Malheur Reservation - Removal and Discontinuation

Removal and Discontinuation

In November 1878, General Howard received orders to move about 543 Paiute and Bannock prisoners from the Malheur Reservation to the Yakima Reservation, in Washington, 350 miles (560 km) to the north. Other Paiutes and Bannocks were scattered about Eastern Oregon, northeastern California and northern Nevada, working for settlers or engaged in subsistence hunting and gathering. More than a year after the war, most had not moved back onto the reservation as the U. S. government had urged. Still others were interned at Vancouver Barracks in Washington. Ranchers and settlers had started to graze their herds on the best meadowlands of the reservation, and the U. S. Army had been reluctant to remove the trespassers. In his annual report in August 1879, Agent W. V. Rinehart, who had fought in the West under General Crook and held negative views of the native people, opined that the reservation should be discontinued, in part because the support for all agencies in Oregon was spread too thin to be effective. In October of that year, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs discontinued the agency.