Shadow Tribe

"Shadow Tribe offers the first in-depth history of the Pacific Northwest's Columbia River Indians - the defiant River People whose ancestors refused to settle on the reservations established for them in central Oregon and Washington. Largely overlooked in traditional accounts of tribal dispossession and confinement, their story illuminates the persistence of off-reservation Native communities and the fluidity of their identities over time. Cast in the imperfect light of federal policy and dimly perceived by non-Indian eyes, the flickering presence of the Columbia River Indians has followed the treaty tribes down the difficult path marked out by the forces of American colonization." 
Borrowed from http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/FISSHA.html 


This book has such significance for Washington Natives and should be used in more schools. Shadow Tribe teaches students about Native American culture and the significance of their resettlement through a local lens that they could connect to. So many students already learn about the trail of tears in social studies during their middle school years but what they should be learning is how resettlement and the displacement of peoples has happened locally. This displacement very obviously affects the Native Americans who are having to leave and move to newly designated areas but it also effects the culture of the people, the culture of those around them, and the culture of the states in which reservations are prevalent. Native Americans provide a rich and beautiful understanding of the communities in which they are present and involved. Washington is such a unique state because we have so many different Native American tribes all around that are prevalent on both the west and east sides of the state. Using this book in a classroom would be such an amazing opportunity for students to learn that Native Americans have been effected by others not only from when the Europeans first came to America and started moving them to reservations, but it was happening well into the 19th and 20th century. To use this text as a whole would be difficult because there are a lot of complexities within that I think would go over the heads of seventh grades, which is typically when they are learning about Native American and Washington State history. Using this text as supporting material for a unit lesson like Washington State history would create a more well rounded lesson that was inclusive and allowed for multiple different perspectives. Washington State history is both a really fun unit to teach and also an overwhelming unit at the same time. Students are required by law to take a Washington State history exam at the end of seventh grade or they will not graduate high school. This can add a bit of pressure when teaching it since there is a certain amount of information that you as the teacher have to make sure they understand and have worked through. What would push this unit over the top and make it even more substantial for students would be to include information about each of the reservations that are local for their area. In the greater Spokane area there is the Spokane tribe, the Colville Tribe, and the Kalispell Tribe. In all of Washington state there are 29 federally recognized Native American Tribes with more than 200,000 registered Native Americans and Alaska Natives. There is so much to learn about our Native American neighbors who share an understanding of the state we all live in and love. It is our job to teach the multiple different perspectives of Washington State history to provide students with as much understanding of how this great state came to be what it is today. That includes of course the substantial impact of the Native Americans who fought for their land and their rights when they were so wrongly stripped of them.