Siletz news /, March 01, 2025, Page 5, Image 5

Siletz Indians purchase 2,000 acres in southern Oregon
with significant Native history
By Nika Bartoo-Smith,
Underscore News
This story was originally
published by Underscore + ICT, a
nonprofit news site focused on Indig-
enous affairs.
Photo courtsey of Matt Hill, Lone Rock Strategies
Robert Kentta, of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and the tribal council
treasurer, poses for a picture at the newly purchased Table Rock property
Photo courtsey of Matt Hill, Lone Rock Strategies
A rough map of the approzimately 2,000-acre property
Photo courtsey of Matt Hill, Lone Rock Strategies
Siletz Tribal Council members left to right: Robert Kentta, treasurer; Judy
Muschamp, secretary; Delores Pigsley, chairman; and Gerald Ben on the newly
purchased Table Rock property
A stretch of land in southern
Oregon near Medford that carries
historical significance, including the
likely location of a treaty signing and
near the site of a massacre, is return-
ing to the Confederated Tribes of
Siletz Indians.
The Siletz Tribe announced the
historic land return in November
with the purchase of approximately
2,000 acres of privately owned land
adjacent to the Table Rocks preserve.
“It’s the most historic piece of
land that we could possibly get,”
said Delores Pigsley, chairman of
the Confederated Tribes of Siletz
Indians.
The Upper and Lower Table
Rocks are central to many Takelma
origin stories. Takelma is one of
the prominent Native languages of
Southern Oregon used by multiple
Native nations, according to Robert
Kentta, a citizen of the Confederated
Tribes of Siletz Indians and the tribal
council treasurer.
The area is where the Treaty
of Table Rock was signed, on Sept.
10, 1853, between the U.S. govern-
ment and local Native nations,
establishing a temporary reservation
on the north side of the Rogue River
that included the Upper and Lower
Table Rock.
The treaty created the first con-
federation of Oregon tribes and was
the first treaty signed by any Native
nation in the West to be ratified by
the U.S. Senate. For the region’s
tribes, this period was also marked
by hostilities at the hands of the U.S.
government and colonial settlers
moving into Oregon Territory.
Two years after the signing of the
treaty, in October 1855, more than 20
people, mostly women and children,
were massacred while camping near
Table Rocks. The Rogue River War
ensued, in which numerous Native
people were killed. After the war
ended in 1856, government officials
removed much of the Indigenous
population in southwestern Oregon,
and many Natives ultimately ended
up on the “Coast Reservation,” now
called the Siletz Reservation.
Referred to as the Rogue River
Tribe of Indians by the U.S. gov-
ernment, the tribal confederation
represented people who lived in the
valleys of the upper Rogue River,
with Table Rocks at the center. The
area was primarily home to the Take-
lma, Latgawa, Shasta, Applegate and
Galice people, according to the Siletz
News.
“This is a historic moment that
reconnects the Siletz Tribe to its
ancestors, history and treaties signed
near Table Rock,” Pigsley said in a
media release. “It is a great honor
to return this special land to Indian
stewardship.”
Pigsley remembers driving to
California with her father as a young
girl. He would point out the window
as they passed Table Rocks and talk
about the significance of this place
for their ancestors.
Kentta has similar memories.
“Since I was a kid, summertime
or spring break, we might take a trip
up the Rogue Valley and go up the
Applegate River Valley where my
great-grandfather was brought at the
end of the Rogue River Wars,” Kentta
said. “We have made trips as a family
for going on 60 years, reconnecting
there, but always as visitors where
we had no foothold, no ownership,
no place to call home there anymore.
Now with this purchase, we have
homelands within our homelands.”
The Siletz had long been in con-
sultation with the Bureau of Land
Management, The Nature Con-
servancy and others regarding the
stewardship of the land.
Kentta first became aware of the
property six or so years ago after hav-
ing a conversation with staff at The
Nature Conservancy. He brought the
idea of purchasing the land to the
tribal council, setting in motion the
historic land deal.
The property was purchased
directly from the previous land-
owner. The Nature Conservancy
preserves a conservation easement
on the land. The Siletz will continue
to work with The Nature Conser-
vancy and the BLM on conservation
and restoration.
“To me, land back means, in its
purest form, its return of lands to a
tribe,” Kentta said. “This is through
purchase, and a significant amount
paid out for the purchase. So for us,
that is regaining of land back, but it’s
not a settlement or apology for things
that happened in the past.”
The tribe’s goal is to create
opportunities for Siletz tribal mem-
bers to access the historically sig-
nificant land while safeguarding its
character. The tribe plans to work on
preservation and restoration, focus-
ing on protecting the natural area
rather than developing it.
“There will be big opportunities
for restoration and enhancement of
the food plants themselves,” Kentta
said. “[And] also enhancing tribal
members’ access to use of and recon-
nection with those resources that
we’ve been separated from.”
March 2025
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Siletz News
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