"The Life of William Shelton" Documentary

This video is a preview of a documentary titled The Life of William Shelton, a Tulalip Indian. This project was seeking funding via a Kickstarter page, and although the funding period has expired, an update there states that the project will continue as the film's producers seek loans and grants.

Hopefully, the film will be completed, as an hour long documentary would be a fascinating watch and a great tool to spread the word about one of the Pacific Northwest's most undersung heroes.

More info at the link above and here:

Facebook page

North County Outlook article


Please help spread the word about this project and help out if you can.

Emerging Maps: "Bury My Heart at Walmart"

"Bad Indians" by Ryan Red Corn.

I came across this video (made in 2009) during my class work recently, and even though it's not directly related to the Everett area or any local Native tribes, I found it to be a very striking and effective poem/film ... so I thought I'd share it here. Self-expression and the embracing of new and diverse voices is an essential part of new map making.


Learn more:

Ryan Red Corn

Buffalo Nickel Creative

Washington State Historical Society

I just came across the Washington State Historical Society website today. This is a great resource, with some really cool digital collections and interactive pages on Lewis and Clark and Washington Indian Treaties, among others.

Well worth a look:

http://www.wshs.org/

A (Very) Short History of (Local) Racism, Part 1

I recently completed a research paper on racism in video games, and it got me thinking about local racism. Arguably, our historical struggle with racism is one of (if not the) defining characteristics of our nation.

We all know the stories -- some of the names and dates -- but I think there's a tendency to resign these things to the past, and to think of us now as a "post-racism" society. The research I did on current racist images and symbols in popular culture strongly disagrees, but that's a discussion for another blog (or, I strongly encourage you to look into it for yourself) ..

In any case, although this region was "founded" on imperialist ideals, I think there's a strong tendency to imaginatively isolate ourselves from the rest of the country. The Pacific Northwest as we know it was born as a "hinterland" -- a bit separate and different from other parts of the nation -- and I think we collectively hold onto that. In my experience, Everett is a very caring town, and very inclusive and accepting of diversity (mind you, I say this as a privileged white male who's never actually experienced discrimination) ... the actions of our local institutions in modern decades in its attempts to honor and include diverse viewpoints is something to be proud of.

So even though, obviously, a history of oppression and discrimination lurks below the surface of our history, we don't like to look at it.

Personally, I was shocked to read passages like this in our official History of Snohomish County (William Whitfield, 1926):

"All students and writers seem to agree, however, that the aboriginees of the Pacific Northwest represented a much lower stage of intellectual development than those of other regions of the continent."

"Owing to the fact that nature provided here in season a wonderful and ample, and unfailing bounty of food and other material to gratify all the human wants of a primitive people, there was no incentive to break away from the simple habits and arts of the fathers and experiment with strange things with a view to progress." (817)

Whitfield also points out the Natives' lack of knowledge about metals and smelting, or the value of thrift or hard work. He paints them as a people of "leisure," gluttons devoted to sport and gambling, whose prime ambition was to amass property to give away at the "big hiyu potlach" (817). Of course we can now see here the seeds of persistent racial stereotypes.

You can almost feel the shock of white culture in Whitfield's writing that these people didn't want to know how to exploit the land, or devote their lives to making a profit and working towards American conceptions of "progress." By taking the time to look at Native culture and histories with an eye for embracing and understanding differences, we can see that these types of white American ideals were completely foreign to the Native worldview -- not a result of laziness or ineptitude.

Whitfield does also go out of his way to dispel (apparently popular) myths by providing evidence that the Natives here "were not barbarians" (by this he meant cannibals) and not "warlike" (815-816).

Really, I don't think Whitfield's comments about the Native peoples come from a place of hatred, but rather, are the natural extension of white imperialism.  In his excellent and insightful book, Racism: A Short History, Standford History professor George M. Fredrickson points out that racism is not at the heart of the imperialist ideology, but a rather a symptom of it. Although the belief in "the superiority of 'civilized' white males over 'barbarous' or 'savage' people" is an "essential rationale" behind imperialism, many believed in the capacity of these peoples to be "civilized," or tamed and assimilated into mainstream (white) American culture (as was attempted here through the Indian Boarding School and allotment farming).

In this way, the grab for power and resources can be justified to those within the empire as an act of philanthropy, as a regional improvement project.

We can also say that Whitfield's comments were written in 1926, a time before Hitler, WWII, the Cold War, and the Civil Rights (and American Indian Rights) Movement de-legitimized racist speech and the scientific idea of eugenics. But that doesn't make them any less racist.

You might be saying, "So what? This all happened so long ago. I wasn't a part of it. Let it go..."

Well, my best answer to that (and why digging up and talking about history is important) is best articulated by Derrick Jensen in his epic treatise on racism and imperialism, The Culture of Make Believe :

"I leave it to black people to interpret their experience of living in our culture, and to Indians their experience, and women theirs. Instead it falls to me -- and others of my race and gender -- to explore and articulate -- and thus, I hope, help to halt -- the white male experience of hatred: How did we come to enslave our continent, significantly depopulate another, and work our will on all of the others? How, in short, have we come to conquer the world? Why have we wanted to do it in the first place? And can we stop wanting it?

Although the . . . movements of history can be interesting, in and of themselves they are meaningless. Any exploration of them must return to the personal, to the particular, because that's all we've got.

If we wish to stop the atrocities, we will need to understand and change the social and economic conditions that cause them." (preface, xi-xii).

Revisiting the past and charting new maps is part of this process. I can't think of anything more personal and particular than the place you live, work, grew up in .. the streets you drive and walk everyday, and the parks you take your kids to play in.

(To be Continued ...)

(Also, I highly recommend everybody in the area visit the Hibulb Cultural Center in Tulalip. There is a fascinating (and horrifying) exhibit on local racism there.

Poles to Lift the Sky

Port Gardner Bay, circa 1905 by Asahel Curtis. UW Digital Collections.

William Shelton (1868-1938)

William Shelton, 1913
(Photo: J.A. Juleen, Everett Public Library)

During my research into the history and culture of the Tulalip Tribes, I kept coming across a name I'd never heard before in connection to Everett's history: William Shelton (1868-1938). So I started to take a closer look at Shelton, and as I learned more about him and read his writings, I really came to admire him. He plays a major role in the preservation the region's Native culture, and did everything he could to create a bridge between his people and an unfamiliar white culture.

During the early 1900s, at the height of the U.S. Government/Indian Agency effort to "kill the Indian, save the man" (via cultural assimilation into white American culture and the systematic destruction of Native language and culture) at the Tulalip Indian Boarding School, Shelton was going to great lengths to preserve a way of life and bring a greater understanding and appreciation of that way to those outside of the reservation.

From historylink.org:

"William Shelton (1868-1938), cultural leader of the Tulalip Tribes, spent much of his life attempting to bridge the divide between regional Indians and whites through traditional storytelling and art. Shelton gained an understanding of his own native culture through family teachings and by learning from many of his tribal elders. He also was adept at working with Bureau of Indian Affairs and city government officials, gaining their respect and support. Shelton spent years mastering the art of wood carving in order to create story poles through which he shared many of his tribes’ cultural teachings. To accompany one of his carved poles, Shelton wrote a booklet published in 1913 titled Indian Totem Legends which told the stories of the pole’s carved figures. The booklet also carried the author’s autobiography. On January 2, 1914, a longer version of this same piece was published in The Everett Daily Herald."

As far as I can tell, a major newspaper printing the autobiography of a local Indian was pretty unheard of at the time. Shelton was seen as a leader by both the Tulalip and the citizens of Everett.

The Herald published these comments along with Shelton's story:

"The following interview with William Shelton, a full-blooded Indian of the Tulalip Reservation, is remarkable . . . seldom has an Indian talked so freely of himself and his tribe and of the white race. The interview is interesting in its reference to the early practices of Indian fathers to make their sons strong and courageous. William Shelton, carver of the wonderful double totem pole at Tulalip, also originator of the plan that resulted in the totem's creation, is a remarkable red man and a valuable attache of Tulalip Reservation. There is nothing in the way of an assignment that he is unable to fulfill. He has been tested many times along various lines. Here is Shelton's story."

(Shelton's story can be found in his book Indian Totem Legends of the Northwest Country and The Story of the Totem Pole, available at the Everett Public Library, as well as at the Shelton link above. Herald quote found in Indian Totem Legends)

Shelton understood that education was the key to stopping cultural genocide. Although there was no way he could stop the white culture's domination of the area, he did succeed in recording pieces of Native culture, and presenting them to the mainstream community. He was able to give the Tulalips a voice in a time when they were afforded none, and to bring some of their discourses back to Everett.

Shelton is, without a doubt, a key figure in Everett and Tulalip history ... a bit of an unsung hero. I'd like to see him honored more. In any case, he serves as role-model to me in his belief that histories and discourses are valuable, and that multitude of diverse voices need to be heard within the region.

Grand Avenue Park: "Near this Spot"

I've been to Grand Avenue Park a million times over the years, and I've never thought of it as much of a "park." With its well maintained walking path and narrow strips of grass, it's not really a place to play, but more of a space to relax, sit on a bench, and enjoy the best view in the city of Port Gardner Bay and the Everett waterfront.

It's fitting that it feels like a place of reflection, because on my visit there a week or two ago, I came upon something I'd never realized was there before:

A stone marker with a plaque that reads:

"On the Beach

near this spot

Vancouver

landed June 4, 1792"

 

 



I could instantly imagine the waterfront as a sprawling beach, untouched by modernization -- and the giant masts of the Discovery appearing over the horizon. The grand mansions and old Everett homes behind me vanished in an expanse of deep forest, and I could picture the people of the Snohomish, going about their daily business as they had since the beginning of time, unaware that their world was about to change forever.

According to The History of Everett Parks by Allan May and Dale Preboski:

"The granite marker so inscribed was put in place 123 years later [after 1792] by the Marcus Whitman Daughters of the American Revolution . . . Captain George Vancouver never stood on the bluff. The solid reminder at Grand Avenue Park is meant to approximate the location of his visit.

History has it that the English explorer was fascinated by the place. He should have climbed the bluff. Despite what must have been a voyage of adventure and beauty for Vancouver in the late 1700s, he could have added from this outlook a memorable view . . . Then, the water was nearer to the bluff. Landfills extending into the bay were far in the future. Arriving through the forest, the view from the bluff must have been spectacular.

The native Snohomish tribe knew this place. The rough stumped and struggling city preserved it, with a park created in 1906. Thirteen years after the city was established . . . land for the Grand Avenue Park was sold to the city by the Everett Improvement Company for the legal fee of $1" (25).

Everett's parks have a way of encapsulating the divergent strands of its environmental and social history (as we'll explore more): the Native tribes, the European explorers, the settlers, the capitalists. In this way, I see them as a crossroads -- a physically constructed signpost of Everett's imagined identity, a space to connect its history to its future -- carved out of the natural landscape.