Seeking Recognition: The Termination and Restoration of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians, 1855-1984

by David R.M. Beck

In 1855 the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw tribes of Oregon signed the Empire Treaty with the United States, which would have provided them rights as federally acknowledged tribes with formal relationships with the U.S. government. The treaty, however, was never ratified by Congress; in fact, the federal government lost the document. Tribal leaders spent the next century battling to overcome their quasi-recognized status, receiving some federal services for Indians but no compensation for the land and resources they lost. In 1956 the U.S. government officially terminated their tribal status as part of a national effort to eliminate the government’s relationship with Indian tribes. These tribes vehemently opposed termination yet were not consulted in this action.

 

In Seeking Recognition , David R. M. Beck examines the termination and eventual restoration of the Confederated Tribes at Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw some thirty years later, in 1984. Within this historical context, the termination and restoration of the tribes take on new significance. These actions did not take place in a historical vacuum but were directly connected with the history of the tribe’s efforts to gain U.S. government recognition from the very beginning of their relations.

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[David Martinez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beck's work on behalf of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw of southwestern Oregon is a tour de force of ethnohistorical research. Beck takes his reader on an historical tour of these three tribes' traditional lands as they incur settlers, traders, and soldiers, not to mention an 1855 treaty party that would divest these nations of much of their land for the purpose of white settlement. Yet, because the treaty was never ratified the three Indigenous nations would lose their land without the benefit of being formally recognized by the United States. Consequently, as Beck documents to great effect, the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw would continue to endure further encroachments on their lands and resources, be forced to relocate to basically accommodate white privilege, then be confronted with the deleterious effects of the Termination Era. Ultimately, what Beck writes about is resiliency, as these three peoples never relent in their struggle to protect their sovereign rights, which is finally recognized in 1984 when Congress formally acknowledged the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians.