The Kalapuya are a
Native American people
A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
, which had eight independent groups speaking three mutually intelligible dialects. The Kalapuya tribes' traditional homelands were the
Willamette Valley
The Willamette Valley ( ) is a long valley in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides: the Cascade Range to the east, ...
of present-day western
Oregon
Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, an area bounded by the
Cascade Range
The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, ...
to the east, the
Oregon Coast Range
The Oregon Coast Range, often called simply the Coast Range and sometimes the Pacific Coast Range, is a mountain range, in the Pacific Coast Ranges physiographic region, in the U.S. state of Oregon along the Pacific Ocean. This north-south runni ...
at the west, the
Columbia River
The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...
at the north, to the
Calapooya Mountains
The Calapooya Mountains are a mountain range in Lane and Douglas counties of southwestern Oregon in the United States. The range runs for approximately west from the Cascade Range between Eugene on the north and Roseburg on the south.
Geology ...
of the
Umpqua River
The Umpqua River ( ) on the Pacific coast of Oregon in the United States is approximately long. One of the principal rivers of the Oregon Coast and known for bass and shad, the river drains an expansive network of valleys in the mountains west ...
at the south.
Today, most Kalapuya people are enrolled in the federally recognized
Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon
The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon (CTGR) consists of twenty-seven Native American tribes with long historical ties to present-day western Oregon between the western boundary of the Oregon Coast and the eastern boundar ...
; in addition, some are members of the
Confederated Tribes of the Siletz
The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians in the United States is a federally recognized confederation of more than 27 Native American tribes and bands who once inhabited an extensive homeland of more than 20 million acres from northern Califo ...
. In both cases descendants have often intermarried with people of other tribes in the confederated tribes, and are counted in overall tribal numbers, rather than separately. Most of the Kalapuya descendants live at the
Grand Ronde reservation
The Grand Ronde Community is an Indian reservation located on several non-contiguous sections of land in southwestern Yamhill County and northwestern Polk County, Oregon, United States, about east of Lincoln City, near the community of Grand Ro ...
, located in Yamhill and Polk counties.
Name
The tribal name has been rendered into English under various spellings as "Calapooia," "Calapuya," "Calapooya," "Kalapooia," and "Kalapooya."
Language
The Kalapuyan people spoke dialects of the
Kalapuyan language. It was categorized by
John Wesley Powell
John Wesley Powell (March 24, 1834 – September 23, 1902) was an American geologist, U.S. Army soldier, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. He ...
as part of the
Takelman language group. In the early 21st century, these are known as the
Oregon Penutian languages
Oregon Penutian is a hypothetical language family in the Penutian language phylum comprising languages spoken at one time by several groups of Native Americans in present-day western Oregon and western Washington in the United States. Various l ...
.
The Kalapuyan people were not a single homogeneous tribal entity but rather were made up of eight autonomous subdivisions, loosely related to one another by three language dialects, which were mutually intelligible.
[Judy Rycraft Juntunen, May D. Dasch, and Ann Bennett Rogers, ''The World of the Kalapuya: A Native People of Western Oregon.'' Philomath, OR: Benton County Historical Society and Museum, 2005; pg. 13.] The eight related groups comprising the Kalapuya people spoke three distinct dialects of the Oregon Penutian language family:
Northern Kalapuyan,
Central Kalapuyan, and
Yoncalla (also called Southern Kalapuya).
[Barbara A. Leitch, ''A Concise Dictionary of Indian Tribes of North America.'' Algonac, MI: Reference Publications, Inc., 1979; pp. 204–205.]
Catholic missionary
François Blanchet said that "fourteen or fifteen different dialects were spoken by these tribes; they are not so essentially different but that they can understand each other. Moreover, the
Chinook jargon is spoken among the Kalapooias
ic"
[ Blanchet, François N.br>''Historical Sketches of the Catholic Church in Oregon'']
Portland: 1878. pp. 59-60. Chinook jargon was a trade language that developed among the Native Americans for their own use and for trading with Europeans. It became popular on the Grand Ronde Reservation. The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community have renamed it as ''Chinuk Wawa,'' and developed a language immersion program for children to create new generations of native speakers.
Social structure
Kalapuya bands typically consisted of extended families of related men, their wives, and children.
[Juntunen, Dasch, and Rogers, ''The World of the Kalapuya,'' pg. 17.] They had a
patrilineal
Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritanc ...
kinship system
In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says that ...
. These bands would occupy a year-round village: during the winter they lived there full-time. During the spring and summer, some members split off into smaller groups and traveled to other areas to gather seasonal food and raw materials for basketry.
Bands frequently had a single leader or chief— generally the wealthiest man — who would resolve arguments, settle collective debts of the community such as those incurred through
gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...
, and would provide food for feasts.
As was the case for many tribes of the Pacific Northwest, the Kalapuya practiced slavery. They generally obtained Indian slaves through trade or as gifts. The slaves were usually captured by enemy peoples during raids.
[Juntunen, Dasch, and Rogers, ''The World of the Kalapuya,'' pg. 18.] Northern Kalapuya groups, such as the
Tualatin and
Yamhill, obtained slaves through conquest, raiding bands located on the coast or further south in the Willamette Valley.
Slaves were considered a form of wealth; they were traded to obtain desired commodities, including beads, blankets, and
canoe
A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using a single-bladed paddle.
In British English, the term ...
s.
Women and children were preferred as slaves, owing to their comparative ease of control.
Slaves lived with the families who owned them, working side-by-side in gender-specific daily tasks and performing chores such as the collection of firewood and water.
[Juntunen, Dasch, and Rogers, ''The World of the Kalapuya,'' pg. 19.] Slaves were often free to marry. They could purchase freedom through their own accumulation of property or through sufficient payment to the owner by a prospective spouse.
The patriarchal Kalapuyan society had divisions by wealth and personal property. Special religious leaders were also recognized as a distinct class. These people were believed to possess supernatural predictive or healing powers and could have their origin in any group; they might be male or female, free individual or slave.
Kalapuyan society had gender-differentiated labor, as did many Native American tribes. Men engaged in fishing, hunting, and warfare. They also made tools and constructed canoes.
Women worked to gather and prepare the staple plant foods that were the basis of the Kalapuyan diet, set up temporary camps, and constructed baskets and other craft products.
During the summer months the women of the band would process and prepare food products for winter storage, generally staying in the main village to complete the task, while others gathered the foods from afar.
Historic Kalapuyan groups
![Kalapuya-Man](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Kalapuya-Man.jpg)
The Kalapuyan groups (identified by language) were:
-Northern Kalapuya:
*Tualatin, also known as the
Atfalati
The Atfalati , also known as the Tualatin or Wapato Lake IndiansRobert H. Ruby, John A. Brown & Cary C. Collins, Atfalati, in ''A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest'' (3d ed. 2010, University of Oklahoma Press) are a tribe of the ...
, along the
Tualatin River
The Tualatin River is a tributary of the Willamette River in Oregon in the United States. The river is about long, and it drains a fertile farming region called the Tualatin Valley southwest and west of Portland, Oregon, Portland at the northwes ...
*Yamhill, along the
Yamhill River
The Yamhill River is an tributary of the Willamette River, in the U.S. state of Oregon. Formed by the confluence of the South Yamhill River and the North Yamhill River about east of McMinnville, it drains part of the Northern Oregon Coast Rang ...
-Central Kalapuya:
*Ahantchuyuk, along the
Pudding River
The Pudding River is a tributary of the Molalla River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Its drainage basin covers . Among its tributaries are Silver Creek, Butte Creek, Abiqua Creek, and the Little Pudding River.
Historically, the Pudding River flo ...
*Luckiamute, along the
Luckiamute River
The Luckiamute River is a tributary of the Willamette River, about long, in western Oregon in the United States. It drains an area of Central Oregon Coast Range and the western Willamette Valley northwest of Corvallis.
It rises in the remote mo ...
*Santiam, along the lower
Santiam River
The Santiam River is a tributary of the Willamette River, about long, in western Oregon in the United States. Through its two principal tributaries, the North Santiam and the South Santiam rivers, it drains a large area of the Cascade Range a ...
near present-day
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
*Chepenefa, along the
Marys River near present-day
Corvallis
*Chemapho, along
Muddy Creek (Central Kalapuya)
*Tsankupi, along the
Calapooia River
The Calapooia River is an tributary of the Willamette River in the U.S. state of Oregon.
The Calapooia flows generally northwest from its source in the Cascade Range near Tidbits Mountain. In its upper reaches, it passes through parts of the Wi ...
*
Mohawk Mohawk may refer to:
Related to Native Americans
*Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York)
*Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people
*Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been t ...
, along the
Mohawk River
The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson River. The Mohawk f ...
(Note: These have no relation to the
Iroquoian
The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking.
As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoian la ...
-speaking
Mohawk Nation
The Mohawk people ( moh, Kanienʼkehá꞉ka) are the most easterly section of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. They are an Iroquoian-speaking Indigenous people of North America, with communities in southeastern Canada and northern Ne ...
of New York and Canada)
*Chafan
*Chelamela, along the
Long Tom River
The Long Tom River is a tributary of the Willamette River in western Oregon in the United States. It drains an area at the south end of the Willamette Valley between Eugene and Corvallis.
It rises in the Central Oregon Coast Range in western ...
*Winefelly, along the Mohawk,
McKenzie, and
Coast Fork Willamette rivers.
-Yoncalla:
*Yoncalla, along the
Umpqua River
The Umpqua River ( ) on the Pacific coast of Oregon in the United States is approximately long. One of the principal rivers of the Oregon Coast and known for bass and shad, the river drains an expansive network of valleys in the mountains west ...
.
In his description of the Indians of the Willamette Valley in 1849, Governor
Joseph Lane
Joseph "Joe" Lane (December 14, 1801 – April 19, 1881) was an American politician and soldier. He was a state legislator representing Evansville, Indiana, and then served in the Mexican–American War, becoming a general. President James K. P ...
gave the following estimates for the tribes' populations:
"Calipoa": 60; "Tualatine": 60; "Yam Hill": 90; "Lucka-mues": 15.
History
The Kalapuya people are believed to have entered their historical homeland in the
Willamette Valley
The Willamette Valley ( ) is a long valley in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides: the Cascade Range to the east, ...
by migrating from the south of the valley northwards and forcing out earlier inhabitants.
[Robert H. Ruby and John A. Brown, ''A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest'' (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992): 10.]
Each of these bands occupied specific areas along the
Willamette,
Umpqua, and
McKenzie rivers.
The various Kalapuyan bands were hunter-gatherers, gaining food by fishing and hunting by the men, and gathering of nuts, berries and other fruits and roots by the women.
The tribe made use of
obsidian
Obsidian () is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extrusive rock, extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is an igneous rock.
Obsidian is produced from felsic lava, rich in the lighter elements s ...
obtained from the
volcanic ranges to the east to fashion sharp and effective projectile points, including arrowheads and spear tips.
Prior to contact with white explorers, traders, and missionaries, the Kalapuya population is believed to have numbered as many as 15,000 people.
Robert Boyd estimates the total Kalapuyan population between 8,780 and 9,200 for the period between 1805 and the end of the decade of the 1820s.
![Kalapuya man](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Kalapuya_man.jpg)
Catastrophic
epidemics
An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time.
Epidemics of infectious d ...
of infectious diseases such as malaria,
smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
, and other endemic diseases occurred after Natives contracted diseases from the white explorers, traders, and missionaries who entered the region. These diseases were endemic among the Europeans and Americans, but the Native Americans didn't have immunity to them and died at a high rate as a result. Some accounts tell of villages devoid of inhabitants, standing in grim testament to the high mortality of these epidemics. Blanchet reported in 1839 that diseases "reduced
hem
A hem in sewing is a garment finishing method, where the edge of a piece of cloth is folded and sewn to prevent unravelling of the fabric and to adjust the length of the piece in garments, such as at the end of the sleeve or the bottom of the ga ...
to a very small population threatening to decline more and more."
[
By 1849 Oregon territorial governor ]Joseph Lane
Joseph "Joe" Lane (December 14, 1801 – April 19, 1881) was an American politician and soldier. He was a state legislator representing Evansville, Indiana, and then served in the Mexican–American War, becoming a general. President James K. P ...
reckoned the remaining Kalapuyan population at just 60 souls — with those survivors living in the most dire of conditions. Contemporary scholarship estimates the total of the various Kalapuya peoples in this interval at closer to 600.
Treaties with the United States
The United States conducted two major cycles of treatymaking in Oregon that affected the Kalapuya: in 1851 and in 1854 to 1855. The 1851 treaties were negotiated by Oregon's Superintendent of Indian Affairs Anson Dart
Anson Dart (1797 – 1879) was the Superintendent for Indian Affairs in the Oregon Territory from 1850 to 1852. Dart negotiated treaties with the tribes in the territory (now the states of Oregon and Washington), thirteen of which were negotiated ...
, and those in 1855 by Dart's successor Joel Palmer
General Joel Palmer (October 4, 1810 – June 9, 1881) was an American pioneer of the Oregon Territory in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. He was born in Canada, and spent his early years in New York and Pennsylvania before serving ...
. While the 1851 treaties were never ratified by the Senate and thus were not implemented, the 1854–1855 ones were."Kalapuyan"
(7 February 1997). University of Oregon.
On April 12, 1851, at the Santiam Treaty Council in
Champoeg
Champoeg ( , historically Horner, John B. (1919). ''Oregon: Her History, Her Great Men, Her Literature''. The J.K. Gill Co.: Portland. p. 398.) is a former town in the U.S. state of Oregon. Now a ghost town, it was an important settlement in the W ...
,
Oregon Territory
The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Oregon. Ori ...
, Santiam Kalapuya tribal leaders voiced strong opinions over where they would live. The Santiam leaders Alquema and Tiacan wanted to maintain their traditional territory between the forks of the
Santiam River
The Santiam River is a tributary of the Willamette River, about long, in western Oregon in the United States. Through its two principal tributaries, the North Santiam and the South Santiam rivers, it drains a large area of the Cascade Range a ...
.
In the 1854
Treaty of Calapooia Creek, Oregon, Umpqua and Kalapuyan tribes of
Umpqua Valley
The Umpqua River ( ) on the Pacific coast of Oregon in the United States is approximately long. One of the principal rivers of the Oregon Coast and known for bass and shad, the river drains an expansive network of valleys in the mountains west ...
ceded
The act of cession is the assignment of property to another entity. In international law it commonly refers to land transferred by treaty. Ballentine's Law Dictionary defines cession as "a surrender; a giving up; a relinquishment of jurisdictio ...
their lands to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
.
In the
Treaty with the Kalapuya, etc.
The Treaty with the Kalapuya, etc., also known as the Kalapuya Treaty or the Treaty of Dayton, was an 1855 treaty between the United States and the bands of the Kalapuya tribe, the Molala tribe, the Clackamas, and several others in the Oregon Te ...
, at
Dayton, Oregon
Dayton is a city in Yamhill County, Oregon, United States. The population was 2,534 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census.
History
The city was founded in 1850 by Andrew Smith and Joel Palmer. Palmer, who also served as Oregon Superintend ...
(January 22, 1855), the Kalapuya and other tribes of the Willamette valley ceded the entire drainage area of the
Willamette River
The Willamette River ( ) is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward b ...
to the United States.
Reservation era
![Expeditions organized or participated in by the Smithsonian Institution](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Expeditions_organized_or_participated_in_by_the_Smithsonian_Institution.._%281910%29_%2814595854370%29.jpg)
Most Kalapuya Indians were removed to the Grand Ronde Agency and
reservation. Some were assigned to the
Siletz Reservation
The Siletz Reservation is a 5.852 sq mi (15.157 km²) Indian reservation in Lincoln County, Oregon, United States, owned by the Confederated Tribes of Siletz. The reservation is made up of numerous non-contiguous parcels of land in east-centra ...
(known then as the
Coast Indian Reservation The Coast Indian Reservation is a former Indian reservation in the U.S. state of Oregon, established in 1855. It was gradually reduced in size and in the 21st century is known as the present-day Siletz Reservation.
History
The Coast Reservation wa ...
) on the central Pacific Coast of Oregon,
Warm Springs Reservation
The Warm Springs Indian Reservation consists of in north-central Oregon, in the United States, and is governed by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.
Tribes
Three tribes form the confederation: the Wasco, Tenino (Warm Springs) and P ...
east of the Cascade Mountains in what are now Wasco and Jefferson Counties, or
Yakama Reservation
The Yakama Indian Reservation (spelled Yakima until 1994) is a Native American reservation in Washington state of the federally recognized tribe known as the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. The tribe is made up of Klikitat ...
in Southern Washington State. Settled in 1855 as a temporary reserve, the
Grand Ronde Reservation
The Grand Ronde Community is an Indian reservation located on several non-contiguous sections of land in southwestern Yamhill County and northwestern Polk County, Oregon, United States, about east of Lincoln City, near the community of Grand Ro ...
was first called the Yamhill River Reserve or Yamhill Valley reserve. It was officially renamed and established as the Grand Ronde Reservation by
Executive Order
In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of th ...
in 1857.
With members of at least 27 tribes removed to Grand Ronde, life at the reservation was difficult. Some of these tribes had historically been enemies. In the early years, the reservation was managed by the
US Department of War
The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, a ...
. As it had earlier waged war against the tribes, it supervised Indian affairs across the country.
Fort Yamhill
Fort Yamhill was an American military fortification in the state of Oregon. Built in 1856 in the Oregon Territory, it remained an active post until 1866. The Army outpost was used to provide a presence next to the Grand Ronde Agency Coastal Reserv ...
was established to oversee the Indians. Later Indian management was taken over by the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States federal government of the United States, federal agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, Department of the Interior. It is responsible for im ...
and finally the
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States federal agency within the Department of the Interior. It is responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to American Indians and A ...
, placed within the Department of Interior.
Rev. Adrien Croquet (Crocket) of
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
was the Roman Catholic
missionary
A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...
at Grand Ronde and established St. Michael's church. The
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
also established a school there in the late 19th century with approval by the United States. The school was an on-reservation
boarding school
A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...
to which children from other sites were at times forcibly removed and made to stay at school throughout the school year. Many children were later sent to off-reservation
Indian boarding schools
American Indian boarding schools, also known more recently as American Indian residential schools, were established in the United States from the mid 17th to the early 20th centuries with a primary objective of "civilizing" or assimilating Nat ...
, such as
Chemawa Indian School
Chemawa Indian School is a Native American boarding school in Salem, Oregon, United States. Named after the Chemawa band of the Kalapuya people of the Willamette Valley, it opened on February 25, 1880 as an elementary school. Grades were add ...
in
Salem
Salem may refer to: Places
Canada
Ontario
* Bruce County
** Salem, Arran–Elderslie, Ontario, in the municipality of Arran–Elderslie
** Salem, South Bruce, Ontario, in the municipality of South Bruce
* Salem, Dufferin County, Ontario, part ...
. Most children were taught rural skills such as blacksmithing, farming, sewing, etc. believed to be important to their future lives on the reservation.
Sanitation and health care at the reservation was poor, and mortality was high. In the 1850s a total of 1,000 people had been moved there. By 1900, only about 300 people survived.
Termination and restoration
In the mid-20th century, Federal policy continued to be directed at assimilation of Native Americans. Congress believed that some tribes were ready to enter the mainstream society and end their special relationship with the government. All of the bands and tribes of the Kalapuya descendants were terminated in 1954, along with all other western Oregon tribes, in the
Western Oregon Indian Termination Act The Western Oregon Indian Termination Act or Public Law 588, was passed in August 1954 as part of the United States Indian termination policy. It called for the termination of federal supervision over the trust and restricted property of numerous N ...
of 1954. This ended their special relationship with the federal government. Under final termination actions, the government sold most of the reservation lands, removed its services, and published final rolls of the tribe in the ''
Congressional Record
The ''Congressional Record'' is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Publishing Office and issued when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record Inde ...
'' in 1956.
In the late 20th century, the Kalapuya and other peoples in the confederated tribes reorganized to assert their Native American culture. The United States restored federal recognition in 1977 to the
Confederated Tribes of the Siletz
The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians in the United States is a federally recognized confederation of more than 27 Native American tribes and bands who once inhabited an extensive homeland of more than 20 million acres from northern Califo ...
and in 1983 to those who were part of the
Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon
The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon (CTGR) consists of twenty-seven Native American tribes with long historical ties to present-day western Oregon between the western boundary of the Oregon Coast and the eastern boundar ...
.
The Kalapuya have intermarried extensively with descendants of their neighboring tribes. Most of the estimated 4,000 Kalapuya descendants today are enrolled in Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon. This community is working to revive a common creole Native American language, long used for trade among various tribes and now known as ''
Chinuk Wawa'', by developing an immersion program for their children. They have had success in producing native speakers and are expanding the program through the eighth grade.
See also
*
Kalapuyan languages
Kalapuyan (also Kalapuya) is a small extinct language family that was spoken in the Willamette Valley of Western Oregon, United States. It consists of three languages.
The Kalapuya language is currently in a state of revival. Kalapuyan descenda ...
*
Gender Roles
A gender role, also known as a sex role, is a social role encompassing a range of behaviors and attitudes that are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on that person's sex. Gender roles are usually cent ...
References
Further reading
* Robert T. Boyd, "Another Look at the 'Fever and Ague' of Western Oregon," ''Ethnohistory,'' vol. 22, no. 2 (Spring 1975), pp. 135–154
In JSTOR
* Robert T. Boyd, ''The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence: Introduced Infectious Diseases and Population Decline among Northwest Coast Indians.'' Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1999.
* C.F. Coan, "The Adoption of the Reservation Policy in Pacific Northwest, 1853–1855," ''Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society,'' vol. 23, no. 1 (March 1922), pp. 1–38
In JSTOR
* Leo J. Frachtenberg, "Myths of the Alsea Indians of Northwestern Oregon," ''International Journal of American Linguistics,'' vol. 1, no. 1 (July 1917), pp. 64–75
In JSTOR
* Melinda Marie Jetté, "'Beaver Are Numerous, but the Natives ... Will Not Hunt Them': Native-Fur Trader Relations in the Willamette Valley, 1812–1814," ''Pacific Northwest Quarterly,'' vol. 98, no. 1 (Winter 2006/2007), pp. 3–17
In JSTOR
* Tracy Neal Leavelle, "'We Will Make It Our Own Place': Agriculture and Adaptation at the Grand Ronde Reservation, 1856–1887," ''American Indian Quarterly,'' vol. 22, no. 4 (Autumn 1998), pp. 433–456
In JSTOR
* David Gene Lewis, ''Termination of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon: Politics, Community, Identity.'' PhD dissertation. University of Oregon, 2009.
* Harold Mackey, ''The Kalapuyans: A Sourcebook on the Indians of the Willamette Valley.'' Salem, OR: Mission Mill Museum Association, 1974.
* Ronald Spores, "Too Small a Place: The Removal of the Willamette Valley Indians, 1850–1856," ''American Indian Quarterly,'' vol. 17, no. 2 (Spring 1993), pp. 171–191
In JSTOR
External links
Confederated Tribes of Grand RondeConfederated Tribes of Siletz Indians University of Oregon
Article in the Oregon Encyclopedia, about preservation of the language and traditions of the Tualatin Kalapuyans
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Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians
Native American tribes in Oregon
Willamette Valley
Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau