Rich Wandschneider | Nov 24, 2025 | Burns, Declaration of independence, George Washington, Indian history, Indian Summers: Washington State College
I have been watching the Ken Burns production on the American Revolution, and am struck immediately by the many things in that formative history of the nation that are not registered by the current political advocates of all stripes, and especially by those espousing...
by Rich Wandschneider | Nov 2, 2025 | Arab, Arab-Israeli War, Gaza, Indian reservations, Indian survival, Indian treaties, Indian wars, Israel
I started writing blog posts to carry on the work of my mentor, Alvin Josephy, who saidthat the true story of Native American history, and Native Americans in American history, needs to be told. Further, he wanted Indians to be telling it! That is happening, and I...
by Rich Wandschneider | Oct 13, 2025 | C.E.S. Wood, Chief Joseph, Erskine Wood, Mardi Wood, Nespelem, Nez Perce, O.O. Howard, Thunder in the Mountains
And what a crowd! Many the descendants of the legendary C.E.S. Wood. Readers of Nez Perce history might remember that C.E.S. was aide-de-camp to General O.O. Howard in the Nez Perce War of 1877, and is credited with taking down Chief Joseph’s speech at war’s end at...
by Rich Wandschneider | Oct 10, 2025 | Custer, Custer Battlefield, Custer myth, Lakota
In 1971, when Alvin Josephy wrote about the “Custer Myth” for Life Magazine, he included a photo of the mass burial at Wounded Knee in 1890, committed by the next generation of Custer’s 7th Cavalry. In a recent issue of Native News Online, Levi Rickert wrote about...
by Rich Wandschneider | Sep 26, 2025 | Alvin Josephy, Indian reservations, Indian survival, Indian treaties, Indian wars, Indians and salmon, Nez Perce Homeland, Nez Perce treaty, Nez Perce Tribe, Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland, Nez Perce War, Nezpercians, Old Joseph, Oregon, Oregon history, Oregon Trail, Oregon tribes
On Monday, September 29 at the State Capitol in Salem, the Josephy Center’s “Nez Perce in Oregon, Removal and Return” exhibit will open for a month-long run with a 4:00 p.m. reception. It’s been a long and wonderful journey! About four years ago, a call went out from...
by Rich Wandschneider | Sep 23, 2025 | Chief Joseph, Nez Perce, Nez Perce Homeland, Nez Perce treaty, Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland, Wallowa, Wallowa Country, Wallowa County, Wallowa Lake
Last week on Wednesday I got up early, looked at Wallowa Lake’s east moraine and the mountain to the west now called Mount Joseph, and hit the road for an appointment in La Grande. It was a gorgeous day, bright, green with first tinges of browns and yellows. Light...
by Rich Wandschneider | Sep 13, 2025 | Gaza, Indian removal, Israel, Netanyahu, Nez Perce, Nez Perce National Park, Nez Perce War
In 1877, General O.O. Howard gave the Nez Perce 30 days to leave the Wallowa and get themselves to the much-reduced reservation at Lapwai in Idaho. Other “non-treaty” bands on the other side of the Snake River were given the same orders. There were killings of...
by Rich Wandschneider | Aug 21, 2025 | Gaza, Indian history, Israel, Netanyahu, Vietnam
In Monday’s news from Palestine, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Hamas is “willing to discuss a hostage deal only due to the fear that we intend to invade Gaza,” adding that “conquering Gaza City will lead to Hamas’...
by Rich Wandschneider | Aug 11, 2025 | Eisenhower, frybread, Gaza, Holocaust, Long Walk, Navajo
How can there be an argument about starvation in Gaza? If a tenth of the news account are not doctored, if a tenth of the videos of people running and stumbling—and in some cases dying—as food aid is dropped in parachuted bundles from planes are true, Gaza is a...
by Rich Wandschneider | Aug 9, 2025 | Columbia River, Indian removal, Indian survival, Indian Territory, Indian treaties, John Marshall, Klamath, Nez Perce, Nez Perce Fisheries, Pacific Northwest, salmon, Snake River, Snake River dams, Supreme Court
I just watched the Washington Post’s account of the 15 young tribal members who kayaked the 310-mile length of the Klamath River this summer. They had trained hard, become excellent paddlers, readying themselves as the river was readying itself for them; the river...
by Rich Wandschneider | Jul 24, 2025 | 1968, Civil Rights, fire, martin luther king, President Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy, Vietnam
1968 was a hard year in America. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy rocked us, and the riots and fires that followed on the streets of cities, including Washington D.C., made it seem like an all-out revolution or civil war might come. Civil...
by Rich Wandschneider | Jul 11, 2025 | Gaza, Hamas, Indian removal, Indian Territory, Indian treaties, John Marshall, Termination, Termination act
In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the “Indian Removal Act,” which authorized the government to negotiate treaties with the remnants of all Eastern Tribes to purchase their lands and move them west of the Mississippi River. In a lawsuit brought by the educated...
by Rich Wandschneider | Jul 4, 2025 | 4th of July, Albert Andrews, Code of Indian Offenses, Colville Reservation, Indian assimilation, Indian boarding schools, Indian Offenses, Nespelem, Nex Perce history, Nez Perce, Nez Perce Homeland, Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland, Nez Perce War, Nezpercians
Years ago, Albert Red Star Andrews of the Joseph Band of Nez Perce on the Colville Reseravtion in north central Washington, told me about a unique Fourth of July event on his reservation. It was called Pasapalloynin, meaning “to make them rejoice, to make them happy!”...
