The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation is a federally recognized confederation of three Sahaptin-speaking Native American tribes who traditionally inhabited the Columbia River Plateau region: the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla.
When the leaders of the Walla Walla, Cayuse, and Umatilla peoples signed a treaty with the United States in 1855, they ceded 6.4 million acres of homeland in what is now northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington. Today the three-tribe confederation numbers 2,652. Roughly half of the tribal population live on or near the reservation, which is also home to about 300 Indians enrolled with other Tribes, such as the Yakama, Tenino (Warm Springs), and Nez Percé, as well as 1,500 non-Indians.
The tribes share the Umatilla Indian Reservation (271.047 sq mi (702.009 km²) and a governmental structure as part of their confederation. Almost half of the reservation land is owned by non-Indians and the reservation includes significant portions of the Umatilla River watershed.
The Umatilla River and Grande Ronde rivers have been the focus of the tribe's fish restoration activities for more than a decade. Under the tribe's leadership, salmon were reintroduced in the Umatilla river in the early 1980s. The tribe, along with the state of Oregon, operate egg-taking, spawning, and other propagation facilities that are helping restore salmon runs. The first fall chinook in some 70 years returned to the Umatilla River in 1984.
The Confederated Tribes opened the Wildhorse Resort & Casino, with a hotel and four restaurants, located four miles east of Pendleton. The Wildhorse Casino opened in 1995, multiplying its budget sevenfold and cutting unemployment on the reservation in half.
The traditional religion still practised by some tribal members is called Seven Drums (Washat), the majority belongs Christian denominations.
Famous quotes containing the words confederated, tribes, indian and/or reservation:
“The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in this condition; and Massachusetts is one of the confederated overseers to prevent their escape.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth, and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented, nor will he grow and prosper. I have asked some of the great white chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please. They can not tell me.”
—Chief Joseph (c. 1840–1904)
“Music is so much a part of their daily lives that if an Indian visits another reservation one of the first questions asked on his return is: “What new songs did you learn?””
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)