A Family Story from Native California: The Wright Family, Kinship and Mobility In California, 1849-1941

William Bauer, professor of history at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, examines one family's story as part of the experience of Native peoples between the “abyss” of the 19th century and their return and revival in the 20th.

Using the history of the Wright family on California’s Round Valley Reservation, William Bauer, professor of history at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, examines the ability of one family to demonstrate power and vitality in an era where Native peoples saw their way of life undercut by the United States and the state of California. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, American Indians entered what might be considered a historical “abyss.” The United States incarcerated American Indians on reservations and circumscribed tribal sovereignty. These actions produced catastrophic population decline, poverty, and political impotence. These conditions required that Native peoples adapt their economies to new circumstances, adopt new family and kinship practices, and create new political opportunities. The collective survival and activities of the Wright family serve as a bridge between the “abyss” of the 19th century and the return and revival of Native peoples and nations in the 20th.

About the Speaker:
William Bauer is a professor of history and a citizen of the Round Valley Reservation in northern California. He received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. Bauer offers classes on American Indian history, the history of American Indian gaming and the American West. He is also UNLV's faculty liaison to the Newberry Library's Consortium on American Indian Studies. Bauer is currently writing a history of California Indians and working on a family biography, based on the life of his great-grandfather.