Some History
My grandfather’s side of the family had the name Joe in the 1800s, but around 1890-1900 changed it to Perley.
I should tell a story…back in the day we had few resources and survival was a struggle. We couldn’t be trusted to handle our own affairs, so we were assigned Indian Agents to “help” us…but Indian Agents treated us like dirt and are known for stealing from us more than anything else. We had been nomadic (mostly) before being stuck on the rez, going to shore in the spring for duck eggs, following the streams and river when fishing was good, and hunting in the woods. We did have a little settlement of mostly women, children, and the elderly at Aukpague in the spring/summer for growing the three sisters; corn, squash, and beans…so not entirely nomadic. But they didn’t like us wandering all over the place and onto “their” land, so the told us to settle down and become farmers, and that they would provide tools, seed, etc. Our Indian Agent was known to send the seed to us months after it was supposed to be in the ground already, so that we would be lucky to have enough crops to feed ourselves and definitely not any surplus to sell and make a little money. Can’t have us competing with the neighboring white farmers.
But then we got a new Indian Agent, this one was kick-ass. One of our few resources was the trees in our forests, and white folks from town would come in and cut down whatever they wanted and then sell it to the mills. This new Indian Agent would arrive as they were making the deal and take the money and come back and give it to us. Or he would show up as they were floating the logs down the river and confiscate them. He pissed off the white folks in town!
His name was…Perley.
