Synchronicity and history...
My attempt at writing a Twilight 'novel' accidentally turned into the Twilight/Quileute research + misc. notes scribbling project. At this point, I'm not sure what to do since there's no way I'm getting any stories written and posted before Breaking Dawn! We'll see if I push ahead with my AU, or just decide to be satisfied with my motley configuration of historical and social facts and vague Jacob/Bella shippiness.
How's this for odd historical coincidences though? In the 1880s there was a clash between the Quileute and a trader whose last name was...Pullen. One letter difference, but still, a bit odd! Obviously this is before our Cullen family timeline, I would love to figure out how to incorporate this into a story, but I haven't figured out it.
An excerpt from the Washington State historical archives which tells of the events leading to a fire which destroyed most of La Push:
Relations between the Quileute and the whites began well, by the early 1880s the Quileute were increasingly in conflict with a settlers who sought to dispossess the Indians of their land and homes in La Push, the Quileute village at the mouth of the Quillayute River. The most notable of these clashes involved Dan Pullen, a white trader. In 1882, a Quileute medicine man named Doctor Obi clashed with Pullen. According to the version of the story recorded by Willoughby, Obi and Pullen fought over a fence that Pullen had put up. Obi apparently tore the fence down and, when Pullen confronted him, the Indian began hitting Pullen with a club and threatened to kill him until Clakishka, a Quileute leader, separated the two men.
But, more than 60 years later, Obi's daughter recalled a different sequence of events, one that may seem more credible given Pullen's subsequent activities in La Push. Julia Obi Bennett Lee told anthropologist George A. Pettitt that Pullen had provoked the fight by trying to force Obi off Obi's land so Pullen could homestead it-something she said that Pullen had already done with other Indians at La Push. When Obi refused, Pullen grabbed Obi and the two began to struggle. As Obi's family members worked to separate the two, Obi picked up the club and began hitting Pullen. Obi was then arrested by his son, an Indian policeman in La Push, and spent most of the next year in jail, probably at Neah Bay.
There is little doubt that Pullen was trying to gain control of La Push. In 1885, Indian Agent Oliver Wood reported that Pullen was creating "a great deal of dissatisfaction" among the Quileute by trying to force them off the land so he could establish a clear claim to it:
The Indians make frequent complaints of the acts of Pullen, but as they are off the reserve I am powerless to give them such protection as they should have. They have occupied this land from before the knowledge of the oldest Indian on the coast or any of their traditions. They have built some very comfortable frame houses and have several very large buildings built in Indian style from lumber manufactured by themselves, and they feel it would be a great hardship to be driven off and lose all their buildings and improvements, and all fair-minded will agree with them. (See Neah Bay Agency Report, 1885.)
How's this for odd historical coincidences though? In the 1880s there was a clash between the Quileute and a trader whose last name was...Pullen. One letter difference, but still, a bit odd! Obviously this is before our Cullen family timeline, I would love to figure out how to incorporate this into a story, but I haven't figured out it.
An excerpt from the Washington State historical archives which tells of the events leading to a fire which destroyed most of La Push:
Relations between the Quileute and the whites began well, by the early 1880s the Quileute were increasingly in conflict with a settlers who sought to dispossess the Indians of their land and homes in La Push, the Quileute village at the mouth of the Quillayute River. The most notable of these clashes involved Dan Pullen, a white trader. In 1882, a Quileute medicine man named Doctor Obi clashed with Pullen. According to the version of the story recorded by Willoughby, Obi and Pullen fought over a fence that Pullen had put up. Obi apparently tore the fence down and, when Pullen confronted him, the Indian began hitting Pullen with a club and threatened to kill him until Clakishka, a Quileute leader, separated the two men.
But, more than 60 years later, Obi's daughter recalled a different sequence of events, one that may seem more credible given Pullen's subsequent activities in La Push. Julia Obi Bennett Lee told anthropologist George A. Pettitt that Pullen had provoked the fight by trying to force Obi off Obi's land so Pullen could homestead it-something she said that Pullen had already done with other Indians at La Push. When Obi refused, Pullen grabbed Obi and the two began to struggle. As Obi's family members worked to separate the two, Obi picked up the club and began hitting Pullen. Obi was then arrested by his son, an Indian policeman in La Push, and spent most of the next year in jail, probably at Neah Bay.
There is little doubt that Pullen was trying to gain control of La Push. In 1885, Indian Agent Oliver Wood reported that Pullen was creating "a great deal of dissatisfaction" among the Quileute by trying to force them off the land so he could establish a clear claim to it:
The Indians make frequent complaints of the acts of Pullen, but as they are off the reserve I am powerless to give them such protection as they should have. They have occupied this land from before the knowledge of the oldest Indian on the coast or any of their traditions. They have built some very comfortable frame houses and have several very large buildings built in Indian style from lumber manufactured by themselves, and they feel it would be a great hardship to be driven off and lose all their buildings and improvements, and all fair-minded will agree with them. (See Neah Bay Agency Report, 1885.)