Mythology, Battlefields, Shipwrecks, and Forts: The U.S. Army and the settlement of the Oregon Territory

Summary

United States colonialism in the  Oregon Territory was a maelstrom of hostility, ambiguity, and conflicting agendas among Native Americans, Gold miners, pioneer families, citizen militias, Indian agents, and Army personnel.  The U.S. Army's role in this drama was particularly ambiguous; many of the pro-states rights pioneers in this pre-Civil War era of the 1850s resented the soldiers—to the point of armed conflict--for defending the treaty rights of Native American people, while the Army was simultaneously ensuring the success of the American colonial venture in a variety of overt and subtle ways.  This paper considers how the U.S. Army stood out in the topography of this colonial landscape with reference to the material remains and documentary evidence from Fort Lane, the Camp Castaway shipwreck, and the Hungry Hill battlefield, and considers how this role was re-mythologized in the crafting of the frontier narrative.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015   •
• Landscapes of Colonialism in the North American West

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 132