Search results for ""author richard d. scheuerman""

Born to T'siyiak, a champion horse racer and Com-mus-ni, the daughter of Chief Wiyáwiikt, Kamiakin helped relatives tend his family's rapidly expanding herds. He wintered in tule mat lodges in the Kittitas and Ahtanum valleys, shared in spring root gathering, went salmon fishing in the summer, and participated in fall hunting and berry picking. The young Indian also learned ancestral traditions. Alone as an adolescent on the treacherous, icy heights of Mount Rainier, he dreamt of the Buffalo's power and completed his quest for a spirit guide. Muscular and sinewy, he became a skilled horse racer and competitor in feats of agility. He married and established his home on Ahtanum Creek, where he raised potatoes, squash, pumpkins, and corn in large, irrigated gardens.As Kamiakin matured, he became more prominent among the Yakamas; leaders of both Sahaptin and Salish tribes often sought his counsel. Through personal aptitude as well as family bonds, he emerged as one of the region's most influential chiefs. He cautiously welcomed White newcomers and sought to learn beneficial aspects of their culture. His dignified manner and attire impressed both soldiers and missionaries.In the 1850s, the arrival of unprecedented numbers of White immigrants incited a cataclysmic upheaval that would threaten the very existence of the Plateau's native people. On May 29, 1855, the Walla Walla Council commenced with a brief meeting attended by some 5,000 Indians, including Chief Kamiakin. Two weeks later, with great reluctance, he signed the Yakima Treaty of 1855. He also resolved to fight against the destruction of his people and desecrations upon the land. Finding Chief Kamiakin is his story.

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Hardship to Homeland recounts Volga Germans' unique story in a saga that stretches from Germany to Russia and across the Atlantic. Burdened by war and debt, life was extremely difficult for impoverished European peasants until a former German princess came to power. Seeking to increase borderland population, provide a buffer against Ottoman Empire incursions, and bring agricultural ingenuity to her country, Russian empress Catherine II issued a remarkable 1763 manifesto inviting Europeans to immigrate. Their passage paid, colonists would become Russian citizens, yet retain their language and culture. For the next four years, some 27,000 settlers came--mostly from Hesse and the Palatinate--founding 104 communities along both banks of the Volga River near Saratov and introducing numerous agricultural innovations. But the Russian Senate revoked the original settlement terms in 1871. Facing poor economic conditions and a forced Russian army draft, 100,000 Volga Germans joined other immigrant waves to the New World. After a decade of hardship in the Midwest, some began moving to the Pacific Northwest, and their westward movement was one of the region's largest single ethnic group migrations. From outposts in Washington State they spread throughout the Columbia Basin, along the coast, and into northern Idaho, Oregon, British Columbia, and Alberta, transforming their new homelands into centers of western productivity and significantly influencing North American religion, politics, and social development.Hardship to Homeland is a revised and expanded reprint of The Volga Germans: Pioneers of the Northwest, published in 1985 and long out of print. This edition offers a new introduction as well as Volga German folk stories from the Pacific Northwest, collected and retold by Richard D. Scheuerman, with illustrations by Jim Gerlitz.

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