Umatilla Indian Reservation

The Umatilla Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation in the northwest United States, located in northeastern Oregon, east of Pendleton. The reservation is mostly located in Umatilla County, with a very small part extending south into Union County. It is managed by the three Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

Located on the north side of the Blue Mountains, the reservation was established for two Sahaptin-speaking Native American tribes: the Umatilla and Walla Walla, and for the Cayuse, whose language, now extinct, was an isolate. All the tribes historically inhabited the Columbia Plateau region. The tribes share land and a governmental structure as part of their confederation.

Geography, demographics and headquarters

The reservation has a land area of 271.047 sq mi (702.009 km²) and a tribal population of 2,927 as of the 2000 census. In addition, some 300 Native Americans from other regional tribes and 1500 non-natives live on the reservation. The largest community is Mission, which is the site of the tribal headquarters as well as the Umatilla Agency of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Some BIA agency offices serve more than one federally recognized tribe, but the Umatilla Agency exclusively serves the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR).

Indian reservation

An Indian reservation is a legal designation for an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the US Bureau of Indian Affairs, rather than the state governments of the United States in which they are physically located. Each of the 326Indian reservations in the United States are associated with a particular Nation. Not all of the country's 567recognized tribes have a reservation—some tribes have more than one reservation, some share reservations, while others have none. In addition, because of past land allotments, leading to some sales to non-Native Americans, some reservations are severely fragmented, with each piece of tribal, individual, and privately held land being a separate enclave. This jumble of private and public real estate creates significant administrative, political, and legal difficulties.

The collective geographical area of all reservations is 56,200,000 acres (22,700,000 ha; 87,800 sq mi; 227,000 km²), approximately the size of Idaho. While most reservations are small compared to US states, there are twelve Indian reservations larger than the state of Rhode Island. The largest reservation, the Navajo Nation Reservation, is similar in size to West Virginia. Reservations are unevenly distributed throughout the country; the majority are west of the Mississippi River and occupy lands that were first reserved by treaty or 'granted' from the public domain.

Indian reserve (disambiguation)

The terms Indian Country, Indian Reserve, Indian Reservation, Indian Territory and Indian Land may be easily confused. Articles on related topics are titled as follows:

Places for groups of Indigenous peoples to live

Other geographic areas:

Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)

"Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)" is a song written by John D. Loudermilk.Marvin Rainwater first recorded the song in 1959 on MGM by Marvin Rainwater as "The Pale Faced Indian", but that release stayed unnoticed. The first hit version was a 1968 cover by Don Fardon, a former member of The Sorrows, that reached #20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #3 on the UK Singles Chart.

In 1971 Paul Revere & the Raiders recorded the song on the Columbia Records label, and it topped the Hot 100 on July 24. The RIAA gold certification followed on 30 June 1971 for selling over a million copies. It was later certified platinum for selling an additional million copies. The song was the group's only #1 US Billboard hit, and their final Top Twenty song.

Historical context