Colville Tribes history

Okanogan - Chief Tonasket - Tonasket was an Okanogan Chief born around 1819.

In 1825, the Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Colville near Kettle Falls as a fur trading post.

Prior to the influx of Canadians and Europeans in the mid-1850’s the ancestors of the 12 aboriginal tribes were nomadic, following the seasons of nature and their sources of food.

Nonetheless, as many as three palúspam members signed the Yakima Treaty of 1855 (Kamiakin, Skloom, and Koo-lat-toose), thus agreeing to move the Palus to the Yakima Reservation.

In 1859, the US military built another fort nearby after the British left the area.

In 1879 the Moses or Columbia Reservation was set aside for the Chief Moses which included Columbia, Chelan, Entiat and Wenatchi tribes.

John Slocum, a member of the Squaxin tribe, founded the Indian Shaker Religion in 1881 near Olympia, Washington.

With the signing of the Columbia Treaty in 1883 and this reservations subsequent dissolution in the following year, many of the mətxʷu moved to the Colville Reservation.

In 1885, Chief Joseph and approximately 150 members of his band arrived at Colville Reservation and were allowed to settle near Nespelem.

In 1889, the US Government offered Chief Joseph's people the opportunity to take allotments on the Nez Perce Reservation at Lapwai, but Chief Joseph refused, hoping to return to Wallowa.

In 1892 The north half of the Colville Reservation was ceded to the United States by and act of Congress (27 Stat.

Possibly more traumatic was the opening of the Reservation to mining in 1898.

In 1900, 1.4 million acres went to homesteaders.

Photo Right: Nespelem Indian Encampment 1903

Photo Right: Palus-Colville Family 1905 University of Washington Digital Collections

In 1916 President Woodrow Wilson approved a Proclamation Opening of Lands Within the Diminished Colville Indian Reservation.

Her first novel, Cogewea, the Half Blood: A Depiction of the Great Montana Cattle Range was published in 1927.

On February 26, 1938, the American government endorsed the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation’s new constitution and bylaws.

In 1956 the Colville won a case against the federal government, and the United States returned about 800,000 acres of reservation land to the tribe.

Photo Above: Ellisforde Bridge 1959 Photo Right: Old Encampment at Okanogan

1984: The Colville Tribal Enterprise Corporation (CTEC) is established to improve economic development.

The nearby luxury houseboat rental operation began in 1988.

Ann Arbor: Scholarly Publishing Office, University Of Michigan Library, 2006.