Ever think of St. Johns as a center of resistance to British rule of India? Neither did author Johanna Ogden until she began researching Oregon's early 1900s Indian community. Ogden will discuss the causes and consequences of the 1910 riot, focusing on Ghadar, the global radical nationalist organization that migrant Indian laborers founded in its wake. She will examine how a small Indian settlement in the West became a center of resistance against the British and launched an era-defining U.S. Supreme Court case as well as the US and British governments' efforts to suppress them. In the early 1900s, Oregon was at the center of two entwined quests for Indian independence and civic belonging that rocked the world. To understand why one of the smallest western Indian settlements became a resistance center, Ogden's Punjabi Rebels of the Columbia River mines the colonial underpinnings of labor, race, and place-making and their regional and global connections, rendering a history of whiteness and labor as much as of Indian-ness and migration. Punjabi Rebels complicates our understanding, not just of the global fight for Indian political rights but also of multi-racial democracy. 

Enjoy 15% off your hotel stay on History Pub nights! Show your ticket at check-in.

These events are open to everyone interested in Pacific Northwest history, and beyond! Often co-sponsored by local or state historical and civic organizations, we bring you experts, scholars, first-person experiencers, historians and documentaries expounding on topics from indigenous history to the birth of Portland, early explorers to hop growing, and on and on! It's like being back in the classroom - except this time you get to settle into comfortable seats and enjoy a drink or two with dinner while you listen and learn.

This event is eligible for a History Pub Stamp