Fort Yamhill, on the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation, was established in March 1856. A detachment of troops, dragoons -mounted infantry- were assigned to the fort to keep the Indians on the reservations and to keep the white people off. Too often, the tribes were being attacked by the white militant settlers, and too often the tribal people were influenced by liquor, and other inducements, to sell all they had to whites. The Indian office and the military set about to remove the tribes from direct contact with the whites, and to establish a series of forts to enforce order for both populations. These forts were Fort Umpqua, situated to manage travel and relations south of the Coast reservation at the Umpqua River, and to help gather up the remainder tribal peoples to the Coast Reservation; Fort Hoskins, to control travel from the Siletz Valley and the central section of the Coast reservation into the Willamette Valley; and Fort Yamhill, to
Tribal Environmental Health Summit 2018: presentation and video link
I participated in the last tribal Environmental Health Summit at OSU. Tuesday, June 26, 2018 11:40-1:00 pmLunch plenary (starting at 12pm) Lunch and Regional PlenarySpeaker: David Lewis, Ethnohistory Research, LLC Title: “Traditional Land Management of the Kalapuyans” This is not a direct link: navigate to the 2018 presentation and push the right arrow to find the video. Traditional Land Management of the Kalapuyans
Chelamela and Chemapho Kalapuyans
The Long Tom River and its tributaries was the original homelands to two major tribes of Kalapuyan Indians, the Chelamela and Chemapho tribes. The Chelamela occupied the upper or southern part of the watershed from the Coast Range to the Willamette at Eugene, and from the Calapooia range to the Reservoir. The Chemapho occupied from the Coast Range to the Willamette and from the Reservoir to just before Philomath at the north. The tribes lived in permanent villages in the middle to upper reaches of the watershed along tributaries to the Long Tom River. The foothills of the Coast range had permanent villages, while the temporary fishing and root gathering encampments were down on the flatlands near the Long Tom and Willamette. The tribes practiced a seasonal round lifeways, with permanent winter villages above the flood plains, and annual temporary encampments in known cultural locations for root digging, berry picking, hunting, and fishing activities. The tribes used canoes for efficient
Meacham’s Final Appeal to Fairly Pay the Tribes Removed to the Coast Reservation.
Albert B. Meacham was an Indian agent in the 1860’s and 70’s and oversaw some changes in the reservations. He attempted to give the tribes some voice in this situation, worked to get the tribes to adopt western medicine, and began warning the tribes that their treaty funding was about to end. In short, he seemed to care about the tribes and his reports suggest that he deeply cared about what the tribes had gone through for some 16 years. He even wrote a book of his experiences, Wigwam and Warpath, which addresses nearly all of the tribes in Oregon. The appendices of the book contain many of his best reports. The following section of a 1871 report is directly related to the Coast Treaty and the fact that it was never ratified. The tribes of the southern Oregon coast were removed beginning in 1856 to the Coast Reservation, and the Umpqua temporary reservation, as a way to eliminate conflicts
read more Meacham’s Final Appeal to Fairly Pay the Tribes Removed to the Coast Reservation.
Estuaries Saved the Coastal Tribes: Joel Palmer’s Plan in 1855
I have previously written about how the coastal tribes were relocated to several river estuaries within the Coast Reservation (Siuslaw, Yachats, Alsea, Nashesne, Siletz and Umpqua). There the tribes, mostly from the southern Oregon coast, were not given much in the way of help from the federal government, there was very little money, and their Coast treaty was never ratified. Despite the formal promises within the Treaties and the additional informal promises of Indian agents, there were few benefits to the tribes from removal to reservations. They were made to live in these locations on sub-agencies and feed and house themselves from 1856 until at least 1878. This story of the tribes forced to remain on the sub agencies but living in relative self-subsistence conditions was not thought of by Geary or Nesmith when they were Indian superintendents, but was planned by Joel Palmer before he was fired as Indian Superintendent in 1856. Palmer wrote a letter about this plan
read more Estuaries Saved the Coastal Tribes: Joel Palmer’s Plan in 1855
