The Treaty with the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua is the first treaty in Oregon to be negotiated and ratified. The treaty establishes the Umpqua Reservation for the Cow Creek tribes. This reservation eventually became the temporary reservation for the Yoncalla Kalapuyans, Umpqua Tribes (upper Umpqua River), and the southern Molallans. Records from Douglas … [Read more…]
The Willamette Valley Treaty was designed to remove the tribes from western Oregon, from lands desired by American settlers. When the treaty was finally signed, on January 22th, at Dayton, Oregon, at Joel Palmer’s DLC homestead (Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Oregon). The tribes were ready to sign, to be removed from the vicinity of … [Read more…]
The Kalapuyan tribes of the Willamette Valley have lived here for more than 10,000 years, some 500 generations of people. The whole of the valley was owned by these tribes who had distinct yet overlapping territories. A few sections of the valley were owned by relative newcomers, the Molallans, who lived in the foothills … [Read more…]
In 1850, the United States passed The Oregon Donation Land-claim Act. This act gave American men 640 acres, one square mile of free land in Oregon, allowed other claims by wives (160 acres), and children, and proved up on the previous land claims of other Americans. A recent manuscript by Julius Wilm (2017) points out … [Read more…]
Anson Dart, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Oregon, from 1850 to 1852, remains an enigma. His nineteen treaties with the tribes of western Oregon, negotiated by the Willamette Valley Commission, all failed to be ratified. Because of the lack of ratification, these treaties have not been well studied as they were not considered important … [Read more…]