Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation

A nation today

No photograph of Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation's homelands here yet. Its own site carries the pictures that matter.

Background

Three peoples sit inside this government, and the Tribe's own history names them: the Cayuse, the Umatilla and the Walla Walla, river people of the lower Columbia. At a council at Waiilatpu in the Walla Walla valley on June 9, 1855, the three signed a treaty that ceded 6.4 million acres to the United States and reserved 510,000 acres on which to live, along with rights to fish, hunt, gather foods and medicines, and to pasture livestock. Congress ratified that treaty on March 8, 1859, and the Tribe's history records that the reservation actually surveyed came to about 245,000 acres, roughly half of what the treaty reserved. Allotment and the laws that followed cut the reservation again, and the Tribe's history puts it today at 172,882 acres, of which 52 percent is in Indian ownership and 48 percent is not, a checkerboard pattern with non-Indians still living inside the boundary. Sovereign authority rests with an elected Board of Trustees, elected by a General Council made up of all tribal members, and the Tribe's government runs on a staff of roughly 520 employees across administration, health and human services, natural resources, economic and community development, tribal services, education, fire protection and police.

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Visit and learn

Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation's own site

Tribal lands have their own laws. Check the nation's site before you visit.

Programs

  • Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center

    Sixteen government departments are on the Tribe's list, and this is the only one named for a person. The Tribe's own one-line description of it is caring for the health of tribal members. The Tribe's administration and the center share the address 46411 Timíne Way in Pendleton, Oregon.

    https://ctuir.org/government/departments/·other

  • Natural Resources

    The Tribe's department list gives this one the job of managing the natural resources of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and it is one of sixteen departments the Tribe lists. The government runs out of 46411 Timíne Way in Pendleton, and its main line is (541) 276-3165.

    https://ctuir.org/government/departments/·land

Sources

Checked September 2026.

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