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While helping researchers at the Washington State Archives, Candace Wellman of Bellingham discovered that about 90 percent of all marriages in Whatcom County's early decades were cross-cultural. The husbands included nearly every community founder and official. Yet when she studied the written chronicles, only white women were mentioned as founding mothers.
According to WSU Press, producing her manuscript about indigenous women required eighteen years and close to two hundred collaborators.
An expert in research methods, sociology, history, and genealogy, Wellman began by re-scrutinizing old sources and searching for new ones, particularly legal cases. Focusing on cross-cultural couples, she found evidence that, except in rare cases, local and regional historians stereotyped and ignored the Frontier West's intermarried women. Wellman hopes her efforts will inspire others to re-examine the historical role played by these relationships.
Wellman holds a B.A. in Sociology from Washington State University and a B.Ed. in History/Secondary Education from Western Washington University, and has pursued graduate work in sociology. Born in Quincy and raised in Washington, the Bellingham resident is a local history consultant and speaks regularly about women's history and regional settlement.
Candace Wellman's Peace Weavers: Uniting the Salish Coast through Cross-Cultural Marriages (WSU Press, 2017), narrates the lives of four indigenous women, their husbands, and the legacies they left behind in the far northwest corner of Puget Sound.
Caroline Davis Kavanaugh (Samish-Swinomish) lived on a small peninsula nearly her entire life and protected its life-giving spring. She brought both the nephew of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and a literate Irish-born sheriff to her homeland.
Mary Fitzhugh Lear Phillips (S'Klallam) married a territorial justice, then a founder of Wrangell, Alaska, and finally, a Welsh cooper. The first woman sent to the Washington territorial prison, Mary and her small children suffered two years of extreme conditions there before being released.
Clara Tennant Selhameten (Lummi-Duwamish) lived a life of astonishing variety. She was a Lummi leader's daughter who married the son of a famous Arkansas missionary and became the county's first farm wife. After their son's death, the pair traveled throughout the area as Methodist missionaries. Much later, an elderly Clara returned to tribal life as a Nooksack leader's wife.
Nellie Carr Lane (Sto:lo), married for many decades to a well-known Massachusetts seafaring family's scion, was an entrepreneur and navigational light keeper who learned to use the court system to fight for her rights.
These 19th-century indigenous women served as cultural interpreters and mediators, and participated in the birth of new communities. Their fates represent those of thousands of intermarriages that began as soon as the feet of European explorers hit the sands of the New World. Candace Wellman believes there are many more stories to be told.
After reading the manuscript, University of British Columbia professor Coll Thrush, author of Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place commented, "Wellman brings us a set of stories that have been misunderstood, ignored, or covered up by generations of Pacific Northwest historians."
Jean Barman, co-editor of Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture and many other books, called Wellman's research "wide-ranging and by every measure exhaustive."
Peace Weavers is paperback, 6" x 9", 302 pages in length, and lists for $27.95 U.S.
*
PRESS RELEASE, 2019
PULLMAN, Wash.— In the past, many historians chose to ignore the historical significance of indigenous wives during the birth of Bellingham Bay communities, typically mentioning only the first white women. Yet these mid-1800s alliances played a crucial role, with the women serving as cultural interpreters and mediators, aiding settlement, and reducing regional conflict between native peoples and newcomers. The newest book from Washington State University Press, Candace Wellman’s Interwoven Lives: Indigenous Mothers of Salish Coast Communities, depicts the lives of four of these intermarried Native women.
A companion work to Peace Weavers: Uniting the Salish Coast through Cross-Cultural Marriages, Wellman’s first book on Puget Sound’s cross-cultural marriages, Interwoven Lives describes each wife’s native culture, details ancestral history for both spouses, and traces descendants’ destinies, highlighting their contributions to new communities. Wellman’s research also reveals new details about the Northwest life of Captain George W. Pickett, who later became a Civil War brigadier general.
Jenny Wynn, daughter of an elite Lummi and his Songhees wife, owned a farm with her husband Thomas and donated property for the region’s second rural school. Many descendants became teachers. Snoqualmie Elizabeth Patterson, daughter of Patkanim, western Washington’s most powerful native leader, married a cattleman. After tuberculosis took her life, foster parents raised her daughters, who enhanced Lynden’s literary and business growth as adults. Mary Allen was the daughter of a Nlaka’pamux leader on British Columbia’s Fraser River. The village of Marietta arose from her long marriage. Later, her sons played important roles in southeast Alaska’s early development. Mrs. Pickett, the Haida wife of Fort Bellingham’s commander, died young and left no name to history, but she gave birth to one of the West’s most important early artists, James Tilton Pickett.
Wellman won the 2018 WILLA literary award for scholarly nonfiction from Women Writing the West for Peace Weavers. She attributes much of her success to the generous assistance of mentors and numerous contributors. An expert researcher, her methodology combined disparate primary and secondary sources in academic and local history as well as genealogy and family memory—and her discoveries help destroy common stereotypes about these cross-cultural marriages.
Coll Thrush, University of British Columbia professor and author of Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place, agrees. “Candace Wellman's years of painstaking research and work with local families have brought to the fore these crucially important histories of Indigenous-settler relations in the far Northwest, and challenge much of the received wisdom about the workings of colonialism in this place.”
Interwoven Lives is paperback, 6" x 9", 310 pages in length, and lists for $27.95. It is available through bookstores nationwide, direct from WSU Press at 800-354-7360 or online at wsupress.wsu.edu. A nonprofit academic publisher associated with Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, WSU Press concentrates on telling unique, focused stories of the Northwest.
[BCBW 2019]
According to WSU Press, producing her manuscript about indigenous women required eighteen years and close to two hundred collaborators.
An expert in research methods, sociology, history, and genealogy, Wellman began by re-scrutinizing old sources and searching for new ones, particularly legal cases. Focusing on cross-cultural couples, she found evidence that, except in rare cases, local and regional historians stereotyped and ignored the Frontier West's intermarried women. Wellman hopes her efforts will inspire others to re-examine the historical role played by these relationships.
Wellman holds a B.A. in Sociology from Washington State University and a B.Ed. in History/Secondary Education from Western Washington University, and has pursued graduate work in sociology. Born in Quincy and raised in Washington, the Bellingham resident is a local history consultant and speaks regularly about women's history and regional settlement.
Candace Wellman's Peace Weavers: Uniting the Salish Coast through Cross-Cultural Marriages (WSU Press, 2017), narrates the lives of four indigenous women, their husbands, and the legacies they left behind in the far northwest corner of Puget Sound.
Caroline Davis Kavanaugh (Samish-Swinomish) lived on a small peninsula nearly her entire life and protected its life-giving spring. She brought both the nephew of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and a literate Irish-born sheriff to her homeland.
Mary Fitzhugh Lear Phillips (S'Klallam) married a territorial justice, then a founder of Wrangell, Alaska, and finally, a Welsh cooper. The first woman sent to the Washington territorial prison, Mary and her small children suffered two years of extreme conditions there before being released.
Clara Tennant Selhameten (Lummi-Duwamish) lived a life of astonishing variety. She was a Lummi leader's daughter who married the son of a famous Arkansas missionary and became the county's first farm wife. After their son's death, the pair traveled throughout the area as Methodist missionaries. Much later, an elderly Clara returned to tribal life as a Nooksack leader's wife.
Nellie Carr Lane (Sto:lo), married for many decades to a well-known Massachusetts seafaring family's scion, was an entrepreneur and navigational light keeper who learned to use the court system to fight for her rights.
These 19th-century indigenous women served as cultural interpreters and mediators, and participated in the birth of new communities. Their fates represent those of thousands of intermarriages that began as soon as the feet of European explorers hit the sands of the New World. Candace Wellman believes there are many more stories to be told.
After reading the manuscript, University of British Columbia professor Coll Thrush, author of Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place commented, "Wellman brings us a set of stories that have been misunderstood, ignored, or covered up by generations of Pacific Northwest historians."
Jean Barman, co-editor of Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture and many other books, called Wellman's research "wide-ranging and by every measure exhaustive."
Peace Weavers is paperback, 6" x 9", 302 pages in length, and lists for $27.95 U.S.
*
PRESS RELEASE, 2019
PULLMAN, Wash.— In the past, many historians chose to ignore the historical significance of indigenous wives during the birth of Bellingham Bay communities, typically mentioning only the first white women. Yet these mid-1800s alliances played a crucial role, with the women serving as cultural interpreters and mediators, aiding settlement, and reducing regional conflict between native peoples and newcomers. The newest book from Washington State University Press, Candace Wellman’s Interwoven Lives: Indigenous Mothers of Salish Coast Communities, depicts the lives of four of these intermarried Native women.
A companion work to Peace Weavers: Uniting the Salish Coast through Cross-Cultural Marriages, Wellman’s first book on Puget Sound’s cross-cultural marriages, Interwoven Lives describes each wife’s native culture, details ancestral history for both spouses, and traces descendants’ destinies, highlighting their contributions to new communities. Wellman’s research also reveals new details about the Northwest life of Captain George W. Pickett, who later became a Civil War brigadier general.
Jenny Wynn, daughter of an elite Lummi and his Songhees wife, owned a farm with her husband Thomas and donated property for the region’s second rural school. Many descendants became teachers. Snoqualmie Elizabeth Patterson, daughter of Patkanim, western Washington’s most powerful native leader, married a cattleman. After tuberculosis took her life, foster parents raised her daughters, who enhanced Lynden’s literary and business growth as adults. Mary Allen was the daughter of a Nlaka’pamux leader on British Columbia’s Fraser River. The village of Marietta arose from her long marriage. Later, her sons played important roles in southeast Alaska’s early development. Mrs. Pickett, the Haida wife of Fort Bellingham’s commander, died young and left no name to history, but she gave birth to one of the West’s most important early artists, James Tilton Pickett.
Wellman won the 2018 WILLA literary award for scholarly nonfiction from Women Writing the West for Peace Weavers. She attributes much of her success to the generous assistance of mentors and numerous contributors. An expert researcher, her methodology combined disparate primary and secondary sources in academic and local history as well as genealogy and family memory—and her discoveries help destroy common stereotypes about these cross-cultural marriages.
Coll Thrush, University of British Columbia professor and author of Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place, agrees. “Candace Wellman's years of painstaking research and work with local families have brought to the fore these crucially important histories of Indigenous-settler relations in the far Northwest, and challenge much of the received wisdom about the workings of colonialism in this place.”
Interwoven Lives is paperback, 6" x 9", 310 pages in length, and lists for $27.95. It is available through bookstores nationwide, direct from WSU Press at 800-354-7360 or online at wsupress.wsu.edu. A nonprofit academic publisher associated with Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, WSU Press concentrates on telling unique, focused stories of the Northwest.
[BCBW 2019]
