Sacajawea's People: The Lemhi Shoshones and the Salmon River Country

Preface

[First Page] [-9], (1) Lines: 0 to 31 ——— 0.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [-9], (1) Preface The idea for this study grew out of a graduate seminar in public history at Washington State University offered by Professor Orlan Svingen in 1995. He organized it around producing a legal-historic report in conjunction with the Lemhi Shoshones’ petition to regain federal recognition from the government. The arguments and counterarguments over ethics, objectivity, and public historians serving as “hired guns” who cater to the interests of their clients rather than to the standards of the academic discipline of history have been so well rehearsed in scholarly literature (as they were in our seminar room) that they do not bear repeating here.1 I do think it worth pointing out, however, that the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Branch of Acknowledgment and Recognition (bar) resolves petitions for recognition through the same sort of adversarial process that characterizes American courtrooms. Our charge, therefore, was to unearth whatever information we could that related to the bar’s criteria,whether it supported or contradicted the Lemhis’argument.A good defense attorney always seeks any information the prosecution has that could harm his or her case; so too did the attorneys for the Lemhis want to know about anything that might diminish their chances of regaining recognition. In reviewing the materials our team of researchers culled from the National Archives in Washington dc, the Federal Records Center in Suitland, Maryland (with the help of the Freedom of Information Act), the Pacific Northwest Branch of the National Archives in Seattle, Washington, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office in Fort Hall, Idaho, ix [-10], (2) Lines: 31 to ——— 0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [-10], (2) the Idaho State Historical Society Archives in Boise, and numerous other repositories and institutions, I was particularly struck by the Lemhi Shoshones’ enduring ties to their homeland in the Salmon River country, which have been manifested in diverse ways. I decided to pursue the topic of Lemhi identity in my dissertation, with an interest in the ways it has been informed by the Lemhis’connections to their homeland and the ways their identity has intersected with federal Indian policy. After additional research trips to the National Archives and elsewhere, including numerous trips to Moscow, Idaho, to scan through old copies of the Salmon Recorder-Herald, the dissertation, entitled “Returning to the River of No Return: The Lemhi Shoshone and the Salmon River Country, Idaho,” came together, and ended up as the manuscript for this book. “The New Western History,” Donald Worster once wrote, “insists that scholars must perform deliberately and thoughtfully the role of cultural analyst, even to the point of presuming now and then to be a self-appointed moral conscience of their society.”2 I have presumed on occasion to act in that capacity in the chapters that follow. But my interpretation has been informed by my research, and not the other way around. I hope, therefore, that readers find my account compelling, but also well balanced. In the course of the research and writing it took to get from a graduate seminar in the fall of 1995 to a publishable manuscript, I incurred a debt of gratitude to many people for their guidance and assistance. Chief among them is Orlan Svingen, my mentor during graduate school (and not infrequently after, perhaps to his dismay). Professor Svingen’s encouragement and assistance were a boon during my career as a graduate student and kept me on track throughout. His familiarity with the National Archives in Washington dc proved immensely helpful during my research, and his skill as an editor dramatically improved my writing. He always gave freely of his time,much in demand as it always is, whether we met in his office or My Office Tavern. For these things and many others I am grateful to him. This study could not have been accomplished without the efforts of Lemhi Rod Ariwite, who has been the driving force behind the Fort Lemhi Indian Community Recognition Project, which he directs . Rod took the time to read my work and offer his feedback— x preface [-11], (3) Lines: 39 to 48 ——— 13.5pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [-11], (3) rarely have kind words meant so much. So did Snookins Honena, a Lemhi descendant of Chief Tendoy, who lived through many of the events related in this book. I especially...