Land Acknowledgement:
We are blessed to live at Santiam Valley Ranch.
And we recognize daily that this farm rests on the ancestral home of the Santiam Band of the Kalapuya Tribe.
Under the Willamette Valley Treaty of 1855 (also known as the Kalapuya Treaty of 1855), the Kalapuyans ceded nearly the entirety of the Willamette Valley to the United States Government. The indigenous people who lived on this land were forcibly removed to re-settle on the Grand Ronde Encampment during the winter of 1855-1856.
In the spirit of those that once lived here and who respected and revered this land, we too are committed to conserve and restore this landscape to the beauty it once was. For us, not a day goes by without our reverence for those that lived here only 175 years ago. We see this landscape as pristine wetlands, grassland prairie, and oak savannas filled with beavers, elk and the soaring Canada geese, flying in the thousands, overhead.
In our lifetime, we hope to learn more about the Santiam Band and this native habitat. And we hope to learn more with others, including the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, as our history now intertwines together.
Santiam derives its name from the Santiam band of the Kalapuya (Kalapooia) Indians that once lived in this geographical area for 8,000-10,000 years, according to archaeological sites. The North and South Santiam Rivers provided livelihood, especially where the two tributaries merge together near the present-day City of Jefferson. As traders, explorers and settlers arrived, by 1833 an estimated ninety percent of the Kalapuya people perished due to smallpox and malaria. In 1851, leaders of the Santiam band requested to remain on their traditional territory between the forks of the Santiam River.
"We don't want any other piece of land as a reserve than that in the forks of the Santiam river. We do not wish to remove."
Alquema, Santiam Leader at the Santiam Treaty Council
Champoeg, Oregon Territory, April 12, 1851.
The Santiam Treaty was not ratified.
By 1855, the remaining remnants of the Santiam people were moved to the Grand Ronde or Siletz Reservations.
Caption: Camas (Camassia quamash) is a purple flower which covered the moist meadows of the Willamette Valley during early spring, creating beautiful purple landscapes of Camas prairies. It's bulb was an important food staple for the Kalapuya people and other Native Americans. Archaeologists have documented Camas ovens in the Willamette Valley that are more than 7,000 years old.