by Rich Wandschneider | Apr 17, 2026 | 1855 treaty, 1863 treaty, Allotment Act, american immigrants, American Indian history, assimilation, boarding schools, immigration, Indian history, Indian massacres, Indian removal, Indian reservations, Indian treaties, Indian wars, Indians, Iran, Israel, Nex Perce history, Nez Perce, Nez Perce treaty
The stock market is setting records at every mention of a cease fire in Gaza, Iran, or Lebanon, and as each ship crosses Hormuz. Sometimes there is disappointment, and the market briefly plunges, but it is ready to leap back at the next bit of good news. And the...
by Rich Wandschneider | Mar 11, 2025 | Alvin Josephy, American Indian history, Chief Joseph, Indian country, Indian history, Indians, John F. Kennedy, Pacific Northwest, Peace Corps, portland art museum
I got news of the new exhibit at the Portland Art Museum from two friends. The show is “Psychedelic Rock Posters and Fashion of the 1960s,” and, knowing my work with Indians and relationship to the late Alvin Josephy, they sent images of an exhibit text around a book...
by Rich Wandschneider | Aug 31, 2021 | Indian treaties, Indian wars, Indians, Nez Perce, Nez Perce treaty, Nez Perce War, Oregon territory, Oregon Trail, Oregon tribes, plains Indians, Syria
My friend Charlie texted me this morning to remind me that President Biden will announce today that he has ended America’s “longest war.” Charlie says that the Indian wars went on longer, that his people’s war, what we call the Nez Perce War, was one of the last of a...
by Rich Wandschneider | May 31, 2021 | Cahuilla, California Indians, Indian history, Indian Horse, Indians
The descriptions of a church-run Canadian boarding school for Indians in Richard Wagamese’s brilliant novel, Indian Horse, were brutal. The book was published in 2012; a movie released in 2017. In today’s news stories, echoing Wagamese’s book, a mass grave containing...
by Rich Wandschneider | Oct 30, 2020 | Indians, Michael Gerson, original sin, slavery
In today’s Washington Post, long-time columnist Michael Gerson, a former George W. Bush speechwriter and consultant, labels President Trump a racist, and says that’s all you have to remember in the voting booth. He’s another of the staunch Republicans who is switching...
by Rich Wandschneider | Sep 11, 2020 | African Americans, Ibram X. Kendi, Indian treaties, Indians, internment camps, Japanese-Americans, Latinx, Mexican American War, Reconstruction, Reparations, Republic of Texas, slavery, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Reparations—government payments or amends of some kind to the descendants of Black American slaves—are not a new idea, but the current Covid-19-BLM crisis has brought them back into conversation. I’ve been skeptical, wondering where Indians and Latinx would fit into...