The Battle of Frenchtown (1855), Washington Territory: the Political and Demographic Context rev 9/4/11


Table 2 Flathead Reservation 1905 census - ethnic breakdown within each tribe



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Table 2 Flathead Reservation 1905 census - ethnic breakdown within each tribe

Pend Oreilles (640)



  • full blood 242

  • mixed blood 387

  • adopted - 7 Indians and 4 whites;

Lower Pend Oreille (197)



  • full bloods 161

  • mixed bloods 35

  • adopted – 1 white;

Flatheads (557)



  • full bloods 233

  • mixed 305

  • adopted - 3 Indians and 16 whites

Kutenais (556)

  • full bloods 210

  • mixed 342

  • adopted - 2 Indians and 2 whites

Spokanes (135)



  • full bloods 55

  • mixed 80

Other tribes (48)

  • full bloods 14

  • mixed 34

Hence the total number of mixed-bloods in 1905 came to 1183 or 55% of the enrollees on the Flathead Reservation.


When another wave of Canadiens from the east started to pour into the middle Columbia region at the end of the 19th century, irrigation prospects led them to choose another valley neighboring the Walla Walla to the northwest in the opposite direction from the Umatilla. The chosen valley was the Yakima. Meanwhile the Frenchtown in the Walla Walla Valley had dried up and nearly disappeared. Hence, in the course of the 20th century, with this turn of the century demographic wave from Canada, supplemented by immigrants from France, the Yakima Valley would end up being the primary and final pocket of Francophones (French-speakers) south of the border in the PNW.
The Canadien settlement at Chewelah experienced emigration similar to the two Frenchtowns, with most of the metis population leaving the Colville valley. Most headed east along the Clark Fork, upriver to Flathead country. However, some of the Colville Valley metis relocated to the Coeur d’Alene reservation, while others followed the Colville Reservation’s shifting borders across the Columbia, to the west where it currently resides. Here too, adoption by the Confederated tribes allowed the metis to settle and eventually later obtain an individual allotment of land when the reservations were ‘opened up.’ And as elsewhere, some did stay behind, especially the younger women. As with the Gendron and Finely families, metis daughters had the option of marrying into the new settler community of the Colville valley.



Today, south of the 49th parallel, we are faced with an odd statistic that indicates the continental reach of that 14th colony that somehow chose to disengage in 1776. Of the four individuals selected to represent the states of Washington and Oregon in the Capitol Building’s Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C., three were born in Quebec, and two spoke French as their mother tongue. For Washington, along side Calvinist Missionary Marcus Whitman - and providing balance in terms of religion, gender and ethnicity - we have Mother Joseph, born Esther Pariseau from the village of Elzear, just north of Montreal. South of the Columbia we have ‘The Father of Oregon,’ Jean Baptiste McLoughlin, born and raised in Riviere du Loup, paired with Methodist missionary Jason Lee (who, though English speaking, was also from Quebec). Is this sampling an anomaly, or a representative one which indicates a bigger story?
Throughout the 19th century, those writing about the American West, be they journalists, or others posing as historians, all shared one overwhelming priority. The story had to be Americanized.
The thousands of Francophones of a century ago, now have tens of thousands of descendents in the region. The language is pretty much gone, at least south of the 49th parallel, but not the people. One way or another, French culture is clearly not foreign in this corner of the continent.
This multi-cultural people and their church played major roles during the transition of the northwest frontier. However, re-integration into the world of the new majority – and its history texts - would not be a straight-forward process.

Rob Foxcurran

Seattle, Washington

206-898-5608

_________________

I’m currently exploring options for publication of my 500-page manuscript on the above subject with the Septentrion publishing house in Quebec, and an affiliate in Montreal, Baraka Books. A Canadian co-author from the University of Northern British Columbia, Michel Bouchard, is working with me to co-author an abbreviated version for the general public. The manuscript is entitled “”Washington Territory's Tale of A Few Frenchtowns: Resettlement of the French-Breeds into the Backcountry and onto the Reservations.”

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