Performing the Oregon Trail: Belonging, Space, and Historical Representation in Settler Colonial Oregon

Abstract

This dissertation examines the role that performances of the history and mythology of the Oregon Trail have had in securing the power and futurity of a settler colonial Pacific Northwest at the expense of other social, political, and spatial possibilities. It primarily focuses on how these practices naturalize particular modes of inhabiting and territorial belonging, as well as positions settler colonists as the rightful people of Oregon. To do so, I focus on a range of practices throughout the 20th and 21st centuries which celebrated, represented, and interpreted the Oregon Trail, the primary vehicle for settling the Pacific Northwest by the United States in the mid-19th century. These practices include trail marking, museums and interpretive centers, historical pageantry and parades, and nostalgic reenactments of a popular educational video game. My investigation teases out the role of both representation and performance within my objects of study, grounding both elements within the fundamental reality of settler colonialism: the expropriation and occupation of Indigenous lands by non-Indigenous settlers.