Author: Emmett O'Connell (Page 41 of 176)

Towards Cascadian Food (Cascadia exists #3)

July 18, 2013 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Some people are thinking about what food makes Cascadia:

The northwest corner of the USA/southwest
corner of Canada region has a lot of wonderful food and drink but it’s
difficult for people outside this region to articulate what the region’s
food and drink actually are. Many simply don’t know. The term “Pacific
Northwest” doesn’t mean a lot in the food world, and it’s also
geographically incorrect when you consider southwestern Canada.

A lot of this does ring true for me. Cascadia (including parts of Canada, but maybe not as far east as Idaho) really does have a regional food culture. Like a lot of aspects of Cascadia (politics, literature), we need to do a better job putting focus on this portion of our culture.

From there, we can take two directions to take this, I think. Either we have a regional food identity (we just have to recognize it) or we have yet to develop a real one.

For the simpler later position, you have delano‘s comment on a reddit thread on Cascadian food:

But it’s still the early days. It takes a long time to develop strong,
regional identities. If you look at the older parts of North America,
you can get an idea of the various stages of food identity. From cajun
to creole in the south to the several specific types of BBQ sauce from
the Carolinas to the eponymous hot wings from Buffalo).

For the former, Cascadia may seem very new compared to Dixie or New England, but in a lot of ways, it is very very old. Take one of the common threads in the regional food discussion on reddit linked above. A lot of people mentioned salmon or a particular species of salmon as a regional food.

But, when you take a look around, it just isn’t salmon as a food that we have available. Another regional food someone mentioned was the geoduck clam.

But, if you take a look at the work of

Elise Krohn and Valerie Segrest, you can see really how deep our food culture can go. Both Krohn and Segrest recently took on nettles, for example.

Krohn:

This year my hunger for nettles is acute. After having been sick for
weeks with the sinus and lung crud, I need some lively plant medicine to
help rebuild my strength. An elder once told me that if you drink
about 3 cups of nettle tea per day for two weeks it will change your
blood chemistry. I believe it. Spinach is considered the most
nutritious green on the market – but pales in comparison to nettles.
Nettles are 29 times higher in calcium, 8 times higher in magnesium, 3
times higher in potassium, and almost double in their potassium
content! Nettles are also exceptionally high in the trace minerals
chromium, cobalt, zinc, and manganese. They are a super food and a
potent medicine. Nettles support our liver and kidneys so they can
flush waste products and function at an optimal level.

Segrest:

I began to visit nettle in the woods near my house, at school, in the
park. I read everything I could on the plant, I drew it, I sat with it,
I stung myself with it, I harvested and ate it, bathed and washed my
hair with its juices. I had never felt so strong, energized, and
healthy. And then I thought of all the other plants right outside the
door and wondered what edifying teachings they had to offer. Once
again, I was hungry for more. My work is now guided by the plants.
They are my teachers, companions, friends and all due to this
enlightening experience.

Nettles are almost a perfect metaphor for this sort of Cascadian food thought. They are very simple to find this time of year, literally everywhere. They’re so easy to find that in fact they’re easy to miss. And, in turn, you miss their application in a regional diet or food. It may feel like someone is suggesting you eat a weed, but they are as crucial to our regional food thinking as steelhead or geoduck.

Olyblogosphere for July 15, 2013 (Summertime, and the complaints are typical)

July 15, 2013 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

1. Alex, the question is “What is homelessness?” And the discussion you thought you’d have follows after that.

2. Marcus, who just moved here just a bit ago, complains that his house doesn’t have AC. Even in the few days a year when it actually gets hot. Well, do you want to be the one to tell him we don’t really plow the streets either?

3. This is a very old post, but it is from a Christian who wrote a pretty interesting piece about the Occupy camp down on the FLOD two years ago. So, it is a very unique post and then worth pointing at. Her old blog (where I found the post) is here, she’s now blogging over here.

For the record, I like the old blog’s title way better.

4. Party in Brandee and Eric’s Driveway for the Capitol City Marathon. It’s a thing!

5. Mojourner is saying turn off this blog and go outside.

Andrew Mickel, still out there

July 11, 2013 / Emmett O'Connell / 5 Comments

Just over ten years ago Andrew Mickel shot a police officer in Red Bluff, California. Almost right up to that point Mickel had been a resident of Olympia and a student out at Evergreen. And, for the time being, his is still a resident of California’s death row.

Since those years, soon after I had finished up my own education at Evergreen, Mickel had held an interest for me, especially after Rachel Corrie was killed the next fall. Mickel and Corrie seemed to the poles of Evergreen and that part of Olympia culture that revolves around Evergreen.

While Mickel was obviously criminal and reprehensible, his beliefs where parroted from anti-government, anti-government, and especially anti-police political culture that is still part of Olympia.

I’ve wondered about Mickel’s time in Olympia. I lived here at the time, I wonder if I ever saw him (maybe on campus) and not remembered him later when his face became news.

From one of the stories that reference his time here:

Mickel chose this school, with its main gathering area called “Red Square.” He ostensibly came to study creative writing. The college was not as academically rigorous as his parents would have liked and, in his freshman year – when many new college students are confined to large lecture halls and tackling basic requirements – he was allowed to do independent study.

I actually take offense to this passage, that Evegreen isn’t as “rigourous” as other, more traditional schools. While Evergreen doesn’t have the same set-up as large lecture hall schools, it is just as hard (or harder) to get by as a geoduck, especially for someone expecting a more traditional set-up. Evergreen is essentially sink or swim

It was during this time that Mickel’s personal politics got increasingly intense.

In December 2001, he went to Israel with a pro-Palestinian activist group pushing for an end to Israeli “occupation.” The following summer, he went to Colombia, South America, to study nonviolent resistance, and to Northern Ireland, another global hot spot. In the Pacific Northwest, he joined protests against the World Trade Organization and was arrested in Seattle in April 2002 for interfering with a police officer.

Tehama County District Attorney Gregg Cohen would later say in court that Mickel had reached for an officer’s gun during the Seattle arrest, though Mickel would staunchly deny that in his jailhouse interview with The Bee three days before his sentencing.

But there is no denying that Andy Mickel became more political at college. He began railing about social injustice and corporate irresponsibility and capitalism run amok.

Scott Dixon, his old tutor back in Springfield, saw Mickel on a Thanksgiving visit home and heard him talk about politics – about corporations, environmentalism and the like. To him, Mickel seemed no more strident than many politically minded college students.

Late 2002 was not too late after 1999 in Puget Sound. As Fred Moody in Seattle and the Demons of Ambition, 1999 was a reckoning for the region, coming up against the limits of our self regard and economic growth. Young men like Mickel who protested violently in the streets in 1999 were the physical representation of this.

Olympia then had our own May Day protests in 2000 and 2001 and then 9/11 seems to sharpen everything.

This particular passage in the Chico News-Review feature on Mickel (in which the writer constantly refers to him by his pseudonym McCrae) is interesting in terms of his time in Olympia:

Evergreen’s reputation was again questioned after May Day protests in
each of the past two years. Two years ago demonstrators—including a
large contingent of Evergreen students—snarled traffic in Olympia during
protests.

Coincidentally, (Mickel) who was arrested at a protest last April for
obstructing a sidewalk, lived less than a half-mile from the Bayview
Thriftway supermarket, where a 59-year-old man died Nov. 8 after he was
subdued with a Taser stun gun following an alleged shoplifting attempt.

Activists in Olympia have charged police brutality in the case.

A spokeswoman for the Olympia Police Department said the department
had no contact with (Mickel) in the past and would be assisting California
authorities in their investigation. The department would not be
conducting an investigation of its own.

The incident the paper references is the death of Steven Edwards in the Bayview parking lot in early November 2002. Edwards had drawn a gun and was wrestling with a security guard who had accused him of shop lifting. After being stunned twice by the taser and handcuffed, Edwards stopped breathing and died. It might have been a coincidence, or the death of Edwards may have pushed Mickel out of Olympia to murder.

Just like Mickel, people continue to reference Edwards in Olympia, as he was the topic of a memorial protest just last year.

Currently, for Mickel, he’s on California’s death row. Voters rejected an initiative to ban the death penalty last year, so he’s currently working his way through an automatic appeal process.

Mickel represented himself when he was convicted and sentenced to death, but he was appointed a lawyer who was as late as this spring filing briefs with the state supreme court.

Today, on one fringe Mickel is remembered and described as “profoundly moving and inspiring.”

And, in Olympia he is largely forgotten, which really isn’t all that surprising. He really had no roots here, made little impact beyond his circle. He more or less represents a certain type of transient Olympian who attends Evergreen, comes by himself in his early 20s and then moves on. Usually not in such a tragic fashion though.

Cascadia’s Appalachian Roots (Cascadia Exists Post #2)

July 8, 2013 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Hey, Kari, you don’t know how right you are: Appalachia in Oregon. Of course, he’s making the point that rural counties in Oregon are doing so poorly, they risk becoming like poor and poorly governed communities in Appalachia.

The funny thing is though, that these Cascadian communities share a heritage with our Appalachian cousins. In fact, Cascadia is a direct descendant of Appalachia, along with some New England Puritanism. In American Nations, Colin Woodward describes this way:

The coast blended the moral, intellectual, and utopian impulses of a Yankee elite with the self-sufficient individualism of its Appalachian and immigrant majority. The culture that formed—idealistic but individualistic—was unlike that of the gold-digging lands in the interior but very similar to those in western Oregon and Washington. It would take nearly a century for its people to recognize it, but it was a new regional culture, one that would ally with Yankeedom to change the federation.

In Olympia and Thurston County Washington (where I am most familiar) this molding together of two extremely divergent cultural traditions is seen early on. Arguably, the two most significant families in Tumwater (the first permanent non-tribal community on Puget Sound) represented both New England — the family of Clanrick Crosby — and greater Appalachia — Michael Troutman Simmons.

A quick examination of the birth states named in the 1870 Thurston County census illustrates the strong mix between Appalachia and New Englanders.

New Englanders came to the Northwest with business on their mind, but came with traditions of religion, universal education and a general “for the good of all of us” attitude. Appalachians, as Woodward describes them, were nearly the opposite. While they also meant business, their social code was individualistic.

For example, while Simmons was one of the first to lay down roots in Tumwater, he moved on by the mid 1850s. It was up to the Crosby family to plat early Tumwater and incorporate the city. The Crosby clan would build Tumwater and Thurston County in a very real sense. Simmons would continue jumping from venture to venture. His most significant contribution to our heritage would end up being the secession from the Oregon Territory and a quixotic run for Congressional delegate as an independent in 1854.

How does this mix of New England organized capitalism mesh with Appalachian libertarianism in Cascadia? For one thing, as Woodward points out, eventually the religious portion of New Englandism is stripped out and replaced with another moral code. This time it is more humanistic, and comes in the form of environmentalism, human justice and peace movements.

Jarrett Walker’s recent look-back piece on Ecotopia actually gives a good explanation of how this mix occurs. Even though Ecotopia is fantasy, it draws from some very real considerations of Cascadian politics and culture:

The most profound Ecotopian innovation, however, is the rule of the local. Taxes are paid to your town or region, which then forwards some of the revenue to the nation. Decisions are made as locally as possible, and all things giant – both corporations and governments – have been banned or minimized. The national government is small: a coordinator and inspirer rather than a ruler, making decisions only on the few things that must be done at national scale. National defense seems to be based mostly on bluffing, but the Second Amendment’s “well-regulated militias” are a key part of it; people own guns for that purpose as well as for hunting. There are ideas here to excite a Tea Partier, not just an ecologist.

Ecotopians love competition but they want all companies to be worker-owned and no bigger than 300 employees. Government should not do anything that the private sector can do better with correct incentives, but they reach surprising conclusions about which functions are which. Mass transit, intercity and urban, is a government function because of the efficiency that arises from integrated networks and the need to manage big environmental impacts. Education, on the other hand, has been fully privatized into teacher-owned cooperative schools with tuition grants for low-income kids. Local schools compete vigorously for the parental dollar, with outcomes controlled by just a few standardized tests. Ecotopians figure out what works regardless of whether we would call their solution “liberal” or “conservative.” Buzzwords rarely constrain their thinking, perhaps the most utopian of all their ideals.

“There are ideas here to excite a Tea Partier, not just an ecologist.” In Ecotopia you find a drastic description of how the two divergent cultures come up with consistent political philosopy. Yet, not one that conforms with the right-left duopoly of the rest of the country.

Which is how you can explain the map below and these election results.

Marijuana legalization passes in Washington State, but not in the typical “win Puget Sound” way. It won in some odd places, such as Ferry and Mason counties. This counties drew from their libertarian Appalachian roots to vote for a law that would arguably be good for personal liberty

It is also why a state that consistently elects Democrats to statewide office also votes consistently to constrain taxes. And, we voted broadly to liberalize liquor sales.

At least two of these measures (marijuana and alcohol) find the sweet spot between liberalism that New England has become and libertarianism that we’ve important to Cascadia. While these results aren’t a tidy political ruling philosophy written out in Ecotopia, they are at least tentpoles to show us where exactly our political heritage came from.

Remembering Northern Oregon’s Declaration of Independence

July 4, 2013 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

On July 4, 1852 Daniel Bigelow stood up at an Independence Day gathering in Olympia and gave a speech that would spur a division in what was then the massive Oregon Territory. While Bigelow’s speech doesn’t mention a split with the Willamette Valley dominated southern portion of the territory, the speech is rife with references of a natural love of liberty.

Bigelow’s was the second speech in two years on the topic. John B. Chapman gave a speech on the same day in 1851. But, because Chapman himself didn’t play nice with the Democratic machine in greater Oregon, his secession effort ended dead in its tracks. Chapman left the territory by the time a Bigelow inspired convention happened in November 1852 at Monticello (where Longview is now).

The Northern Oregonians along Puget Sound argued that the Oregon Territory eas too big. So, it makes sense to split it. And, if you’re going to split it, you should split it into a northern and southern territory that would both have seaports. Also, evenly divided territories would be competitive, and through competition, would improve each other.

Also, and we hesitate to bring this up, but Northern Oregonians haven’t gotten much from the Willamette centered government. Makes sense, you know, vote in your own interest and all that. But, if we could be separate, would could take care of our own.

Iit was a possibility that certain parts of what are now Washington State were seriously considering not joining the territorial secessionists. From the Columbia (Olympia) newspaper in November 1851:

Living, as they do, on the boundary line between the two divisions of Oregon — in constant intercourse with the southern portion, with whose citizens they transact a large proportion of their every day mercantile and commercial business, it is but natural to suppose that their sympathies are pretty equally divided between north and south.

Today the folks along the southwest border in Longview and Vancouver still seem to face further towards the south than north to Seattle.

Even the location of the convention in 1852 was chosen to be in the heart of these just north of the river communities so as to convince their representatives to attend. If the location had been chosen in Olympia (writes the Columbian editor), the lack of enthusiasm from Columbia River residents would’ve prevented them from attending at all.

So, what would have happened to our territorial independence if the meeting was held in Olympia and not in Monticello? Would we have ended up with a new Puget Sound centric territory (and then state)?

While the population of Puget Sound was certainly growing, the balance of people still lived along the Columbia. It is possible that the Puget Sounders needed Columbia River folks to reach the necessary population for a new territory.

Also, it is possible I imagine that a Puget Sound territory would not have included any east of the mountains territory if not for the lower Columbia.

In the end, I think the deciding factor of our state’s separation from Oregon was the Columbia newspaper, founded as Olympia’s first newpaper just months before the November convention. It is no coincidence that Bigelow’s Independence Day Speech was published in the paper’s first edition. In that edition, the paper was also advertised as being neutral in politics, for Oregon in general, but specifically for the interests of Northern Oregon.

It also never advertized itself as being from “Olympia, Oregon Territory.” Rather (as Dennis Weber points out), in its early editions, the location of the Columbia newspaper was labeled as being, “Olympia, Puget Sound.”

All things about Dixie (Olyblogosphere for July 1, 2013)

July 1, 2013 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

1. Local play performed, written by locals, about John Brown, who fought Dixie.

2. Joe Illing writes about his time in Dixie learning to be a soldier back in the day. My favorite part:

The “private” nightclubs of Charleston, Augusta and the other cities I visited helped to pass the time. They were private only in the sense that they had a “private club” sign hung over their entry doors. When patronizing one of these establishments you’d ring a doorbell, a peephole would open, and if you weren’t black you passed their one membership criterion.

Like these private clubs, remnants of the old segregated south were still to be found all around. Restrooms with signs reading “Whites Only,” or drinking fountains marked “Colored” were old and faded, and largely ignored, but not yet replaced.

I found this absolutely alien to the integrated California of my childhood. But as my mandate was to protect the civilized world, I figured it was in my nation’s best interests that I visit as many of the private clubs as I possible in order to understand the social milieu I found myself forced to protect. After all, in my capacity as guardian of the Western World, I had to consider the civil liberties of the girls who visited them in order to dance, drink and meet guys.

One of Joe’s granchildren is named “Olympia.” I kid you not. I love that.

3. Merwyn lost his Myspace blog, so let this be a warning to you. If it is important, and you don’t have a local copy, make yourself a local copy. Or pray the Internet Archive grabbed one for you.

4. Camp Quixote has been around for going on seven years. Damn Rob Richards, nice personal perspective.

5. Merwyn writes a lot of good stuff (see the link above), but this piece where he parses out his feelings on choice versus life is particularly good:

I am Pro-Life. I believe abortion kills the beating heart of a
sentient human. But I sometimes appear to be Pro-Choice because I know
there’s a difference between contraception and abortion.

And because I believe your right to medical privacy trumps my
opinion. Including the right of a teenager’s privacy against her
parents.

…

And because I agree the lawmakers and activists screaming most loudly
against Roe vs. Wade don’t give a shit about the starving, the working
poor, the disabled, the sick – that they are most likely to support (and
celebrate) executions, the death of foreigners, the denial of
immigrants.

And because I know the mythical fertile promiscuous woman who uses
abortion as birth control is as fictional as the Cadillac driving
welfare queen with crates of lobsters bought with her SNAP card.
…

So I believe what I believe. But I know, beyond belief, that if those
working hard to overturn Roe vs. Wade focused instead on creating jobs,
providing affordable healthcare and affordable childcare, gave school
and daycare teachers a respectable income for the hours they put in,
gave equal pay for equal work, focused on eliminating the attitude that
allows rape culture to flourish – and, finding that those on the left
would actually work with them to achieve these goals – then I
believe that the number of times a woman finds herself having to
consider that choice would drop. It wouldn’t disappear entirely, I don’t
think that can happen. As soon as one’s sure they know the Absolutes,
something new and complex enters.

The world is complicated. Read his entire piece.

5. And, there’s a new park taking shape on the westside. I drove by it last night with a buddy on our way to get a beer. He said it was a pretty bad place for a park, there on that busy street. How could anyone enjoy it?

I replied it had been left empty for years since a log yard closed down and that it seemed like ever since then, people had been fighting over what was going on there.

The metonymy of Olympia is especially galling, given what the state legislature is about to do to Olympia

June 27, 2013 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Usually during the legislative session, I get a bit peeved when someone in media or government refers to the state legislature or statewide government as “Olympia.”

And, yes, I’m familiar with the term metonymy. I know that people sometimes use a specific word (like press) to mean something else (like news media). But, in this case, it is harmful. And, this week, when thousands of Olympians and Thurston County residents received layoff notices and our local economy is about to get cleaved, it is galling.

Facts gleaned from our county budget:

Almost 25 percent of the jobs in Thurston County are state government jobs.
And, those jobs are in particular, the high wage jobs in our community. The people with those jobs make up 34 percent of the wages in the county.
Public employment since 2008 has dropped half a percent every year, meaning (despite increases in private employment) total employment has been flat across the county.

So, yes. It would suck. Not just for us who live in households partially supported by state government paychecks, but shutting off more than a third of the wage flow in the county would have devastating impacts.

It is worth pointing out that the now shuttered blog Olympia Views (here, here and here) has written in a much broader way about the social and economic impact state government has on us here.

So, when you’re writing about how the state government might shut down for a bit, and people in Olympia are going to be having lean times, please don’t say it’s Olympia’s fault.

Bordeaux, WA should be a park (Just another Thurston County ghost town)

June 24, 2013 / Emmett O'Connell / 4 Comments

Recently, I finally took the trek out beyond Mima Mounds to find where Bordeaux, Washington used to be.

Just a quick and important note before I go on. It seems that at least some of the old town site is on private property. I didn’t realize this when I was out there, most of the land is inside Capital Forest. But, on closer inspection, there are a couple of parcels that are privately owned. So, to get to some of the old town site, you should probably ask permission first.

Other than there still being parts of it around, Bordeaux seems like a pretty typical old timber town that lost its reason to exist.

Dark Roast Blend, Washington Ghost Towns, Webducks’s flickr set and this discussion at MyFamily each give a lot of details and imagery of what you can find out there today.

Mark Gibbs and Edward Echtle also went out back in 1988 and shot this footage:

Being out there and seeing what I saw and seeing the general setting and seeing what other saw, brings up one major question for me. Why isn’t Bordeaux, WA a park? Or at least, why isn’t there a maintained set of trails to the old ruins that would make it easier to appreciate the old town? I had to turn back fairly quickly because the undergrowth this time of year had taken over the small trails I was able to find.

Now that I think about it, I probably picked the worst time of year to trek through the woods to find some old buildings, the stinging nettles and other vegetation would too high for us to make it very far. I’m probably going to take another shot at it when it’s colder.

Other than pointing out all the good resources there are out on Bordeaux, here’s my main contribution. This is an aerial photo from 1941 when Bordeaux was in its twilight, overlaid with a modern map.

I couldn’t help myself, I made a bird’s eye view looking up the Mima Creek valley too.

Better Bob Bunting

June 20, 2013 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Joseph Bunting is largely believed to have killed Quiemuth in Olympia in 1856. It’s assumed Bunting killed the Quiemuth because he believed the Nisqually had a hand in his father-in-law’s death. More than 20 years later, Bunting’s daughter Blanche and son-in-law Lorenzo Perkins were killed. His son Bob Bunting brought the last of the murderer to justice.

The most interesting thing about the death of Blanche (Bunting) Perkins and Lorenzo Perkins is that when several rounds of of white men went out to look for their killers, Blanche’s dad wasn’t among them. Her older brother Bob eventually put the entire episode to bed. Her uncle John was part of one of the early groups that went looking for her murders. But her dad, Joseph Bunting, is never mentioned in the aftermath of her death.

Bluntly, the death of Blanche and Lorenzo was an unfortunate, incredibly violent and insignificant detail in the history of the greater West. They were literally in the wrong place at the wrong time when a group of Indians bent on killing any white person found found them.

Just one day before the Perkins murder, Lt. Mellville C. Wilkinson commanded the gunboat Northwest as he and his crew patrolled the Columbia River. Wilkinson’s mission was to prevent a tribe from the Oregon side from crossing to Washington.

What he ended up doing was to commit one of the countless under-recorded massacres of Indians by American soldiers.

Michael McKenzie writing in the Columbia magazine in 2008:

Steaming down from Wallula, he fired his artillery and Gatling gun without the slightest provocation into a group of peaceful natives camped there, killing at least two men and one woman, wounding others, and laying waste to the entire camp. Even some of the settlers of the period reacted to his action with distaste, (A.D.) Pambrun calling it a “massacre” and stating flatly that “there was no excuse” for what Wilkinson had done. The following month the Walla Walla Union heaped scorn on the lieutenant’s action…

Jim Soh-yowit in 1917 told his story to historian L. V. McWhorter

…a band of Indians crossed the Columbia at Oom-i-tal-lum and pitched camp on the Washington shore. There were women and children in this camp, all peaceable, the men not having many arms. A steamboat came down the river, and without any warning opened fire on us with what seemed a machine gun. A man named Wah-la-lowie, belonging at La-qwe on the Columbia, was shot in the belly and killed. He was a middle-aged man. A middle aged women named Wah-lul-mi from Ti-che-chim, on the Columbia, was shot in the forehead, and fell dead. The Indians scattered and hid.

I had a single breech-loading rifle which I grabbed and ran among the rocks and lay so they could not see me. A few horses were killed. They fired at where I lay hid but did not reach me. Finally the boat went away without landing. Indians lost a lot of things, for they did not try to gather up their belongings.

Shaw-ou-way-coot-shy-ah to McWhorter:

The white people from The Dalles, they all organized and got guns and got a steamboat and went up to the village and they killed all the old people, [who] don’t do nothing, all the old ladies and all the old men and before these Indians got back to their home they were all dead so part of them went up to the Umatilla River and then part of them went up the Columbia River and crossed the Columbia River…and they came there to a white man and his wife and some of the Indians says, “Here the white people have killed our fathers and mothers and they were not doing any harm, now I am going to kill this white man to make even.”

Wilkinson and his crew murdered Indians on Monday, July 8. Chuck-Chuck, Moos-tonie, Wi-ah-ne-cat, Shu-lu-skin, Te-won-ne, Kipe, and Ta-mah-hop-tow-ne met up with the Perkins’ couple on Tuesday, July 9.

Compared to the gunboat Northwest massacre, the story of the Perkins’ murder is well known and well detailed. This is because the story was literally told by an Indian who was there and white authorities repeated his story often. In the aftermath, Shu-lu-skin gave 17 pages of testimony to prosecutors.

He talked about how the group that killed the Perkins were made up of two groups of Indians. One group were the survivors of the gunboat attack, the other a group they’d met later in the day. After the survivors shared the story of the massacre, all seven planned to kill the next white people they found as vengeance.

Shu-lu-skin talked about how they waited by Rattlesnake Spring, an important way station for travelers, because someone would show up eventually.

They let the Perkins couple dismount, Lorenzo took care of the horses while Blanche cooked. They both at while they went for a walk.

The Indians thought far enough ahead to come up with a cover story. They planned on saying that the Perkins couple had attacked them and they’d only defended themselves.

A.J. Splawn, who wrote history and had acted as interpreter during the trials, recounts details that made the revenge mission sound much less organized:

When they found the man and his wife at the springs, they said, Wi-ah-ne-cat suggested that they kill them. Ta-mah-hop-tow-ne said that two of their own people had been killed by the gunboat, one of them a friend of his, and that he wanted revenge. During their argument Perkins and his wife, no doubt becoming alarmed, began to saddle their horses. Wi-ah-ne-cat and Ta- mah-hop-tow-ne drew their guns and ordered Perkins to stop. He had his own horse saddled by this time and mounted. Mrs. Perkins, who was a splendid horsewoman, did not wait to saddle, but mounted her mare bareback, and with only a rope around her neck to guide her, they started on the run. A shot from Ta-mah-hop-tow-ne’s gun wounded Perkins, but he kept on till a shot from Wi-ah-ne-cat reached him. when he fell from his horse and soon died.

Mrs. Perkins’ mount now began to run and was outdistancing her pursuers, when a deep ravine appeared, which the brave little mare failed to clear. The animal fell, throwing her rider, who lay stunned until the Indians came up. She raised her hands, they said, as if in prayer, then begged them, if they must kill someone, to let it be her. and to save her husband, she not knowing that he was already dead. While the Indians who had come up with Mrs. Perkins sat upon their horses, undecided. Wi-ah-ne-cat rode up and asked why they sat there like women, instead of killing her. He promptly drew his gun and fired.

From gunboat attack to murders, this is a story told by Indians. No white soldier on the gunboat ever faced trial and had to retell exactly what happened. Instead of being hunted down, these men worked their way through history.

On the other hand, the white response to the Perkins murder was drawn out and intense. At its highest point it included over a 100 person posse standing off with Indians before the majority of the accused were brought in. One of the accused committed suicide, several escaped at different points and only two out of the seven eventually faced the gallows.

The last mention of the Rattlesnake Springs murderers was in 1881 when Blanche’s older brother Bob brought in Ta-mah-hop-tow-ne.

Similar to McAllister, Riley and his father over 20 years earlier, Bob Bunting decided that tricking his target would be the best. After hearing where Ta-mah-hop-tow-ne was living, Bunting went to find him, bringing a friend along.

The rouse was that Bunting and his partner were looking to buy horses.

While discussing exactly which horses he wanted from Ta-mah-hop-tow-ne Bob Bunting bent down to scratch a brand design in the dirt. Ta-mah-hop-tow-ne bent down to all fours to take a closer look and that’s when Bunting and his friend tackled him, trying to tie him up to bring him back to Yakima.

Ta-mah-hop-tow-ne yelled out to his wife to bring him a gun while he wrestled with the two white men. Two other Indians joined the fray. It was probably Bunting or his friend that fired first, but both Ta-mah-hop-tow-ne and his wife ended up with gunshot wounds. The retelling of the story in the newspapers that covered the capture don’t mention if she survived, but Ta-mah-hop-tow-ne was brought in. It took over a month for the authorities to hang him.

Ta-mah-hop-tow-ne was the subject of some coverage before his death. In one story, he gives his point of view:

Since my confinement I have been thinking of all the good words I have spoken and the good deeds I have done. I believe in the law of the land and the law of God. I know that those who sin against God should be punished. The Lord guards over both the Indians and the whites.

…

When I was brought before the court, I expected to have a talk, but the whites did all the talking.

In fact, Ta-mah-hop-tow-ne was tried and convicted two months before his capture.

I had no chance to say anything. I want to say that while growing up from my boyhood I missed the trail, the good trail and by doing so I fell over the bank. I told the judge I was very sorry. I knew that I did wrong, I am now sorry for my soul after death.

On the day of his death, speaking from the gallows, he was much more hopeful about the prospects for his soul:

You all see me, I have your brother. I hope you have no ill feelings toward me. I love you all and I am ready to die this day. I shall go to heaven and I hope to meet you all there.

The paywall to public records in Thurston County (Part 2)

June 17, 2013 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Read part one here. But, just in short court records are somewhat public in Washington State. Protected if not by written law, but by legal tradition. Also, they’re expensive in Thurston County. To the point that they might be providing more revenue to the Clerk’s office than they cost to provide.

So, here’s some additional additional thoughts about how to change and what to change:

1. Other portions of Thurston County provide public records in a similar fashion at no direct cost to the user. For example, the Board of County commissioners provides records going back through the early 20th century online for free.

2. Possibly provide non-certified court documents for free. Currently, there are two types of documents provided by the Clerk’s E-commerce system: certified (which are mailed) and non-certified (which can be downloaded. Certification is important to legal professionals, because it means the document is a true copy of the original. I suppose non-certified would be more important to folks like me, who are curious and would only read the documents as reference.

I also suspect that this wouldn’t cost much to implement. Because of the high barrier to access right now, most likely the bulk of the revenue from the E-commerce system comes from lawyers seeking certified copies.

3. If not on the open internet, make non-certified copies available through the library. Timberland Regional Library (of which I am currently a trustee, so full disclosure there) provides access to closed databases.

4. Apparently, the Clerk’s office has digitized documents going back to 1847. I cannot imagine the wealth of historic value locked up there. Currently though, you can only access documents back to 2000.

But, because the database in only usable on one browser (which is used by less than a third of internet users) and you can only search by case number, the historians use of this system is seriously limited.

5. There is hope.

The County Clerk is an elected position. And, the current clerk is retiring. Her former deputy (Linda Enlow, no website) and current deputy (Yvonne L. Pettus) are both running for the position.

It is possible that our access to public records of the local courts could become a campaign issue. And, modernizing our access and making the system more usable could be possible under a new clerk.