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Homeland shrank from 22 million acres to
none: 1864 to 1974
Before European-Americans began settling in
Southern Oregon and Northern California,
Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin Indians roamed
over about 22 million acres, an area extending
from the upper reaches of the Sprague and
Williamson rivers down to Mount Shasta in
Northern California.
In 1864, the U.S. government signed a treaty
with the three groups that established a
single reservation on 2 million acres of what
is now central Klamath and Lake counties. Over
the following decades, surveys, changes in
boundaries and land cessions reduced the size
of the reservation to the 1.2 million acres it
encompassed in 1954, when the federal
government terminated the tribe and began the
process of abolishing the reservation.
Before termination, the U.S. Bureau of Indian
Affairs administered timber sales from
reservation lands, with a portion of the
proceeds going to each member in “per capita”
payments.
For many the payments meant they didn’t have
to work.
In the 15 years before termination, each
member on the tribe’s roll was getting about
$800 per year. When totaled up for a family of
four, that was more than the median income for
the population as a whole in Klamath County at
the time.
The reservation’s superintendent – who with
one exception had always been a white man –
had complete authority. Tribal members had to
ask him about almost every major decision,
including whether they could leave the
reservation.
“They treated us like children and dictated to
our people,” said Joe Hobbes, current vice
chairman of the Klamath Tribes.
As early as the 1920s, the tribal groups who
had lived more than a half-century on the
Klamath Indian Reservation wanted out. Debate
among tribal leaders continued for decades,
with potential forms of termination ranging
from the formation of a corporation run by the
tribes to the liquidation of all the land. The
idea eventually pushed through the U.S.
Congress was the latter.
In 1953, the U.S. House passed Concurrent
Resolution 108, which called for an end of
federal supervision and control for all the
tribes of California, Florida, New York and
Texas as soon as possible. Beyond those, it
named five tribes that should be terminated –
one was the Klamath Tribe.
U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs officials told
Congress that the Klamath Tribe was
practically assimilated already and were ready
for the government to get out of their
affairs. The tribes were considered ready for
termination mostly because of their timber
assets and their potential to be financially
independent.
The Klamath Tribe and the Menomonee Tribe of
Wisconsin were the first tribes to be
terminated, both in 1954. They rode the crest
of a wave of 12 termination bills that by 1962
would eliminate 61 bands and tribes.
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