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 | 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!”...
by Rich Wandschneider | Oct 14, 2024 | Bobbie Conner, Columbus, Columbus Day, Columbus Day & Indigenous Peoples Day, Coyote Warrior, Doctrine of Discovery, Indian assimilation, Indian treaties, Indigenous Peoples Day, Jefferson, John Marshall, Justice Marshall, Paul VanDevelder, Raymond Cross
Once, years ago, we had a Nez Perce history discussion going on at the Josephy Center. Bobbie Conner, then and now director of Tamastslikt on the Umatilla Reservation, came in the door on another task. I greeted her from the balcony discussion group and announced that...
by Rich Wandschneider | May 28, 2024 | David McCullough, George Washington, Indian assimilation, Indian history, Indian land tenure, Indian removal, Indian survival, Indian treaties, Indian wars, Jill Lepore, Ned Blackhawk, Sara Koenig, The Rediscovery of America, whitman, Whitman massacre
There are new revelations on every page in Ned Blackhawk’s ambitious The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History. In putting Indians back into the history of the country, rather than treating the trials and tribulations of Indian...
by Rich Wandschneider | Nov 5, 2023 | American Indian history, American Indians, Arab, Arab-Israeli War, Indian assimilation, Indian history, Indian Relocation, Indian removal, Indian reservations, Israel, Palestine, Unworthy Republic
When I am talking with non-Native audiences, and even when talking with Tribal friends, I sometimes say that I feel like I am body-surfing on a wave of pro-Indian sentiment in the country. I say that a big part of this is based on recognition of non-Native—read...
by Rich Wandschneider | Jun 19, 2023 | Allotment Act, American Indian Religious Freedom Act, BIA, Indian assimilation, Indian boarding schools, Indian Child Welfare Act, Indian Freedom of Religion Act, Indian history, Indian religious freedom act, Indian wars, land ownership, National Geographic, Neil Gorsuch, Relocation program, Removal Act of 1830
Last week the Supreme Court upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act. “The bottom line is that we reject all of petitioners’ challenges to the statute, some on the merits and others for lack of standing,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the conservative Trump...
