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The Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indians is requesting Congress to pass bills giving them official legal status so they can apply for a review of the Treaty negotiated in 1853.
To date the U.S. federal government has failed to meet its obligations under the Treaty.
Although the Cow Creek Band are not officially recognized as an Indian Band, they established themselves as a non-profit organization with 11 board members in 1974 and formal tribal meetings have been held since 1926.
By Ken Zank
The Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians hopes that bills introduced in Congress last week will give 550 overlooked Indians their day in court.
Robert Buschmann, a tribal official, said the bills introduced by Sen. Mark Hatfield and U.S. Rep. Jim Weaver could bring benefits to the Indians if the Court of Claims rules that the Cow Creek Umpquas have a valid claim.
The tribe is not looking or land or hunting or fishing rights, Buschmmann said.
What the tribe does seek is a review of a Treaty negotiated by Gen. Joel Palmer, U.S. Indian Agent, Sept.18, 1853, between a chief and four headmen of a group Palmer gave the name "Cow Creeks." Until then there had been no such designation.
The band involved was Umpquas who live around Cow Creek on the Riddle Land Claim in Douglas County.
The Treaty promised to pay $12,000 for 800 square miles of land plus several houses worth $200. It also agreed to supply fencing, plowing and seeds for a field of five acres. After the first payment, an annuity was to be paid: "blankets, clothing, provisions, stock and farming implements."
Buschmann, who works for the tribe's attorney, Robert Thomas of Klamath Falls, said his research shows the government stopped payment after the first installment of goods, probably because of the Rogue River Indian War.
Some Cow Creek Umpquas left to fight with the Rogues, but others fled to the hills to hide.
When the war ended in 1855, Cow Creeks back from the battle went to the Grande Ronde Reservation. The rest stayed nearby in Cow Creek, Canyonville and Myrtle Creek.
The government resumed treaty payments to the Umpquas at Grande Ronde, but seemed unaware of the other Cow Creeks off the reservation.
The latter, according to Buschmann, never received benefits. "We haven't had Bureau of Indian Affairs allotments or education rights.
About 1960 the Western Oregon Judgment made settlements with the Umpquas of the Grande Ronde and other reservation groups.
Non-reservation Cow Creek Umpquas applied for their share, but were rejected because they could not prove descendancy from the Cow Creeks at Grande Ronde.
Actually, the last trace of any Umpqua Cow Creeks at Grande Ronde was in 1900 after which the original 17 lost all separate identity by intermarriage with other tribes."
The descendants of the Cow Creeks who fled to the hills after the Rogue Valley War and who never went to reservations are the ones for whom the bill introduced is designed.
Buschmann believes the court might explore whether the treaty was in fact "fair and honorable dealing" since the Indians received 2.3 cents per acre.
However, seven months previously the Oregon Donation Land Claim Act had pegged the going price for land at $1.25 per acre for settlers.
"There have been cases where the court has determined that the government has paid too little for the land," Buschmann noted.
In 1946 the Indians Claims Commission Act was passed, but the commission did not inform the Cow Creeks that they might apply for consideration.
Notified then were seven or eight well established groups of a better-known Indians. The Cow Creeks, maybe less than 300 at that time, lived isolated in the Days Creek, Tiller, Drew, Glide and Canyonville communities. The Claims Commission expired Sept. 30, 1978, with a backlog of cases unresolved. The Cow Creeks never did get considered.
The Umpquas once numbered about 6,000 people but they lived in small family bands, ranging from eight to 35 people. They lived in Douglas, Jackson, and Josephine counties – all over Western Oregon between the Coast Range and the Cascades, from the Rogue River in the south to the Calapooia Creek in the north.
Sen. Charles L. McNary introduced a bill similar to the current one on behalf of the Cow Creeks in 1926, 1928 and in 1932 – the latter passing both houses, but it was vetoed by President Hoover.
The struggle goes back to 1879 when a resolution was passed in Congress to set aside land for the Cow Creek Indians but it was never passed.
Buschmann said he thinks action could come in two or three months unless something unforeseen should occur.
The Cow Creeks became a non-profit organization with 11 board members in 1974. Formal tribal meetings have been held since 1926.