Independent Historian

Gregory Paynter Shine is the chief ranger and historian at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site and the Vancouver National Historic Reserve, with locations in Oregon and Washington State. He is also an adjunct faculty member in the History Department at Portland State University, where he instructs graduate students in the annual public history field school. An Indiana native, Shine holds a BA from Wabash College and an MA in U.S. history from San Francisco State University.  Shine’s master’s thesis explored, in part, the public memory of Mary Ellen Pleasant, an African American entrepreneur in San Francisco. Shine has published studies for the National Park Service and articles for several journals and magazines, including Oregon Historical Quarterly and Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History.

The Manumission of Monimia Travers: A Slave Freed at Fort Vancouver

Few people identify slavery with Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.  However, there were slaves in the region particularly in the decade before the Civil War.  In the following article, Gregory Paynter Shine, the Chief Ranger and Historian at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, describes … Read MoreThe Manumission of Monimia Travers: A Slave Freed at Fort Vancouver

Buffalo Soldiers at Vancouver, Washington Barracks (1899-1900)

In 1849 the U.S. Army established its first military post in the Pacific Northwest at Vancouver, Washington.  Known varyingly as Columbia Barracks, Fort Vancouver, and, since 1879, Vancouver Barracks, the post played a leading role in major military actions in the nineteenth century American West, … Read MoreBuffalo Soldiers at Vancouver, Washington Barracks (1899-1900)