by Rich Wandschneider | Sep 2, 2022 | 1491, 1918 influenza resiliency, Charles Mann, Chuck Sams, Deb Haaland, Mary Peltola, Nez Perce Tribe, umatilla reservation, Undaunted Courage
Friends texted and emailed me this yesterday to tell me that Mary Peltola, a Yup’ik Alaskan Native, had won election in her state for the short remainder of a congressional term. She’ll run again for a full term in the fall. Even the short term marks a win for the...
by Rich Wandschneider | Feb 11, 2022 | 1491, Alvin Josephy, American Indian languages, archeology, Bering Land Bridge, Charles Mann, Indian DNA, Indian population, indigenous americans, Indigenous population of America, Jennifer Raff, Kelp Highway
Several friends quickly sent me the NYTimes review of a new book on the old subject of human origins in the Americas. The book is ORIGIN: A Genetic History of the Americas, and the author is Jennifer Raff. According to the reviewer, Raff consulted the sciences of...
by Rich Wandschneider | Feb 27, 2021 | 1491, Patriot Chiefs, Ta-Nehisi Coates
I’ve been on a history reading jag the last few months. It started with a comment I heard from Alvin Josephy many times—that the “standard” histories of America leave Indians out when they don’t lie about them. My first book was These Truths: A History of the United...
by Rich Wandschneider | Apr 13, 2020 | 1491, Charles Mann, COVID-19, epidemics, Helper t-cells, HLA, Indigenous population of America, Pandemics, smallpox
Years ago, when I was the Director of an organization called Fishtrap, we had a conference at Wallowa Lake on “Fire.” Stephen J. Pyne, the McArthur Fellow who wrote the books on fire in America, was the featured speaker. Forest Service and BLM firefighters from across...
by Rich Wandschneider | Mar 19, 2020 | 1491, Armand Minthorn, Charles Mann, coronavirus, COVID-19, immunity
Measles, smallpox, influenza—what a tragic and painful experience the first European contacts must have been for the first Americans! We now know that huge numbers, unfathomable numbers, of American Indians were killed by European diseases. Imagine Tisquantum...
by Rich Wandschneider | Dec 6, 2012 | 1491, Alvin Josephy, American West Magazine, beaver hats, Charles Mann, Columbian Exchange, fur trade, fur traders, Hudson’s Bay Company, Louisiana Purchase, Plymouth colony, smallpox
Sometimes you read something or hear something or something happens that changes how you look at the world. For me, reading Charles Mann’s 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus, and thinking about world history in terms of the “Columbian Exchange” did...
