Brent Merrill
Brent Merrill: The story of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde as it exists today begins in the 1850s.
Arlie Neskahi: Today, we have heard a little about the ordeal of the many tribes that make up the Grand Ronde community. In 1856, they were rounded up and marched across Oregon in the dead of winter. On today’s Turtle Island Storytellers, tribal member Brent Merrill, descended from the Northern Paiute Tribe, tells the story of the Grand Ronde Trail of Tears.
Merrill: There was a western movement by dominant culture folks, as they came out to the west into our area and into our valleys. They started to use the cavalry and they came through northern Nevada and northern California and southern Oregon. And they gathered people and incorporated them into one large group. And they gathered them together at a place called the Table Rock Indian Reservation in southern Oregon. They would show up outside your home and they would give you a few minutes to gather things that you could carry.
When folks were taken from their land, there was a lot of great emotion, a lot of upheaval. They didn’t know where they were going to go. They didn’t know why they were being really forced to leave. So they were gathered at Table Rock. And if you’ve ever seen Table Rock, it’s a, a flat-tops plateau and very striking. I’ve been fortunate enough to be there, but it worked as a great gathering place and a place to hold large groups of people because there was only a couple of ways up and down the mountain. So they could put large groups of people on top of the mountain and control them.
Our elders tell us that some of the women in the tribe threw their babies off of the cliffs and followed them. Some of the warriors rode their horses off the cliffs. It was their way of protesting what was happening to them being taken from their land and being told they were going to live in a different place. It really wasn’t until 9-11 happened ah, that I was able to kind of get some perspective on that. If you look at footage of that event and you see people that were jumping from those floors, those high floors they were taking their fate in their own hands. They realized if they stayed in the building they were going to death and not really have any control over their own fate, so they jumped as a way to have their fate in their own hands. And I think that helped me put in perspective what was taking place at that time in the 1850s, 1856 when this ah, particular event occurred.
On February 23rd of 1856 under the, the guidance and leadership of an agent by the name of George Ambrose, three hundred and twenty-five Indians and a hundred and six cavalry members set out from Table Rock to walk the two hundred and sixty-five miles to Grand Ronde. They had their horses. They had cattle. They were carrying their babies and the line would have stretched out for over a mile. And there were twenty-six bands of Indians, twenty-six tribes that were brought to Table Rock. And if you look at some of the family offshoots of those tribes, as many as forty bands of Indians can be accounted for in that initial roundup. They had to walk. They followed what was called the Applegate Trail at that time. It essentially today is I-5 so that, that trail, you know, lasted through time.
They crossed rivers and streams and they climbed mountains, and eight people died along the way and eight babies were born. The general, you know, essentially writes in his diary, when he arrives in Grand Ronde, that he has the same number of Indian people that he started with, and he was very proud of this. Folks were given the morning to bury someone and, and have whatever ceremony that they desired, but then they had to move on. Took them thirty-three days to make the walk. And the folks that died, the loss is still really felt to this day among our tribe. If you look at those eight people that passed away they took with them their history. And, and that’s something that we can’t ever get back.
So when you talk about twenty-six tribes as many as forty bands of Indians who had different languages. They had different forms of religion. They had different forms of government and leadership and recognition of individuals within the group. You can imagine the chaos of having those folks all be lumped together as if they were the same. They were held under armed guard. They weren’t allowed to leave the group. You know, they would be shot.
Elders in particular were made to walk on their own. If they couldn’t carry themselves they would have to be left behind. And that was difficult, you know, for a race of people that were always about respecting their people. So it was difficult. When they would pass through towns or villages. They couldn’t just stop in town, because they had bricks and rocks thrown at them, and those kind of things. And they were yelled at, you know, “Don’t stop here,” you know, “Keep going.” Even to the point of, of having boiling water thrown on them. They had to have a lot of hate. There had to be a lot of emotions on both sides in order for that to take place.
Like I said, it took them thirty-three days to get to Grand Ronde. They arrived here. The Yamhill Tribe was already here. This was their land. There was a sixty-nine thousand acre circle that had been drawn on a map somewhere back east, you know, and was called the Grand Ronde Indian reservation. There’s no such thing as Grand Ronde Indians. We’re all made up of different tribes brought to a place called Grand Ronde And so, although now we’re known as the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon, we’re Rogue Rivers and we’re Kalapuyas, and we’re Chastas, Mollalas, Paiutes. Those are our people—Clackamas people, Clatsop people, Multnomah people, you know, Tualatins, Mary’s River. That was just one of the walks. The Tualatins walked in. The Clackamas walked in. The Clatsops walked in. They were all really conglomerated in Grand Ronde on this sixty-nine thousand acre circle. And it really wasn’t a circle. It was more like a rectangle. And there were forts at either corner of the, of the land base. The forts were occupied by the military and they really set up a perimeter.
Essentially Grand Ronde at the beginning stages of 1856, 1857, when the reservation was established, was really essentially a prison camp. Folks were held here. They were not allowed to return home. They were not allowed to travel outside the boundaries of the reservation without some kind of a permit. And they were held under armed guard. They were resigned really to their fate of, of having to live here. They tried to assimilate themselves into the land, and still try to keep their cultures alive. There was always warriors among us, in particular, Rogue people, Kalapuya people. They were very much the warrior societies. The Rogue Rivers, if you know the story about the Rogue River Indian wars, you know, those people were one of the last tribes to really be defeated by the whites. Their land was mountainous and they knew it very well. Those wars in particular, they took a long time to root them out of their land. They joined the walk along the way.
And, one of the most poignant stories that I’ve heard about that time is the warriors they cried, as they came down out of the mountains, because they knew they had finally lost that battle and that their life was going to change forever. So you have these proud warriors. And even the generals and, and the soldiers have written in their diaries, how much that affected them, to be witness to that, you know, that time of great emotion. And I think it’s important that we not forget that. It’s important that, that I tell my children this story. And it’s, and it’s important that my children tell their children. A really unique opportunity came for me, when we were trying to raise money for this veteran’s memorial.
Steve Bob, who’s a marine veteran, he and I went to Table Rock and on February 23rd, we set out from Table Rock to walk to Grand Ronde. We averaged twenty miles a day. We walked up I-5 and then at Eugene we split over to 99. And we were able to do it in two weeks. People came from out of their homes. They drove to see us. They waited for us at different points and they would share with us bottles of water. And they would bring to us salmon. And they would bring to us sweet grass and things like that. So, it’s not just our culture. It’s people who believe in our cultural ways. Some of the best Indians I know are white people, who believe in the values and have that shared value system.