"The Other" in Their Own Land: Orientalism, Genocide, and the Northern Paiute of the Oregon Great Basin

Abstract

The Northern Paiutes, an American Indian tribe from Central and Eastern Oregon, experienced a significant reduction in their population at the hands the Oregon and federal governments during the Snake War of 1855-1868. Those who were left of the Northern Paiute population by the late 19th-20th century were subjected to assimilationist policies and economic subjugation through the reservation system. This history is not widely studied, written about, or taught in Oregon schools. My research seeks to understand and articulate the Northern Paiute experience of settler colonial violence, as it pertains to the interrelated phenomena of Orientalism, accumulation, and genocide. I argue that the Northern Paiute were re-described as the “other” through the discourse of Orientalism. This Orientalist discourse was used to justify the Snake War waged against the Paiute. I make the case that the Northern Paiute were the victims of state-sanctioned genocide, of which exterminatory violence is just one part.