In the earliest lore of the City of Salem, the location was an Indian village named Chemeketa, next to Chemeketa Creek. Before this village was known by Americans, by this name, in 1812, William Wallace and others of the Pacific Fur Traders built a trading post just north of the village of Chemeketa which they
Category: Oral History
As addressed in previous essays, in about 1875, most Indian annuities for the Western Oregon tribes ended because the 20 year payments were exhausted. This is true for the Siletz Reservation, for the handful of tribal people who could claim a ratified treaty, and for the Grand Ronde Reservation, where nearly all of the people
The year 1876 appears to have been a key year to discuss further reductions of the Siletz Reservation. The original Coast reservation was a 1.1 million acre expand from near the Nestucca to just south of Florence, a 100 mile stretch of land, extending 20 miles inland to the east. In 1865 the removal
In 1875, the United States Congress passed an act, March 3, 1875, to reduce the Coast Reservation. This act, terminated the Alsea Reservation, that section on the south, and opened that section to white settlement. The previous act in 1865 (President Andrew Johnson signing the Executive Order of December 21, 1865) had eliminated a section
A truly remarkable fact of Oregon history presented itself while conducting some coastal research. In 1856 and for years after, the Indian agents employed and contracted with enterprising individuals to seek out and capture Indians still remaining in the lands or escaped from the reservations, and return them. The image recalled when hearing about this
