In this exhibit you can learn about the new system of higher education created by the Morrill Act of 1862, which used proceeds from Native lands in the West to fund agricultural and mechanical colleges throughout the United States. By Kenny Barnes.
VIRGINIA TECH AND INDIGENOUS LAND
“We acknowledge the Tutelo/Monacan people, who are the traditional custodians of the land on which we work and live, and recognize their continuing connection to the land, water, and air that Virginia Tech consumes. We pay respect to the Tutelo/Monacan Nations, and to their elders past, present, and emerging.”- Virginia Tech Land Acknowledgement
Before we move on to Virginia Tech’s long history as a land-grant institution, attention must first be paid to the indigenous tribes whose land the campus rests on, and whose land was seized and sold as a result of the Morrill Act of 1862. Thousands of years before tens of thousands of students and alumni called the land Virginia Tech rests on home, Native peoples occupied and cared for the land. Throughout the Piedmont and Blue Ridge regions, indigenous peoples who would eventually become the Monacans and Tutelos had permanent settlements here by 1000 AD. By 1600, close to 15,000 Monocans lived in towns north and west of Rassawek, the Monocan’s capital city located at the convergence of the Rivanna and James Rivers. The Natives in these towns were custodians of the land, raising crops and hunting local wildlife like beer and deer.
Captain John Smith's Map of Virginia 1607
Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.
During the period of colonization, Monocan towns created a network of trade with European settlers. However, as the 17th and 18th century progressed, European settlers appropriated Native land for plantations, enslaved Africans and Indigenous peoples, and denied them legal rights as they continued to expand westward. While some Monacans stayed in the Blue Ridge mountains following the Civil War, many fled from the Commonwealth to escape the racial persecution of the Jim Crow South. The Monacans who stayed have retained tribal sovereignty and are active in Virginia politics and the Virginia Tech community today. For more information on the relationship between indigenous communities and Virginia Tech, visit https://exhibits.lib.vt.edu/nativeatvt/#.
Modern map of Virginia with Native territories overlayed. Produced by Native-Land.ca
The university has also benefited from 169 tribal lands, the majority of which is located in western states and was given to Virginia by Congress thanks to the Morrill Act of 1862. Remember, the act granted states 30,000 acres of federally controlled land for each member of Congress they had and according to the Land-Grab University Project, Virginia was granted 299,115 acres of former indigenous land. The map below shows the exact location of the Morrill Act lands Virginia received, and clicking here will direct you to High Country News where you can interact with the map and find indigenous land information for all 50 states. In total, the US federal government redistributed nearly 11 million acres of indigenous land to 52 land grant institutions. Through broken treaties and more than 160 violence backed land-cessions, the federal government acquired the land from 250 indigenous tribes.
This maps traces the distance from Virginia Tech to the parcels of land they received from the Morill Act of 1862. Produced by High Country News.
As you can see, almost all of the land Virginia Tech received from the Morrill Act came from western states, where “public land” was still readily available. A portion of the land parcels were located in the fertile Willamette Valley of western Oregon and sold to Hannah A. Perkins, whose patent for the land is pictured to the right. Although public land at the time of this purchase in 1873, the Willamette Valley had been a hotbed of indigenous and settler conflict for decades prior.
In the mid 19th century, no fewer than 20 indiegenous tribes lived in the Willamette Valley of western Oregon. These consisted of several tribes and bands of Kalapuya, Molala, and Chinook peoples, each who’s ancestors had served as custodians of the land for thousands of years. The region provided them with an abundance of agricultural resources, and the fertile soil of the valley made it a lucrative prize for white settlers looking to profit from a move out west. By the 1840s word of the region's riches had made it east, and tens of thousands of settlers pushed west along the Oregon Trail looking to carve out their own piece of land. To accommodate the increasing number of western settlers, Congress passed The Oregon Donation Land Act in 1850, granting 320 acres of public land to each new settler in the Oregon territory. Those eligible for the land were “every white settler or occupant of the public lands, American half-breed Indians included...being a citizen of the United States, or having made a declaration according to law of his intention to become a citizen.” By the time the act expired just 5 years later in 1855, an estimated 30,000 immigrants had made their way to the Oregon territory, with 7,000 individuals making claims to 2.5 million acres of land.
Hannah A. Perkins' patent for land in Willamette Valley, Oregon. Officially acquired from from Virginia on 7/30/1873.
Depictions of Willamette Valley, Oregon, mid 19th century. Image courtesy of Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Intentionally omitted from the Donation Land Act were indiegnous peoples who continued to live as members of their native tribe. Besides the glaring omission of land rights to the descendants of the land's native inhabitants, there was one other issue with the Oregon Donation Land Act- in order to give the land away, it first had to be public. So, before the Donation Land Act was passed, Congress first passed legislation permitting land commissioners to negotiate treaties with western Oregon indigenous tribes and nations, and the Willamette Valley Treaty Commission was formed.
Depiction of a Kalapuya native, 1841. Image courtesy of Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Their task was to extinguish the natives from their ancestral lands, leaving “the whole of the most desirable portions open to white settlers.” Much of that desirable land was in the Willamette Valley, west of the Cascade Mountains. Over the next 5 years, the Willamette Valley Treaty Commission and others negotiated a total of 24 unratified treaties with the various indigenous tribes of western Oregon. The majority of these treaties included significant land cessions while promising several small indigenous reservations remain in the Willamette Valley. Most indigenous tribes were still unwilling to leave their ancestral homeland. The Kalapuya and Molala were unwilling to abandon their ancestors’ graves, and Santiam leader Alquema professed, “it may be better for us, but our minds are made up. We wish to reserve this piece of land… We would rather be shot on it than to [be] removed.”
Map of the Siletz Indian Reservation, 1900. Oregon Historical Society Research Library, Willamette Pulp and Paper Co., Map 259
During the same period in the 1850s, violence between natives and settlers continued to escalate in southwest Oregon. A long series of conflicts known as the Rogue River War were fought between white settlers seeking to expand and natives trying to defend their ancestral home. The violence reached such heights that in 1855, Governor Palmer made the decision that all indigenous peoples be moved from their homes in southwest Oregon to reservations on the western edge of the Willamette Valley. By this point the native population had been decimated by disease. Originally numbering in the thousands, the Kalapuya population was now under 400, and little could be done to prevent the forceful removal from their lands. In return for ceding the land, the Kalapuya were promised a permanent settlement; annuities; educational, vocational and health services; and most importantly, protection from violent white settlers. In the winter of 85-86, the Kalapuya along with the rest of the native population of southwest Oregon were forced to march and relocate away from their home of thousands of years.
The original Coast Reservation where the natives were to be transported was created by executive order in 1855, and encompassed more than a million acres west of the Coast Mountain Range, making up roughly ⅓ of Oregon’s coastline. At first, all of the roughly 27 tribes of western Oregon lived within the reservation's borders. Over the next 20 years however, presidential executive orders and congressional acts severely reduced the size of the reservation. By the 20th century the Coast Reservation ceased to exist and native tribes were reassigned to Siletz and Grand Ronde reservations, each of which had been within the borders of the original Coast Reservation. They too saw their size reduced throughout the latter portion of the 19th and 20th centuries.
By 1954, the federal government began the process of terminating groups within the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation and by 1956 over 60 tribes in Western Oregon and the surrounding area had been terminated. This process of termination forced many to relocate and look for employment in cities, contributing to the reduction in indegenous culture. In 1983 however, the Grand Ronde Restoration Act was passed, restoring 9,811 acres of the reservation's original land. Since, the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon population has reached over 5,000 and they are actively engaged in collaborative projects with state and local agencies, helping to educate the public on their indigenous history.
This is just one example of the hundreds of broken treaties and violence backed land cessions used by the US federal government to acquire tens of millions of land in western territories. Without this land, the Morrill Act of 1862 would not have been possible, and the land-grant system as we know it may never have come to fruition. Today, many universities are working to repay their debt to indigenous communities in a variety of ways.
