Amanda's Trail Yachats

A woman loses her daughter to her common-law husband because he refuses to marry her. Without a legal marriage she not only loses her daughter, she is forced to walk barefoot and blind from the Coos Bay area to Yachats in May 1864. She is just one of many on this trail of blood and tears when the Bureau of Indian Affairs forced the relocation dozens of members of the Coos and Lower Umpqua tribes from their homes to an internment camp at Yachats.

Today we can retrace a very short segment of Amanda De-Cuys’ trail of torture. I cannot fathom the pain of Amanda De-Cuys as I leave the waterfront of downtown Yachats along Highway 101 to Gender Drive. Where I cross to the east side and wander to rainforest where I find Amanda’s shrine.

Was it Amanda’s gender or her ethnicity or both that tore her daughter, Julia, and her home from her? I wonder if we are still part of this violence today as a group of women here in Corvallis seek to change the rape law of Oregon. You do not see the connection? I do. Women are used and abused here today in Corvallis, Oregon, and if there is no demonstrable physical harm them, they have no remedy under our law.

As I walked Amanda’s trail the Trilliums and Bleeding Hearts were in bloom last spring. What a disturbing metaphor for Amanda’s life. What a disturbing metaphor for the victims of today’s violence in Oregon.