The Confederated Tribes of Siletz in the United States is a compilation of 27 Native American groups, totaling 15,000 people in all. The groups differed in language and culture, and they were forced to move onto a single reservation in 1855; together they formed one unified tribe. All the groups originated from somewhere along the coast of northern California all the way to southwest Washington. The tribe gets its name from the Siletz River, which is where the reservation is located.The Siletz tribe had been federally recognized until 1956; the Public Law 588 terminated the tribe’s recognition and basically made them non-existent. The tribe had a million-acre reservation and other lands, and all of it was drastically reduced. Most of the land was sold and the rest was reduced to a 36-acre cemetery. The right to hunt and subsistence fishing were also taken away from the tribe and made illegal. As well as losing their land and some rights, the people were now forced to pay property taxes, even though most tribe members couldn’t pay.
After some governmental changes, the Siletz people regained legal recognition in 1977. The Siletz people were the second tribe in the nation to have its federal status restored. In 1992, the tribe achieved the right to self-govern, which greatly helped to improve the spirits of the people and the land. They now had the right to oversee and control tribal funding and programs.
