Chief Kilchis
None
Kilchis ([gə́lšəs] or [gə́lčəs] in Tillamook [1] ) or ( [ɡeǀtʃəs] in IPA) (1806–1866 [2] ) was one of the last free chiefs of the Tillmook Native Americans . He lived during the 19th century near Tillamook Bay , Oregon .
Chief Kilchis and Chief Illga (also known as Tse-tse-no or Illga Adams) were the last Tillamook leaders to preside uncontested in the Tillamook's homeland around Tillamook Bay. [3]
Kilchis may have been a descendant of one of the survivors of a Spanish Manila Galleon that wrecked near Neahkahnie Mountain and the mouth of the Nehalem River . Known as the beeswax wreck , it was probably the Santo Cristo de Burgos , which was lost in 1693 while sailing from the Philippines to Mexico. [4] [5] [6] Warren Vaughn, an early white settler in Tillamook, knew Kilchis and believed he was a descendant of one of the survivors of the wreck, and said that Kilchis himself claimed such ancestry. [7] [6] Kilchis was described by many people as looking strikingly different from other native Tillamook people. Many assumed he was partially of sub-Saharan African ancestry, having curly hair and beard, and other features settlers saw as African. [6] There are various stories about his supposed ancestry. Warren Vaughn claimed that Kilchis's father was a "full-blooded negro" who had been a blacksmith on the "wax-ship" and had been taken in into the Tillamook tribe. Kilchis's mother was, according to Vaughn, a Nehalem Tillamook woman who had married the blacksmith survivor. [8] Vaughn did not know when the "wax-ship" wrecked. If it was the Spanish galleon of 1693 then Kilchis's father could not have been one of the survivors, but a more distant ancestor could have been. Note: we know more about Warren Vaughn's description of Kilchis and his heritage than we know from Kilchis firsthand; as Native voices tend to be excluded from American history.
Chief Kilchis appears in the historical novel Trask by Don Berry , in which he is described as "part-negro".
American settlers began encroaching on Tillamook land after the 1850 Donation Land Claim Act , which encouraged American homesteading in Oregon Territory . During the 1850s white settlers literally crowded the Tillamooks off their beaches and many conflicts occurred. [9] Chief Kilchis and Chief Illga met with the settlers Elbridge Trask and Warren Vaughn to negotiate peace, but conflict continued intermittently. [10] [9]
Anson Dart , the Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs , tried to make land cession treaties with the Tillamook under Kilchis, and the Nehalem people, and many others. The treaty with Kilchis of August 7, 1851, went unratified. [9] Dart's successor, Joel Palmer , was able to make new treaties, which were ratified, to acquire large amounts of native land, including the Tillamook land. During the many inter-related Indian wars of the 1850s, such as the Yakima War and Rogue River Wars , Kilchis was pressured by the Klickitat people to join the fight, but the Tillamook obeyed Kilchis's order that they remain peaceful and demonstrate their peaceful intentions to the whites. [9]
In 1856, after the wars, the Tillamook people were removed to the Coast Indian Reservation (today called the Siletz Reservation ), becoming part of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians .
References
- ↑ Bright, William (2004). Native American Placenames of the United States . University of Oklahoma Press. p. 219. ISBN 978-0-8061-3598-4 . Retrieved 24 October 2019 .
- ↑ Lewis, David G. (2012). "Chapter 37: Oregon". In Murphree, Daniel S. (ed.). Native America: A State-by-State History . Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 949–974.
- ↑ "Hobsonville Indian Community" . The Oregon Encyclopedia . Oregon Historical Society . Retrieved 25 October 2019 .
- ↑ "Back Issues: Summer 2018 "Oregon's Manila Galleon" " . Oregon Historical Society . Retrieved 23 October 2019 .
- ↑ La Follette, Cameron; Deur, Douglas; Griffin, Dennis; Williams, Scott S. (July 2018). "Oregon's Manila Galleon". Oregon Historical Quarterly . Oregon Historical Society . 119 (2): 150–159. doi : 10.5403/oregonhistq.119.2.0150 . S2CID 165403120 .
- 1 2 3 La Follette, Cameron; Deur, Douglas (July 2018). "Views Across the Pacific: The Galleon Trade and Its Traces in Oregon" . Oregon Historical Quarterly . Oregon Historical Society . 119 (2): 160–191. doi : 10.5403/oregonhistq.119.2.0160 . S2CID 165790449 . Retrieved 23 October 2019 .
- ↑ "History of the Beeswax Wreck Site" . Maritime Archaeological Society . Retrieved 25 October 2019 .
- ↑ Thayer, C.T.; Vaughn, W.N. (1901). "The Clarke Murder". In Wells, William Bittle; Pease, Lute (eds.). The Pacific Monthly: A Magazine of Education and Progress . Pacific Monthly Publishing Company. pp. 43 –45 . Retrieved 25 October 2019 .
- 1 2 3 4 Ruby, Robert H. (1992). A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest . University of Oklahoma Press. p. 243. ISBN 978-0-8061-2479-7 . Retrieved 25 October 2019 .
- ↑ "Elbridge Trask (1815-1863)" . The Oregon Encyclopedia . Oregon Historical Society . Retrieved 25 October 2019 .
Further reading
- Sauter, John; Johnson, Bruce (1974). Tillamook Indians of the Oregon coast . Binfords & Mort. ISBN 978-0-8323-0212-1 .