Oregon Indians: Voices from Two Centuries

Northwest Readers

by Stephen Dow Beckham

Book by Beckham, Stephen Dow

Genres: History

583 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2006

Reviews

[Keith Rosson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epic in scope and attention, and I loved the fact that this isn't a straight-up nonfiction history book; Beckham doesn't espouse his viewpoint on the reader and reinforce it with period texts - instead he does the opposite: a brief introduction to each chapter, and then transcripts of those sources.

An absolutely vital work, heartbreaking and endlessly frustrating for its reinforcement, through a myriad of texts, of just how much relentless warfare - literal, social, economic, religious - has been waged on native folks for centuries. It's not exactly soothing bedtime reading, but anyone seriously interested in the subject would do well to grab this one up.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was disappointed that most of this wasn't written by or the recorded words of native people. The closer we get to modern times, the more native voices are included. Beckham takes us back to the 1500s through the journals of explores floating along the now Oregon coast. From there, we get various people commenting on their first contact with native peoples, up to settlers coming, the Rogue Valley Indian (sic) Wars, forced relocation, and up to the present day. I still need to finish the modern section, but I can recommend this book to everyone, but especially people who live here, so you can learn the history and get a handle on the issues.