SW Oregon History

Index of Native American Indian Residents of Southwest Oregon, 1826-1856

This index was initially created as an appendix to a general report on inland southwest Oregon forest history. Since that time it has been expanded into a more comprehensive webpage that can be used as a reference by students, teachers, researchers, and genealogists; and that can be readily edited and expanded as better information is made available.

The focus of this index is on the very earliest written records of southwest Oregon, and of its native people, beginning in 1826 and ending with the forced exile of local Indian families and communities in 1856, to military reservations in a foreign land. These records begin largely with the journals of reputable and reliable Hudson Bay Traders Alexander Roderick McLeod, Peter Skene Ogden, John Work, and others, in the late 1820s and throughout the 1830s and early 1840s.

Southwest Oregon history books, newspapers, and federal reports, survey, and census records include many references and much personal information regarding immigrant visitors and settlers to the region during the late 1840s and early 1850s, but the first accurate records of surviving native southwest Oregon Indian families and individuals is US Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) census records, made in 1860 and 1888 on the Grand Ronde and Siletz Indian reservations in northwest Oregon (Whitlow 1988).

Table of native southwest Oregon Indian residents, 1826-1856.

"Given Name" is the English spelling of local individual and family names, as recorded at times of historical contact, or as standardized in historical texts.

"Last Name*" is the English surname given to, or chosen by, southwest Oregon Indian families during the 1860 reservation census; although sometimes changed in the 1888 census. An asterisk [*] is used to denote names that may have been local, rather than English, origin.

"First Names" are reservation Engish names, as given to children and people born before 1857; after which time they were given English names at birth.

"Notes" are mostly biographical in nature. Details will be corrected or added as they are acquired.

"1860 Tribe" is the Tribal affiliation for southwest Oregon families, as shown on the Grand Ronde 1860 Census, and expanded on the 1888 Census. Only three tribal groups were shown in 1860: Cow Creek; RR ("Rogue River") & Shasta; and Umpqua. Surviving Shastas (Dakubatede, Gusladada, and Shasta) and Rogue River (Latgawa and Takelma) families were separated in the 1888 census, and two members of the Williams family were identified as Yoncalla, making a total of five southwest Oregon Tribes recognized by the Grand Ronde Reservation before 1900.

"N/A" means "not available" or "not applicable."

"zz" is an alphabetical placeholder.

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