The Umatilla Reservation in eastern Oregon is home to the Umatilla, Cayuse, and Walla Walla tribes. The tribes depended on the Columbia River for food, water, and cultural needs. Settlers arrived in the late 1700s, causing disease and cultural tensions. In 1855, the tribes ceded 6.4 million acres to the US and set aside 510,000 acres for the reservation. The reservation shrunk to 158,000 acres by 1880, but the tribes formed a tribal government in 1949. The government has since worked to preserve cultural heritage, conserve the environment, and promote economic self-reliance through initiatives such as the Wildhorse Casino.
The Umatilla Reservation is an approximately 270 square mile (702 square km) area reserved for Native American tribes in Umatilla County in eastern Oregon. The reservation is home to three tribes: the Umatilla, the Cayuse and the Walla Walla. The tribes moved to the Umatilla Reservation in 1855 and formed a tribal government in 1949.
Tribes who would later occupy the Umatilla Reservation first settled the Columbia Plateau, a vast expanse of land that includes present-day northern Oregon, western Idaho, and much of Washington. The land was irrigated by the Columbia River and a network of smaller rivers and streams that ran from the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade Range to the ocean. The Umatilla, Cayuse and Walla Walla tribes depended on the river for food, water, transportation, and cultural and spiritual needs. They ate fish, mushrooms, roots and berries. Due to their central location, the three tribes facilitated trade between the buffalo hunters of Idaho and the fishing and ocean cultures along the Pacific Ocean.
Spanish and English explorers traveled the Pacific Northwest in the late 1700s. Disease spread along the Columbia River and many hundreds of Indians died from European diseases such as smallpox. American explorers Lewis and Clark made contact with Walla Walla in 1805.
Explorers paved the way for thousands of white settlers who traveled west in search of cheaper land and open space. Beginning in 1843, wagons traveled the famed Oregon Trail into Oregon Territory. Competition for space inflamed cultural tensions between settlers and Indians. The tribes felt that the US government was encouraging whites to purchase land without consulting the Indians already living there.
In 1855, a council met to form an Indian reservation in the region. After four years of denial, the Treaty Council decided to create the Umatilla Reservation where Walla Walla, Cayuse and Umatilla would live together. The tribes ceded 6.4 million acres (about 2.6 million hectares) to the United States and set aside 510,000 acres (206,390 hectares) to live on.
The Indians were relocated, sometimes forcibly, from their homes to the reservation. The government sold the freed land to settlers. Most of the residents of the Umatilla Reserve fished and raised small gardens for food. The missionaries built schools on the reservation; these mission schools enforced harsh rules and forbade children to speak Indian languages.
In the 1860s, settlers realized that the lands of the Umatilla Reservation were fertile enough to grow grain and graze cattle. They have begun lobbying their local governments to reduce the boundaries of the reservation. In 1880, the United States government began a series of laws pushing back the boundaries of the Umatilla reservation. Within ten years, the reservation shrunk to 158,000 acres (64,000 hectares), about a quarter of its original size.
During the 20th century, the government began to redress the unfair treatment of Native Americans. The legislation returned some of the land that had previously been sold to settlers. Indians realized they needed to organize themselves politically to strengthen their voice. The tribes of the Umatilla Reservation created the Confederate Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR), a tribal government, in 1949.
Since then, CTUIR has been active in preserving Indian cultural heritage, advancing the tribes into the 21st century. The government won grants and land reparations for its people. He also worked to conserve the region’s natural environment and to clean and stock the polluted Columbia River with fish. As part of an economic self-reliance initiative, the tribes opened the Wildhorse Casino and resort in 1995.
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