TRIBAL HISTORY
A Piece of Siletz History
by Robert Kentta, Cultural Resources Director
This is the 11th in a series of articles about our tribal history.
The previous article described some of the activity surrounding
the 1865 executive order that opened 200,000 acres of our
reservation to settlement. This article will cover the 10-year period
immediately following that first reduction, a decade of changing
federal policy that ended with the second massive taking of our
Coast (Siletz) Reservation lands.
Part XI — Changing Federal Policy and
Reduction of the Coast Reservation by
Act of Congress, 1875
As stated at the beginning of last month’s article, to really
understand our history is to understand each event or situation
survived by our people. But we must be careful not to look at each
event or era in isolation, but holistically as it relates to the whole
continuum of events affecting our people. We also must try to
understand each event or era as it relates to national, state, and
local politics, the “court” of public opinion, and the pressures that
interested individuals with political influence can have.
The 1865 executive order that opened the Yaquina Bay region
to settlement had dramatic and lasting effects. It confirmed that our
people would not be treated fairly and that we could not put our faith
in the U.S. government to look after our interests.
During the 1850s, our people were recognized as sovereign
self-governing groups through the treaties that were signed with
us. The treaties were negotiated on an uneven playing field and
federal policy toward our people was subtly hinted at within the text
of the treaties (agricultural implements, teachers and schools, etc.,
to be provided). Over time, the acceptance of these gifts and
payments for our ceded lands became mandatory and federal policy
not only was dictated, but also strictly enforced - both on and off
the reservation.
Eventually, the United States led itself to believe that it held
unlimited power and could implement whatever policies it deemed
to be “in the best interests of the Indians.” Eventually, the U.S
Supreme Court would back up that philosophy by ruling that
Congress has “plenary power over Indian affairs (can take any
unilateral action it wants - but must compensate for taking vested
rights or property).
Remember that during this time, the official version of our
history was that an executive order established our reservation as
a temporary, emergency measure because the Senate failed to
ratify the 1855 Coast Treaty. Today, we know that the executive
order should have been recognized as a required delegation of
authority to the president under our ratified treaties. Even though
that old official” interpretation has been proven false, it was used
repeatedly as justification for taking our lands, rights, and resources
without compensation because we supposedly didn’t have any real,
titled interest in the things that were being taken.
In the years following the 1865 executive order, great changes
took place in the way that the United States looked at tribes as
governments. Federal policy increasingly moved toward
assimilation of the individual Indian and less toward recognizing
tribal governments or traditional ways of political organization.
Federal policy treated our people as wards of the government,
children to be trained, threatened, and inspired into all that parents
think their children should be, and punished if necessary.
That attitude in politics and in public opinion grew (with the
help of other pressing issues) to create a shift in policy. Resentment
had been building in the U.S. House of Representatives for some
time because Indian tribes, as groups with apparently (at least in
the eyes of the U.S.) diminishing sovereignty, were still treated as
independent sovereigns. The opinion was evolving that Indians were
definitely wards or at least dependent, domestic nations. The
House’s problem was with the fact that it had no say over the treaty
system. It was bound by the Senate’s treaty ratifications. The House
was expected to pass (in its mind - exorbitant) appropriations
legislation to carry out treaty provisions with which it did not
always agree.
The House raised such a fuss that in the late 1860s, there
were several sessions in which appropriations bills did not get
passed for following through with treaty agreements already ratified
and proclaimed by the president to be “the law of the land.”
Other issues also drove these changes. Over the years, it
became increasingly common for treaties to state that individual
Indians’ debts (to traders, merchants, etc.) would be covered off
the top of appropriated funds for treaties. This, of course, led to a
debased system of graft and corruption that irked any white man
with a conscience. It ripped off the tribes as a whole and made
some unscrupulous traders fabulously wealthy.
Some politicians wanted to totally dismantle the treaty system
by declaring all formerly ratified treaties null and void, only dealing
with Indian affairs by legislation from that point on. Others, thankfully,
saw the great national shame that would result from such action,
and plead for carrying out, in good faith, treaties already ratified
and proclaimed. Debate on the treaty system finally ended with
legislation passed in 1871 that ended the treaty-making system
but affirmed the recognition of those treaties previously
entered into.
From that point on, treaties continued to be negotiated but were
not called treaties. Instead, they were called “agreements” with tribes
and were obtained through a standard legislative process rather
than through Senate ratification and presidential proclamation.
Meanwhile, on the home front, affairs were not exactly tidy.
The Oregon Legislature, encouraged by the response to its 1865
petition for access to Yaquina Bay, began passing a barrage of
memorials to Congress in the early 1870s. These asked Congress
to help Oregon citizens obtain lands and resources then within our
reservation. Rumors began to circulate on the reservation that our
people would soon be rounded up and taken to another reservation.
In 1874, an inspector of the Indian Department (Inspector
Kemble) made a visit to the Siletz Agency and met with our
headmen. He heard all the complaints, grievances, and rumors of
removal. He issued a report to the acting secretary of the Interior,
(See Tribal History on page 30)
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