Living Law,
Living LandSupport land rights
All treaties and agreements

Treaty

Confederated Tribes of Middle Oregon at Warm Springs Agency, Oregon (1865)

The 1865 Middle Oregon treaty took away off-reservation fishing and hunting rights; Congress nullified it in 2020.

Signed
November 15, 1865
Senate
Ratified

What happened

On November 15, 1865, at the Warm Springs Agency in Oregon, Superintendent J. W. Perit Huntington signed articles with chiefs and head-men of the confederated tribes and bands of Middle Oregon. They amend a treaty of June 25, 1855.

Article 1 says the 1855 treaty had let the tribes "fish, hunt, gather berries and roots, pasture stock, and erect houses" on ceded lands outside the reservation. The United States side says this was abused by Indians living away from the reservation. The 1865 text has the tribes relinquish all those rights. Article 2 has them agree to remain on the reservation. Article 3 lets the superintendent or agent give short written permits to leave. Article 4 says violators lose their share of annuities. In exchange, Article 5 gave $3,500 for teams, implements and seeds, and Article 6 promised an allotment to each head of family.

A Senate committee report in 2019 says a 1997 Forest Service report concluded that the tribal leaders' signatures on this supplemental treaty "were obtained by fraudulent means." The committee said the bill S. 832 would nullify the supplemental treaty and leave the 1855 treaty intact. The OSU database notes that the 116th Congress nullified the treaty in 2020.

Good to know. A Senate committee report says a 1997 Forest Service review found the tribal signatures were obtained by fraud.

Summarized with AI assistance from 4 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error

What the sources say, and how this was checked

Well supported by the sources below.

  1. the right to take fish, erect houses, hunt game, gather roots and berries, and pasture animals upon lands without the reservationTribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Confederated Tribes of Middle Oregon at Warm Springs Agency, Oregon (1865)
  2. Treaty was nullified by the 116th Congress in 2020Tribal Treaties Database (Oklahoma State University): Confederated Tribes of Middle Oregon at Warm Springs Agency, Oregon (1865)
  3. the tribal leaders' signatures on the Supplemental 1865 Treaty were obtained by fraudulent meansSenate Report 116-45, To Nullify the Supplemental Treaty (govinfo.gov)
  4. S. 832 will repeal and nullify the Supplemental 1865 TreatySenate Report 116-45, To Nullify the Supplemental Treaty (govinfo.gov)

Research notes. The fraud finding is the Forest Service's, as reported by the Senate committee in 2019, before the bill passed. The 2020 nullification is reported here from the Oklahoma State University treaty database. The Senate report records that a member of the Warm Springs tribal council testified in favor of the bill; the tribes' own published account is not quoted here.

What happened next

Everything the record holds about this land and this treaty, in order: what earlier agreements said, what this one did, and what the United States, the courts and the nations did afterwards.

Who is doing the work today

The nations connected to this treaty come first, then groups returning land and defending treaty rights. Support goes directly to them.

This history belongs to living nations. Start with them:

Native legal and land defense, nationally

Gifts go straight to each organization; this atlas takes nothing. Listing is not endorsement: how organizations are listed.

Sources

  1. treaties.okstate.edu/treaties/treaty-with-the-middle-oregon-tribes-1865-0908reference work
    Treaty with the Middle Oregon Tribes, 1865 Nov. 15, 1865. | 14 Stats., 751.

Shapes are approximate and are not legal descriptions of land, title or jurisdiction.