Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Marc James Carpenter, "The War on Illahee: Genocide, Complicity, and Cover-Ups in the Pioneer Northwest" (Yale UP, 2025)
Date: February 13, 2026
Host: Steve Hausmann
Guest: Dr. Marc James Carpenter (Associate Professor of History, University of Jamestown)

Episode Overview

This episode features historian Marc James Carpenter discussing his recent book, The War on Illahee: Genocide, Complicity, and Cover-Ups in the Pioneer Northwest. The conversation explores the hidden and violent history of the Pacific Northwest’s so-called pioneer era, diving into the genocide of Native peoples, the mechanisms of complicity and cover-up, and the battle over memory and historical narrative. Carpenter unpacks not only the violence itself, but also how subsequent generations sanitized and erased these actions from public memory—issues that remain urgent and relevant today.

Key Discussion Points

1. Marc Carpenter’s Path to the Book

• Carpenter describes a personal journey into historical research, sparked by family literary interest and a realization in graduate school:

  “Everything has been written. And then you dig just a little bit further and it turns out there's so much still left to be written…” (02:00)

• Initial focus was a supposed Native-rights advocate, Joseph Lane, only to discover through sources that Lane was instead, “one of the most wicked human beings I’ve ever had the displeasure to read sources from. He despised Native people... He was proud of his experiences killing them... I also found... in addition to being a murderer, he was a rapist.” (03:38)
• The book expanded beyond Lane to explore a pattern: “There are dozens of Joseph Lanes. This is a story that happens over and over and over again...” (04:30)
• Carpenter emphasizes that early historians deliberately covered up these acts:

  “The first generation of historians in the Pioneer Northwest did deliberate efforts to make sure that the stories of genocide, of sexual assault, the other dark sides of colonialism would not reach the light of day…” (05:55)

2. Defining Genocide for the Northwest Context

• The legal and historical use of "genocide" is treated with precision:

  “When I use the word in this book, I use it in two distinct ways. I talk about genocide, and every once in a while... cultural genocide. When I talk about genocide, I'm talking about it in the legal sense… actions taken by people with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnical, racial or religious group...” (07:52)

• Carpenter stresses the intent of both individuals and the state:

  “It really does matter when a state is responsible for genocide, but it also matters when people are responsible for genocide...What I'm able to show in this book is that there are a number of specific people who have committed acts of genocide in this period...” (10:22)

• On the persistent confusion over the term:

  “Many people's definition of genocide is, does it look enough like the Holocaust?...But it [was] also meant to try and stop this horrific crime against humanity that had been part of history since time immemorial.” (09:26)

3. Illahee: Place & Indigenous Context

• The region covered is roughly contemporary Oregon and Washington; “Illihi” comes from the Chinookan term for “homeland.” (14:19)
• The region was and remains a tapestry of Indigenous nations, interconnected by trade, language, and family. Carpenter prefers “Illahee” over more colonial designations to honor the scale and continuity of Indigenous place and presence.

  “I used it in part because this is a region that had some regional thinking behind it before the arrival of Europeans… this is a place of home.” (16:26)

4. Beginning and Arc of the War

• Early settler-Native interactions were always tense, but war escalates post-Whitman “Incident” and its violent, disproportionate retribution.

  “There's no period where there's not some rumble of discontent or violence between newcomers... Where I put the beginning of something that looks more like a formal war is shortly after what's sometimes known as the Whitman Massacre.” (18:56)

• Carpenter emphasizes the land hunger and expansionist narratives settlers used to justify violence:

  “The mean...reason for the killings is we want land, and it belongs to other people. But...people build up ideologies and narratives to make the story something else...a notion that there is a right to this land that is conferred by being an American or more often by being white.” (22:19)

• Violence becomes locally and regionally organized, often under the banner of “Indian war,” with multiple local and federal actors.

5. Forms of Violence and Resistance

• Violence escalates, peaks 1855–1856, but persists many years. Resistance varied—some Native nations sought alliances or neutrality, many were drawn in by settler violence.
• The violence continued after “formal” war ended, with lynchings (both “legal” and extralegal), summary executions, and persistent threats:

  “What makes a lynching a lynching...can be a little bit broader than just a kind of mob acting definitively outside of the law...Just because somebody's wearing a judge's robe or policeman's outfit or military uniform doesn't mean they're not lynching if they're not following...due process of the law.” (33:15)

• Native survival and adaptation is foregrounded:

  “The fact that we know about it and can talk about it, particularly that the descendants of those who are targeted can survive, to speak truth to power is a sign that the genocide heirs did not fully succeed.” (13:23)

6. Memory, Cover-Up, and the Politics of History

• The erasure was intentional and contested; some settler veterans wanted their violence recognized and rewarded, whereas others wanted a sanitized story.

  “Turns out the idea of just claiming that the truth didn’t happen goes way, way back.” (38:12)

• Over time, narratives converge toward peaceful settlement, reinforced by monuments, textbooks, and professional historians’ reluctance to “rake up old stories of evil.”

  “The overall narrative of the state...is one of peaceful settlement. I end the book in the 1930s, where...the new Capitol building [in Oregon is dedicated as] the only part of the country that was attained by peaceful settlement rather than war.” (41:07)

• Native voices were always contesting this, writing to historians in vain, but largely ignored until the late twentieth century.

7. Legacy and the Question of Reckoning

• Carpenter is cautiously optimistic, seeing some local activism and educational reforms, especially from tribal educators like David Lewis, but notes “there hasn’t been a ton of reckoning with this region’s past.” (43:30)
• He stresses the importance of acknowledging ongoing Indigenous presence:

  “Native nations have been here since time immemorial. They're still here now, and they'll be here in the future.” (44:14)

• Real reckoning would involve official acknowledgment and apology, and moving toward a “shared future.”

  “My hope is that...by showing the cover-up, that helps convince people of the lie.” (45:00)

8. Reflections on Historiography

• The book is a call to question received wisdom and dig into the origins of consensus history, even for professional historians:

  “I hope that it can maybe inspire a broader instinct and reflection to make sure to look at the story that created the story, right...think through what are the older books that we've all just assumed are real and did good history that my field is still leaning on...make sure they still stand.” (47:05)

9. Next Project Preview

• Carpenter hints at a sequel, tentatively titled Snake Wars and Civil Wars, to explore the Civil War era and continued Indigenous resistance and violence in the Northwest:

  “There's almost nothing that's been written on the Snake War...again, kind of like with this one, when I'm looking for the books that I need to draw on and I can't find them...that might be me yet again.” (49:03)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the challenge of historical reckoning:

  "You have to really support that. You can't just throw around words like cover ups. And I, again I think I can say that because they wrote to each other. Make sure to cover this up. Right. Almost that exact language." (06:45 — Dr. Carpenter)

• On the erasure and rewriting of history:

  “We were the only part of the country that was attained by peaceful settlement rather than war. Right? Completely denying the war…” (41:07 — Dr. Carpenter)

• On the persistent legacy:

  “The vast majority, significant majority, maybe a vast majority...of Americans in Oregon and Washington are not in any way okay with the actions that I am describing. Right. Are not okay with genocidal violence as a concept. Don't want people to have done that.” (44:45 — Dr. Carpenter)

• On historical humility:

  “Just thinking about how do we know what we know is a good first step before we enter into the whole postmodern morass, as you put it.” (48:24 — Host Steve Hausmann)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction and Carpenter’s Path: 00:51–06:31
• Definition and Use of “Genocide”: 07:06–13:23
• Illahee, Place, and Regional Context: 13:50–17:46
• Beginnings of the War and Settler Justifications: 18:40–22:19
• Arc and Expansion of Violence: 25:23–30:43
• Forms of Violence (Lynching, Extralegal Activity): 30:43–36:02
• Memory, Cover-Up, Monuments: 36:02–43:02
• Legacy and Reckoning: 43:02–46:41
• Final Reflections (What Readers Should Remember): 46:41–48:34
• Future Research Directions: 49:03–50:33

Takeaways for New Listeners

• Carpenter’s research brings powerful light to a deliberately hidden chapter in the Northwest’s past.
• Not only about acknowledging violence and genocide but also understanding the mechanisms of historical cover-up and complicity.
• The book serves as both a historical corrective and a meditation on the ethics of memory, history-writing, and public reckoning—issues that resonate far beyond the Northwest.

For those who want a deeper dive into the complex, contested histories of the Pacific Northwest—and the ways those histories are hidden or denied—this conversation is essential listening.