Tribal interaction with the government began in the 1850s and 1860s when white settlers began moving into the area. Federal law at this time stated that a ratified treaty must be formed with the Indians of the area to remove their ownership from the lands and allow settlement. A treaty was drawn up in 1855 by Joel Palmer, a United States government Indian agent. With this treaty, the United States government hoped to move all coastal tribes into the Siletz reservation. However, war broke out between the settlers and many tribes in the area, though not the Coos, Lower Umpqua, or Siuslaw tribes. As a precaution, the military rounded up these three tribes and moved them away from their homelands to military-owned Fort Umpqua. They stayed there until 1860, when they were again moved to the Alsea sub agency.
By the 1870s, just as living conditions began to look up in this new situation, the government wanted to relocate the tribes again to the main Siletz reservation. However, many of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw refused and instead, they returned to their homelands. During the years when the tribes lived on the reservations, government policy made it illegal for any Indians to live off of the reservations except in the case of a female Indian married to a white male. Many Indian families hid from the government though and lived off of the reservations in secret. The government occasionally sent out volunteers, soldiers, and agents to collect these runaway Indians.
When the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw peoples moved back to their homelands, they remembered that the treaty signed in 1855 was never honored and that the tribes were never given the land claims they were promised. From this time on, tribal members worked hard to regain these land claims. This process took a lot of letter-writing and lobbying to Congress and finally in 1931, they finally got a land claims hearing in court. However, the court rejected their testimony and ruled against the tribes' land claims. After this loss, the tribes did not give up. Tribal members worked through the 1930s and 1940s to gain their land claims.
During these times, federal policy dealing with Indians was constantly changing. In the 1950s, when the Eisenhower administration came into power, the government decided to get rid of the annoyance of Indian affairs. With this policy change, all government communications with Indian tribes was severed and tribes were no longer said to exist. To read more about the process of losing federal recognition and regaining it, read section 4 of the website.
The top picture is of present-day Fort Umpqua, a location where the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw peoples traded goods and had some of their first encounters with Europeans. Later, when this fort was under military control, the tribes were placed here as a precaution to avoid war between the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw peoples and the white settlers who moved into their homelands. The bottom picture is of Joel Palmer, the United States government Indian agent that created the treaty with the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw peoples in 1855 that promised them their much sought after land claims.
(All information provided by http://www.ctclusi.org/)