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“They Are Like Children”: Father Wilbur And Paternalism At Fort Simcoe, 1860-1890, Cassandra Crisman

All Master's Theses

The Treaty of 1855 between Indigenous groups in the middle of the Washington territory and the United States government consolidated fourteen tribes under the Yakama Nation. The combination of Governor Isaac Stevens proclaiming their land open for settlement and nearby gold miners assaulting Yakama women led to the ensuing Yakama War, leading the US Army to build Fort Simcoe. Reverend James H. Wilbur was hired in 1860 by the Office of Indian Affairs to establish the Yakima Indian Agency at Fort Simcoe, following the war. Wilbur also opened one of the first on-reservation boarding schools for Native American children, where …