Ulrich, Roberta. Empty Nets: Indians, Dams and the Columbia River. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, OR, 1999. (Reviewed by Laura Gayton)
Summary:
“When white men first arrived on the Columbia River, they described salmon as so numerous a person could walk across the river on their wriggling backs” (Ulrich 5). By the 1930's, during the institution of the New Deal by President Roosevelt and the establishment of the Public Works Administration, which would fund much of the construction of dams on the Columbia River, including the Bonneville, the populations of fish were less numerous. Salmon were a primary resource for Native Americans, including the Wasco tribe and others living along the Columbia River on both the Oregon and Washington sides. “So important were the fish that in three 1855 treaties tribes gave up an area larger than Tennessee in exchange for a guarantee that they could forever fish, hunt and gather roots and berries in their accustomed places” (Ulrich 6).
Written by retired journalist Roberta Ulrich, Empty nets: Indians, dams, and the Columbia River, tackles the issue of Native American fishing rights on the Columbia River. Native American fishing sites were flooded at the beginning of operation and the closure of the Bonneville gates of Bonneville Dam in December 1, 1937. Tribes who formerly fished these sites were due for restitution and given new sites on which to fish in the 1930s, and, as of 1999, had not seen any real forward movement on this issue. Roberta Ulrich's book, written in response to this decades-long denial of land use rights, uses many primary sources, such as government documents and interviews with Native Americans, to shed light on the government's mistreatment of these people and their struggle to claim what is due to them.
This book also addresses issues of tribal government creation, legislation, litigation, and tribal rights by treaties. The book directly addresses issues that are still in contention today, including rights of Native Americans to land historically used for fishing, their rights to harvest fish even though anadromous fish populations have declined rapidly, and the exploitation of Native Americans' resources by the primarily white government, from the time of Lewis and Clark until now.
Critique:
One problem with the work is that the author does not cite her sources in the text. Instead, she uses quotations and attributes them to people and/or organizations, but the actual book or article or legal document from which she pulled the quote remains unclear. At the back of the book, it reads, “A fully annotated manuscript of this work is available in the Oregon Historical Research Library” (Ulrich 238). This is both helpful to know and quite unhelpful.
Overall, this book is informative and a unique synthesis of investigative journalism, biological data (salmonid population numbers, etc), sociological analysis and land rights litigation. It is a valuable resource which informs and stimulates discussion on land rights and native peoples.
Robert D. Clark Honors College, University of Oregon
HC 441: Science Colloquium, Columbia River Ecology
Fall term, 2005
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