| As the Columbia River had served as a vital transportation and commercial “highway” for our ancestors since time immemorial, so too would the river became a key route for thousands of white immigrants. By 1852 over 12,000 settlers were traveling through our Warm Springs and Wasco territories each year. While most continued on, many of these newcomers settled on our Indian lands. And as with other areas of such settlement, tensions rose and government officials sought to resolve the conflict by removing Indians rather than defending our rights to remain on our homelands.
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Reggie Winishut reflects on some of the early days along the Deschutes River. (Interviewed by F. Duran Bobb, October 2002) |
 | | Mountain View of Mount Hood |
In June of 1855 Joel Palmer, the Superintendent for the Oregon Territory, met with 89 Warm Springs and Wasco delegates to negotiate a treaty establishing the Warm Springs Reservation, known as the "Treaty with the Tribes of Middle Oregon, 1855." See Treaty of 1855. On the third day of the treaty deliberations, many of the signees spoke of their concerns. You have a rare opportunity to read the actual words spoken by the eventual signees and Joel Palmer at the three days of these treaty negotiations (recorded by William McKay). See Transcripts of the Treaty Council. While objecting to many of its provisions, we were forced to sign a treaty that relinquished over 10 million acres of our traditional homeland. Our new “reserved” home was far to the south of the heart of our former homeland and consisted of some 640,000 acres, approximately 5 percent of our aboriginal domain. We reserved the exclusive right to continue to fish, gather and hunt in our “usual and accustomed” places off the reservation. See Usual and Accustomed. Provisions were also made to provide certain goods and services, including education, to assist in the transition to our new lives. While many families had relocated by 1857, the promised provision never came.
During the early reservation years the federal government pursued a number of policies that attempted to assimilate our families into the American mainstream. In 1874 a boarding school was established in Forest Grove and later moved to Salem, over 100 miles from the reservation. By educating our children far from their homes, it was easier to instill non-Indian values and prevent them from speaking our own languages and maintaining our Indian identities. The Chemawa Indian School is still used today as a private school for Indian youth.
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Ralph Minnick considers the effects of the Dawes Act or General Allotment Act of 1887 on the ownwership of land on the reservation, and of the Tribe's efforts at the reacquisition of land. (Interviewed by Rodney Frey, June 2003) |
In 1887 the Dawes Act was imposed on reservation lands throughout the country. To help promote the value of individual land ownership and break-up of large family holdings generally, each Indian was to be given 160 acres. Following the allotment, “surplus” allotment lands were then “free” to be opened up to white settlement. But as Ralph Minnick suggests, the remote location of our reservation prevented many non-Indians from considering these allotments. Tribal ownership of large tracts of land thus continued, with very few non-Indians acquiring land on the Warm Springs Reservation. The economically and socially disastrous consequences of the Dawes Act experienced by so many other tribes was thus spared on the Warm Springs Reservation.
While the reservation was established in 1855, its boundaries were not surveyed until 1871, and then it was done improperly. Over 60,000 acres along the northern and western boundaries were left out of the reservation. In 1887, John McQuinn re-surveyed the area correctly. However it was not until 1972 that Congress finally acknowledged the error and restored the richly forested area to tribal ownership.
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Jacob Frank reflects on the difference between Indian and "white man's" religion, language and law, and on the role of "heart knowledge" and the "written word." "Some of it was good and some of it bad." (Interviewed by F. Duran Bobb and Tim Finch, December 2002) |
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Jacob Frank continues to reflect on the differences between Indian and "white man's" "law," and the strength that the Indian has found in the face of changes because the Indian way was given by the Creator. (Interviewed by F. Duran Bobb and Tim Finch, December 2002) |
While none of our Paiute ancestors were present at the signing of the 1855 Treaty, some Paiute families had hunted and gathered in the area that would become the Warm Springs Reservation. In 1878 Paiutes joined the Bannocks from the Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho in a war against the U.S government. But upon defeat, many Paiutes were moved to the Yakama Reservation in Washinton state or were imprisoned at Fort Vancouver, Washington. With their release in 1879, thirty-eight Paiutes moved to the Warm Springs Reservation, later joined by other Paiutes who came from the Yakama Reservation, all becoming members of our emerging community.
The federal policy of assimilation was reversed in 1934 with the Indian Reorganization Act. The Act ended the allotment of lands and sought to restore tribal ownership to “surplus” lands. Tribal constitutions and governments were to be established by consent of the people. In 1937 the “Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon” as formally named, made up of the enrolled members of the Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute tribes. See Tribal Governance. With the construction of The Dalles Dam, a $4 million settlement was made to the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs in 1957 for the destruction and inundation of the Celilo Falls fisheries. The payment was used to revitalize various economic development initiatives, eventually resulting in the Kah-Nee-Ta Resort and the Warm Springs Forest Products Industries. See Natural Resources. The reassertion of our tribal sovereignty was bolstered by the enactment of the 1975 Self-Determination Act. With this act, we have assumed the control of our education, health care, natural resource management, and law enforcement.
© Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs 2003
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