Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
Traditional Territory
Columbia River Plateau region, including what is now northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington
Overview
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation are the federally recognized confederations of three Sahaptin-speaking Native American tribes: the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla, who traditionally inhabited the Columbia River Plateau region. When their leaders signed the Treaty of Walla Walla in 1855, they ceded 6.4 million acres of homeland in exchange for a 250,000-acre reservation. The tribes share a 271 square-mile reservation in Umatilla County in northeast Oregon and have created a joint political structure as part of their confederation.
Historical Notes
Relocated to the Umatilla Indian Reservation following the Treaty of Walla Walla in 1855, ceding 6.4 million acres of their traditional Columbia River Plateau homeland in exchange for a 250,000-acre reservation.
Language and Culture
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation speak a language belonging to the Sahaptin language family, with historical presence recorded across Oregon, documented from 1855 to present. Language family affiliation is one of the primary means by which historians and anthropologists identify historical connections between Indigenous peoples across time and geography.
Federal Recognition
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation hold federal recognition from the United States government, administered through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Federally recognized tribes have a government-to-government relationship with the United States and are eligible for services and protections under federal Indian law. There are currently 574 federally recognized tribal nations in the United States.
Indigenous peoples had inhabited North America for at least 15,000 years before European contact, developing complex societies across every region of the continent. The Mississippian culture, centered on the city of Cahokia near present-day St. Louis, reached its peak around 1100 AD with a population estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 — larger than contemporary London. The Ancestral Puebloans built multi-story stone complexes at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde between the 9th and 13th centuries. The Iroquois Confederacy, formed between roughly 1450 and 1600, united five nations under a constitution that influenced later American democratic thinking. Across the eastern woodlands, the Great Plains, the Pacific Coast, and the Southwest, hundreds of distinct nations maintained sophisticated trade networks, agricultural systems, and governance structures. European contact beginning in the late 15th century introduced epidemic disease — smallpox, measles, influenza — which devastated Indigenous populations by an estimated 50 to 90 percent within a century.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source: Wikipedia.
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