VISITORS’ GUIDE • GRAND COULEE DAM AREA • 2020-2021
Colvilles — Native People
VISITOR
Colville Tribal member Nathan Moses, whose M3 Consulting Group uses drones in agriculture in Eastern Washington, displays one to kids attending the Colville Tribes’ annual Earth Day Celebration at the powwow grounds on the Colville Indian Agency in 2018.
Who are the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation? For hundreds of years before explorers and settlers reached the lands of the Columbia Plateau, numerous tribes of native people occupied the territory of Eastern Washington. Up to the mid-1850s, the ancestors of the Colville Confederated Tribes were nomadic, but life changed for them with the coming of settlers in the 1800s.Today, the Colville Confederated Tribes is made up of 12 different bands of Indians. Eleven bands are from eastern Washington state, and one band, the Nez Perce, is from northeast Oregon. The 12 bands are: Wenatchi, Entiat, Chelan, Methow, Okanogan, Nespelem, San Poil, Lakes, Moses, Palus, Nez Perce and Sweelpoo.
How did these Native Americans live? As nomadic peoples, the different bands followed the seasons and their sources of food. Deer and other big game plus dried salmon were the primary food of winter.Small groups lived in the mountains and hunted the abundant game. In the spring, the native people congregated in slightly larger groups to gather camas and other roots in the lower valleys.Through the summer and fall, the Columbia River provided abundant salmon and other fish, which encouraged large concentrations of Salish-speaking Colville people. 30
How did the different bands come to be called the “Colville” Tribes? Many different tribes fished and traded goods with each other in the area of Kettle Falls, Washington. In the 1820s,non-native people learned that the Indians excelled at trapping and stalking game for the large fur trade. For this purpose, a new fort was established at Kettle Falls by a man named Simpson. The new post was to be called Fort Colvile, after the leading member of the committee of directors in London, Andrew Wedderburn Colvile. Andrew Colvile, who was in the rum and molasses business, never set foot in America. He had, however, advanced Simpson to his position of leadership. Trading took place at Fort Colvile almost daily. From 1826 to 1887, Indians traded beaver, brown or black bear, grizzly, muskrat, fisher, fox, lynx, martin, mink, otter, raccoon, wolverine, badger and wolf. Beaver and otter were most important, but martin and bear became popular after the 1840s. As many as 20,000 pelts a year went out of Fort Colvile. The word “Colville” was used by government officials, not the aboriginal Indians, who never met Andrew Colvile. As time went on, and for convenience, the term “Colville” came more and more to be used as a designation for the native people of this area. Because of Fort Colvile, all neighboring bands were eventually confederated as Colville Indians. By executive order of President Ulysses S.Grant on April Continued on page 31
