The Fight for Indigenous Names on Territorial Maps
A territorial legislator argues that replacing English place names with Indigenous ones will stop mail from being misdirected and honor the region's history.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Mr. Shaker: I have an object in view in calling for such a map—an object which I hope I shall be sustained in my endeavors to elect. The whole Territory is internally being rearranged by the organization of the eastern portion into counties. The course that has thus far been adopted and that will be carried still farther, is that every portion has its proper Indian name affixed wherever they are appropriate and significant. It is not from imaginary reasons that I shall urge this matter, but from the plain, practical and beneficial results that will follow. There are thirty states in the Union and many of these states have, I believe, a Washington and a Jefferson county; not one of them is without a Pierce and a King. Consequence of this repetition is that letters of vital importance often wander over half the state before reaching their proper destination. These errors can easily be obviated by adopting more emphatic Indian names. I am convinced their number is scanty and that the beauty of these names would be an object of great local pride. It is a matter I desire for our guidance.
“The names of the primitive inhabitants of the soil—a monument to a short time no other trace will remain.”
In 1864, the legislature was grappling with the chaos of rapid, uncoordinated town-building and mail delivery. While the proposal to reclaim Indigenous place names was framed as a practical solution to postal errors, it touches on the much deeper, long-standing struggle over which history is prioritized in the naming of the Pacific Northwest.
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