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Visiting Author David H. Wilson – Paiutes of the Malheur

August 19, 2022 @ 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Author David H. Wilson will be at the Josephy Center to discuss his new—and highly acclaimed—book, Northern Paiutes of the Malheur: High Desert Reckoning in Oregon Country. Wilson is a retired Portland attorney and an outdoorsman and wanderer who has spent much time east of the Cascades. And he became obsessed with the story of the Paiutes and their tragic spokeswoman, Sarah Winnemucca.

In 1870, Winnemucca wrote to an army officer requesting that her people be given a chance to settle and farm their ancestral land in Oregon Country. The eloquence of her letter was such that it made its way into Harper’s Weekly. Ten years later, as her people languished in confinement as a result of the Bannock War, she convinced Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz to grant the requests in her letter and free the Paiutes as well. But Indian agents and other officials who opposed Schurz’s decision, flooded Schurz with false information that deceived him into reversing it.

“To this day,” Wilson writes, “accounts of the [Bannock] war are virtually unanimous in their mistaken claim that Chief Egan led his Paiutes into the conflict.” University of Nebraska press publisher says that “David H. Wilson Jr. unravels the web of lies and deceit, exposing the full jarring injustice and, after 143 years, recounting the Paiutes’ true and proud history for the first time.”

There is no charge for this event. Coffee and conversation will be the agenda. Books will be available.

 

Details

Date:
August 19, 2022
Time:
7:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Event Category:

Organizer

Cheryl Coughlan
Phone
541-432-0505
Email
director@josephy.org

Venue

Josephy Center for Arts & Culture
403 N Main St
Joseph, OR 97846 United States
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