Chiefs and Chief Traders
Theodore Stern
A ground-breaking study of the relations between the fur traders of Fort Nez Perces and the Indians of the region, primarily Cayuse, Wallawalla, Umatilla, and Nez Perce. Existing literature on this region has focused on the white explorers, the fur traders, and the settlers. Chiefs and Chief Traders offers a new perspective, exploring both white and Indian cultures and their interactions.
Chiefs and Chief Traders represents the culmination of 25 years of research, utilizing an extensive variety of primary sources--some used here for the first time--as well as oral interviews conducted in the course of ethnographic research on the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Stern weaves together anthropology and history in a way that few are qualified to do. He brings new information to the story of the relations between Indians and whites in the Pacific Northwest.
Chiefs and Chief Traders was a finalist for the 1995 Oregon Book Awards.
About the author
Theodore Stern was professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Oregon. In addition to the two books featured here, he authored The Klamath Tribe: A People and Their Reservation.
Read more about this author
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
The Fort
Chapter Two
The Columbian Trading Network
Chapter Three
Tribes of the District
Chapter Four
Indian Society, Polity, and Religion
Chapter Five
A Register of Noted Men
Chapter Six
Bourgeois
Chapter Seven
The Fort as a Social System
Chapter Eight
Gardins, Tribes,and Company
Chapter Nine
Routines
Chapter Ten
Trading at the Fort: The Company Perspective
Chapter Eleven
Trading Operations in Fort and Field
Chapter Twelve
Trade and Order
Chapter Thirteen
The Political Events of 1831-1832
Chapter Fourteen
Concluding Remarks
Notes
Bibliography
Index
"I take off my hat to Dr. Stern in awe of his scholarly achievements here."
author of Nch'i-Wana
"A readable and highly useful ethnohistorical assessment of eastern Plateau Indians and the impact of the fur trade… a contribution to learning."
author of Requiem for a People
"Theodore Stern has done what many historians have long thought undoable, given the paucity of documentary sources for the fur trade of the southern Columbia River area… he has provided meticulous reconstruction of personalities and events at Fort Nez Perces, a pivotal strategic post of the Pacific Northwest."
