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Letter: Promote plans favoring natives

The Columbian
Published: March 20, 2015, 12:00am

The March 14 letter from Lynn Engdahl, “Let the Cowlitz win this battle,” takes on government-paid lawyers and other groups busy pursuing vendettas against the Cowlitz and their planned casino in north Clark County. In my view, history is definitely on the side of the local Native American tribes.

I recently read a collection of writings titled “Chinookan Peoples of the Lower Columbia,” published in 2013 by the University of Washington Press. In Chapter 11, Robert T. Boyd, an anthropologist at Portland State University, describes the impact of European diseases on the Lower Columbia tribes during the late 1700s and early 1800s. He estimates there was a minimum population of 15,000 living in this area prior to “white contact.” And he quotes a missionary who interviewed Dr. John McLoughlin (of Fort Vancouver fame) in 1835, saying the doctor “believe(s) nine-tenths have been swept away.”

A question to those opposed to activities believed to favor our Native American friends: Assuming the first 5,000 European-American settlers arriving in Northwest Oregon and Southwest Washington in the mid-1800s had been met by 15,000 Native Americans, instead of only 1,500, would we be discussing “Indian casino” and “Indian fishing rights” in 2015?

Hope our foul ancestors found their way to Heaven.

Ralph C. Edwards

Vancouver

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