Indian Agent Discourses on “The Snake Indians” [otd 06/01]

On June 1, 1863, J. W. Perit Huntington, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Oregon, addressed a report to his Washington, D. C. boss, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The essay summarized what he had learned about the Indian tribes commonly known as the “Snakes.”
J. W. Perit Huntington.
Image courtesy of
the Oregon State Library.
He wrote, “The word Snake appears to be a general term applied to several bands or tribes of Indians quite distinct in language and characteristic, and inhabiting diff...