A Call for Reform

A Call for Reform
Author: Helen Hunt Jackson
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2015-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 0806152745

Journalist, novelist, and scholar Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–85) remains one of the most influential and popular writers on the struggles of American Indians. This volume collects for the first time seven of her most important articles, annotated and introduced by Jackson scholars Valerie Sherer Mathes and Phil Brigandi. Valuable as eyewitness accounts of Mission Indian life in Southern California in the 1880s, the articles also offer insight into Jackson’s career. The articles served as the basis for Jackson’s 1884 romantic novel, Ramona, still popular among Americans today. Jackson journeyed to Southern California in the 1880s to learn firsthand how Indians there lived. She found them in a demoralized state, beset by failed government policies and constantly threatened with losing their lands. The numerous articles and editorial responses she penned made her a leading voice in the fight for American Indian rights, a role she embraced wholeheartedly. As this collection also shows, Jackson’s fondness for Old California helped shape the region’s mythology and tourist culture. But her most important work was her influence in getting reservations set aside for the beleaguered Southern California tribes. Although her recommendations were not implemented until after her death, Helen Hunt Jackson’s stark and revealing portrait drew national attention to the effects of white encroachment on Indian lands and cultures in California and inspired generations of reformers who continued her legacy. This unprecedented collection offers fresh insight into the life and work of a well-known and influential writer and reformer.

A Country Strange and Far

A Country Strange and Far
Author: Michael C. McKenzie
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 447
Release: 2022
Genre: History
ISBN: 149622924X

In 1834 the weary missionary Jason Lee arrived on the banks of the Willamette River and began to build a mission to convert the local Kalapuya and Chinook populations to the Methodist Church. The denomination had become a religious juggernaut in the United States, dominating the religious scene throughout the mid-Atlantic and East Coast. But despite its power and prestige and legions of clergy and congregants, Methodism fell short of its goals of religious supremacy in the northwest corner of the continent. In A Country Strange and Far Michael C. McKenzie considers how and why the Methodist Church failed in the Pacific Northwest and how place can affect religious transplantation and growth. Methodists failed to convert local Native people in large numbers, and immigrants who moved into the rural areas and cities of the Northwest wanted little to do with Methodism. McKenzie analyzes these failures, arguing the region itself--both the natural geography of the place and the immigrants' and clergy's responses to it--was a primary reason for the church's inability to develop a strong following there. The Methodists' efforts in the Pacific Northwest provide an ideal case study for McKenzie's timely region-based look at religion.

Report

Report
Author: Commonwealth Shipping Committee
Publisher:
Total Pages: 980
Release: 1919
Genre: Shipping
ISBN:

White Man's Club

White Man's Club
Author: Jacqueline Fear-Segal
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0803220243

Asking the reader to consider the legacy of nineteenth-century acculturation policies, White Man's Club incorporates the life stories and voices of Native students and traces the schools' powerful impact into the twenty-first century."--BOOK JACKET.

Sarah Winnemucca of the Northern Paiutes

Sarah Winnemucca of the Northern Paiutes
Author: Gae Whitney Canfield
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1988-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780806120904

Describes the life of a Paiute woman who worked as an interpreter, scout, and spokesperson for her tribe in Washington