TRIBAL PROGRAM NEWS
Many genera
tions offamilies,
from elders
to newborns,
attended the
treaty commem
oration. Sister
Francella Griggs
(above, second
from left) was
the oldest
person there
and Harrison
Smith (left
photo, baby on
right) was the
youngest.
Treaty, con’t from page 1
Valley (Takelma, Shasta and
Dakubetede or Applegate River
Athapascans),” said Robert Kentta,
Cultural Resources director.
The commemoration included a
welcome from Tribal Chairman Delores
Pigsley; an invocation in the Native
language by Bud Lane, language/
traditional arts instructor; historical
information sharing by Kentta; and a
presentation by Dave Hubin, executive
assistant president at the University of
Oregon. A buffet dinner was followed
by the Siletz Feather Dancers.
Kentta’s presentation included a
detailed review of the history of the con
federated tribes. Under the Rogue River
Treaty, the tribes reluctantly agreed to
cede title to the entire Rogue Valley east
of the Applegate River watershed. They
agreed to confederate and live within
the boundaries of the Table Rock Tempo
rary Reservation until the president
selected a permanent reservation.
This reservation’s boundaries ran
from the southern base of Lower Table
Rock to the gap in the southern face of
Upper Table Rock, and from there
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Siletz News • □
northwesterly to the upper part of Evans
Creek. The boundaries then followed
Evans Creek and the Rogue River to the
place of beginning at Lower Table Rock.
The primary representatives of the
U.S. were Joel Palmer (superintendent
of Indian Affairs in Oregon Territory),
Gen. Joseph Lane (first governor of
Oregon Territory), James Nesmith (who
later served as superintendent of Indian
Affairs for Oregon and as a U.S.
senator), and Robert Metcalfe (who had
an Oregon Donation Land Claim
abutting the Table Rock Reservation,
had a family with one of Tyee John’s
daughters, and later served as the first
Indian agent of the Siletz Reservation).
Twelve headmen, including Tyee John,
signed the treaty on behalf of the many
tribes. Other headmen later agreed to
the terms negotiated, though their
names do not appear on the treaty.
In November 1854, the same U.S.
representatives negotiated a treaty with
the tribes on the Table Rock
Reservation to confederate the related
mid-Rogue River bands and tribes with
them on the Table Rock Temporary
October 2003
Reservation and the future permanent
reservation. The U.S. then negotiated
with these bands for title to their
country. That treaty was concluded on
Nov. 18, 1854. These treaties also were
ratified by the U.S. Senate and
proclaimed law by the president.
Despite the treaties, aggressive acts
continued, culminating in an Oct. 8,
1855, attack on two Indian camps of
the headmen “Jake” and “Sambo” by
miners and settlers near the mouth of
Butte Creek. James Lupton organized
these attacks and was one of the few
white casualties. Estimates say that 23
to 40 Indian men, women, and children
were killed. When word reached the
Table Rock Reservation, the Indian
people realized that they would not be
left in peace by those in the local
communities who were loudly calling
for “extermination” of all local Indians.
The tribes left the Table Rock Reser
vation in terror and anger. Some pleaded
for protection at Fort Lane, but the
majority retreated to the protection of
the mid-Rogue River country, attacking
some of the less-friendly settlers along
the way. All attempts to establish
permanent arrangements for the tribes
at the Table Rock Reservation ceased.
The war raged on for many months.
In November 1855, the Siletz (orCoast)
Reservation was established by order
of President Franklin Pierce as the
permanent home for all the western
Oregon tribes. In June 1856, the Rogue
River Wars officially ended and nearly all
western Oregon Indians were prepared
to remove to the new reservation.
A temporary encampment was
established on the south fork of the
Yamhill River in northwest Oregon for
all of the tribes that were removed until
the Siletz Agency could be established.
In May 1857, nearly all of the Rogue
River, Shasta, Applegate, and Cow
Creeks Indians removed from the
encampment at Grand Ronde to the
Siletz Valley, though 58 men and their
families remained at Grand Ronde. In
June 1857, the Grand Ronde encamp
ment gained official status as a separate
reservation, though it was physically
attached to the Siletz Reservation and
was at times under the same agent.
Many indigenous tribes from all
over western Oregon, representing 11
different language groups, came
together on the Siletz Reservation to
form the Confederated Tribes of Siletz
Indians. They came here after living for
thousands of years within homelands
totaling 20 million acres.
Despite several ratified treaties that
promised a permanent reservation,
about 900,000 acres of the original 1.1
million-acre Siletz Reservation was
opened to settlement by non-Indians
within the first 20 years. This was done
without additional treaties or compen
sation for the losses. Tribal rights to the
remaining 225,000 acres also were
questioned and the tribe was forced to
cede all but about 47,000 acres in 1892.
Loss of tribal lands and resources
continued until legislation by Congress
in 1954 targeted the western Oregon
tribes for “termination.” After passage
of the Western Oregon Termination Act,
the Confederated Tribes of Siletz
Indians ceased to exist in the eyes of
the U.S. government and the Bureau of
Indian Affairs disposed of the last
parcels of tribal lands.
In 1977, the Confederated Tribes
of Siletz Indians successfully petitioned
Congress to repeal the termination of
the Siletz Tribes, and in 1980, the Siletz
Reservation was re-established at 3,660
acres with scattered BLM-administered
parcels around the original Siletz
Reservation. Today, the Confederated
Tribes of Siletz Indians continues to
represent the ancestral tribes from
which it is formed, including the tribes
who entered into the Rogue River
Treaty of 1853.
Hubin discussed several items in
the university’s Native American
Initiative, including the building of the
Many Nations Longhouse. “Another
programmatic note of encouragement
comes from the formal development of
the university’s Center for Indigenous
Cultural Survival.
“I want to highlight a word choice
that is significant in the naming of this
center. This is the Center for, not the
center on, Indigenous Cultural
Survival. Its purpose is not to study and
observe, but rather support and promote
preservation of traditional cultures that,
if lost, will, by that measure, impoverish
us all,” Hubin said.
“Through this center, as well as the
Northwest Indigenous Language
Institute and the Southwest Oregon
Research Project, we fight to hold
on to learning and wisdom that some
in the 1850s would have preferred to
see vanish.”