Malheur Reservation - Reductions and Incursions

Reductions and Incursions

Almost immediately, European settlers began requesting changes to the boundaries of the reservation. In 1876, settlers asked for the exclusion of the Silvies River Valley and the Harney Lake Basin on the southwest edge of the reservation. In January of that year, President Grant, under pressure from settlers, ordered the northern shores of Malheur Lake open for settlement. This was a blow to the Paiutes, because that was an area important to the tribe for wada (Suaeda calceoliformis) seeds. (The Paiutes around Malheur Lake were known as the Wadatika: the "wada-seed-eaters".) Settlers along Willow Creek Valley on the eastern edge of the reservation also protested the boundaries.

In addition, the reservation straddled trails between then northern Grant County, where Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce had received orders to move with his people to Idaho, and southern Grant County. Cattle ranchers in the former Nez Perce lands had begun to drive herds along those trails to Central Pacific railheads in northern Nevada for shipment. In the high desert country of Eastern Oregon, the streams and pastures along those trails became more valuable for sustaining the cattle on the drives.