History of the Yakama Nation of the Pacific Northwest from the Yakama People's Point of View

1850

US Army Post set up at the Dalles

U.S. Congress passes the Donation Act, prematurely opening Northwest land for settlement.

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1855

Treaty Council convened by Stevens at Walla Walla in June.

Treaties signed that established Yakima and other reservations.

Follow this link to view the treaty on the Yakama nation website: https://www.yakama.com/about/treaty/

After all these years, the Yakama Nation still celebrates the signing of the 1855 treaty with a yearly festival and a parade.

Audio Transcript: “I think we always usually catch the treaty day parade too at Yakama nation. So all of the entities of the Yakama nation, but not just that. I mean, you have like some of the local businesses and stuff and they do a parade and theres lots of information on booths and lots of different vendors and food and stuff, so we usually catch that every year too."

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1855

Yakama War begins in October

Audio transcript: “In sensitive times when my grandfather spoke very seriously, at times he would cry. And I wondered about that. Why is a a big man like him crying? But there are so much pressure in his mind that he was remembering when he was a young boy and the the changes that he had gone through, watching his people being battled by the United States Army, and the pressures that was being made to the people. Many people died. Many people died. And he pointed, he would point those out to me and says ‘so and so was buried here, that was my brother. So and so was buried here, that was my mother’.”

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1856

Ft. Simcoe established by U.S. Army in Yakima Country

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1858

Yakama War ends

Chief Kamiakin flees North To British Columbia

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1859

Treaty ratified

Treaties that established Yakima reservation ratified, the affected had one year to abandon their off- reservation homes and move within its confines.

Military withdraws from Ft. Simcoe; Yakima Affairs agency takes over.

Follow this link to view the treaty on the Yakama nation website: https://www.yakama.com/about/treaty/

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1879

Bannock wars

543 N. Paiute Pows brought to Yakima Reservation for confinement after “Bannock wars”

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1883

Northern Pacific Railroad begins operating through Yakima valley, bringing tide of settlement

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1905

Fishing Rights case

Fishing Rights case, U.S. v. Winans, decided by U.S. Supreme Court affirming Yakima Treaty rights of access to off-reservation fishing sites.

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1906-1907

Townsites of Toppenish, Wapato, and Parker established on allotments sold to whites.

Leasing of trust lands at Yakima begins.

Violent conflict occurs over sale of allotted lands

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1921

Tribal leaders lobby the legislature for the Treaty rights promised to them in 1855 regarding fishing rights at Prosser Falls

During this time period tribal members were arrested and fined for fishing in areas that had been used for generations and promised to them in the 1855 treaty signed by Governor Isaac Stevens. Federal courts would not order respect of these treaty rights until the 1974 "Boldt Decision" and convictions were not cleared until a bill passed in 2014.

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1944

Yakamas adopt Indian Reorganization Act

General Council and Tribal Council of 15 elected “chiefs” is established.

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1956

Dalles Dam is built, flooding nearby villages and forcing thousands of Yakama out of their ancestral homes.

"There was a lot of little villages... and all those people had to relocate"

“Because of the flooding of the village, you know because of the flooding of the fishing areas, there was a lot of smaller villages along the river across from Celilo, all of from not just there you know, the John Day Dam you gotta consider that. There was villages all up and down the river, and those little families that had to- around the mouth of the Deschutes there was a lot of little villages everywhere, and all of those people had to relocate. And those numbers weren't at that time that I'm aware of weren't written down, because then you know back then it was just you were told to move”

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1963

English only language school

"I also remember him talking Indian and getting spanked for it..."

But then going to school in [name omitted], yea, those were the time periods that I would say it was kinda difficult at times. I remember my cousin [name omitted] coming in there. He just barely learned how to speak english and he came to school. He started school probably about 2 or 3 years later in the 3rd grade; this would be in 1963, and he came to school in braids, and I remember that they made him cut his hair. In 1963 he had to cut his braids off, and when he came to school the next day you know all of us, we already had our hair short. I remember we laughed about it, you know, cuz we thought it was funny you know. But as adults now looking upon that you see that it was wrong, you know? You know, it was wrong. And like I say, we're talking 1963."

"In a public school."

"In a public school."

"In a decade of long hair really."

"yea, and they cut his- He was forced to cut his hair."

"I also remember him talking Indian and him getting spanked for it, you know, in that period of time.”

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1972

Indian Education Act grants Title IV funds for Indian education programs.

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1975

Indian Independence Act passed

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1977

Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish Commission established

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1978

American Indian Religious Freedom Act passed

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1980

Mt. St. Helens Erupts

"In 1980 I drove into the ash..."

“In nineteen eighty i drove into the ash. I was officiating a funeral. When the mountain exploded my dad and I, we watched it from a distance from [name omitted], and we knew we had to come up and conduct a funeral. So we met the ash.”

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

1987

Yakama Nation & Salmonscam

Yakama Nation jury acquits Salmonscam defendants. For more information on Salmonscam, see this article from The Yakima Herald.

Click outside of the white area to return to the timeline

2014

Law to overturn tribal fishing convictions passes.

The Washington Legislature passes a law allowing pre-1975 convictions of tribal members for fishing in traditional locations to be vacated upon petition. George Meninock's wrongful conviction from 1916 is the first to be cleared, nearly 100 years later.