Yakama Indian Nation

The Yakama Indian Reservation is a Native American reservation of the federally recognized tribe, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. The tribe is made up of Klikitat, Palus, Wallawalla, Wanapam, Wenatchi, Wishram, and Yakama people. The reservation is located on the east side of the Cascade Mountains in southern Washington state. According to the United States Census Bureau, the reservation covers 2,185.94 square miles and the population in 2000 was 31,799. It lies primarily in the Yakima and the northern edge of Klickitat counties. A small section crosses the southeast corner of Lewis County. The largest city on the reservation is Toppenish. The Yakama is a Native American tribe with nearly 10,851 members, inhabiting Washington state.
The Yakama Indian Reservation is comprised of 1,371,918 acres. Although the Yakamas ceded 10,828,800 acres of ancestral homeland to the U.S. government, they reserved their right to hunt, fish, access and use traditional cultural sites, gather traditional foods and medicines, pasture stock and have water in sufficient quantity and quality in all of their “usual and accustomed places” within this ceded area. Their right to fish is protected by treaties and has been re-affirmed in late 20th-century court cases such as United States v. Washington (the Boldt Decision, 1974) and United States v. Oregon (Sohappy v. Smith, 1969).

Scholars disagree on the origins of the name Yakama. The Sahaptin words, ‘E-yak-ma,’ means “a growing family”, and iyakima, means “pregnant ones”. Other scholars note the word, yákama, which means “black bear,” or ya-ki-ná, which means “runaway”. They have also been referred to as the Waptailnsim, “people of the narrow river” and Pa’kiut’lĕma, “people of the gap” which describes the tribe’s location along the Yakima River. The Yakama refer to themselves as the Mamachatpam. In 1805 or 1806, they encountered the Lewis and Clark Expedition at the confluence of the Yakima River and Columbia River. Not long thereafter, American and British trappers introduced ready-made goods to the Yakama. Homesteaders, miners and others would follow in increasing numbers.

To accommodate an insatiable white demand for land and resources, Washington territorial governor and Indian agent Isaac Stevens concluded the Yakama Treaty with the Yakama and 13 other tribes and bands on June 9, 1855. In signing the treaty, the Indians ceded 11.5 million acres to the United States. Although the Yakama themselves ceded 10,828,800 acres to the U.S. government, they reserved their right to fish, hunt and gather within the ceded area. The tribes and bands also agreed to move to a new reservation and receive federal benefits. The treaty stipulated two years to allow the tribes and bands to relocate on the new reservation, but Governor Stevens threw open Indian lands for white settlers less than two weeks after the treaty was signed.

A Yakama chief, Kamiakin, called upon the tribes to oppose the declaration. Some of the tribes joined forces under Kamiakin. The Indians managed to fight off U.S. soldiers for about three years in the uprising called the Yakima War (1855-1858). Other Indians in the territory rose up as well. In September 1858, at the Battle of Four Lakes near Spokane, the Indians were decisively defeated. Kamiakan escaped to Canada, but two dozen other leaders were apprehended and executed.

Most of the Yakama and other tribes then moved onto the reservation where numerous Sahaptin dialects, Chinookan, Salish and English languages converged. They led a harrowing existence. White agents ran the reservation intending to assimilate the internees into American society. A boarding school was established at Fort Simcoe on the reservation to educate and indoctrinate Indian children. Confinement on the reservation contributed to a social breakdown, ill health, alcoholism, and such other problems as high infant mortality. Agents also compelled Indians to grow crops on the reservation, but they farmed without enthusiasm. Many struggled to fish, hunt, and gather, but the old ways had been disrupted. The Yakama gradually lost access to fishing and hunting lands, as well as to areas with roots and berries; non-Indians had started farms and ranches on ceded Yakama land. Whites let their livestock feed on roots and berries. Irrigation projects destroyed Yakima River salmon runs and plowing ruined plant and animal habitat.

In accordance with a new federal policy in the late 1800s, government agents began to break up the reservation into 80-acre allotments for individual Indians, to encourage tillage. By 1914, 4,506 tribal members held 440,000 allotted acres, leaving 780,000 acres owned by the tribe as a whole.

Later in the 1900s, however, nearly all tillable acreage was purchased out of Indian hands. Such towns as Toppenish and Wapato were established on lands purchased from Indian allotments. Various entities threatened to confiscate Indian water. County, state and federal governments promoted development, including road and railroad construction, as well as the massive Wapato Irrigation Project. Whites sought through official channels to restrict the movement of Yakama people on the Columbia Plateau. In 1933, the Yakama organized as the Confederated Tribes of the Yakama Nation.

As a consequence of the Walla Walla Council and the Yakima War of 1855, the tribe was forced to cede much of their land and move onto their present reservation. The Treaty of 1855 identified the 14 confederated tribes and bands of the Yakama, including “Yakama (Lower Yakama or Yakama proper, autonym: Mámachatpam), Palouse (now written Palus, Yakama name: Pelúuspem), “Pisquouse (P’squosa, now Wenatchi), Wenatshapam (Yakama name: Winátshapam, now Wenatchi), Klikatat (Yakama name: Xwálxwaypam or L’ataxat), Klinquit (a Yakama subtribe), Kow-was-say-ee (Yakama name: Kkáasu-i or K’kasawi, Tenino subtribe), Li-ay-was (not identified), Skin-pah (Sk’in tribe or Sawpaw, also known as Fall Bridge and Rock Creek people or K’milláma, a Tenino subtribe; perhaps another Yakama name for the Umatilla, which were known as Rock Creek Indians), Wish-ham (Yakama name: Wíshχam, now Wishram, speaking Upper Chinook (Kiksht)), Shyiks (a Yakama subtribe), Ochechotes (Uchi’chol, a Tenino subtribe), Kah-milt-pay (Kahmiltpah, Q’míl-pa or Qamil’lma, perhaps a Klikatat subtribe), and Se-ap-cat (Si’apkat, perhaps a Kittitas (Upper Yakama) subtribe, Kittitas autonym: Pshwánapam), confederated tribes and bands of Indians, occupying lands hereinafter bounded and described and lying in Washington Territory, who for the purposes of this treaty are to be considered as one nation, under the name ‘Yakama’…”. (Treaty with the Yakama, 1855) The name was changed from Yakima to Yakama in 1994 to reflect the native pronunciation.

The Yakama Reservation is primarily agricultural on the valley floor, range or grazing in the foothills and forested to the west and south. The city of Toppenish is located east of the Yakama Indian Nation’s headquarters in the eastern part of the Reservation. The Yakama Reservation covers 1,573 square miles in the south-central Washington counties of Klickitat and Yakima. This territory offers many and varied food sources such as fishing, hunting, and gathering of seasonal wild roots and berries. The members of the Yakama Nation have historically depended on the Columbia River and the salmon for their sustenance. Traditional routes for subsistence were, and continue to be on the Columbia River, starting above Priest Rapids to the traditional fishing site on Celilo Falls, and extending west on the lower Columbia River beyond the Klickitat River tributary. The Yakama Reservation and its members are governed by the Yakama Nation Tribal Council. Self-government was re-established among the Yakamas in 1935.

Since the Indian Nation was made up of 14 bands and tribes, each group selected a representative, forming the modern tribal government. In 1947 a rule change provided for election by the General Council of half of the Tribal Council members every two years for four-year terms. All enrolled Yakamas become voting members of the General Council on their eighteenth birthday.