The Looming Partition of the Quinault Reservation
Government agent Edwin Eells details the imminent survey and allotment of reservation lands, signaling a shift in local land ownership and settlement.
Edwin Eells, government agent for several regional Indian reservations, reported that a survey of the Quinault reservation is nearing completion. Once the interior department allots land to the Indigenous inhabitants in severalty, the remaining balance of the 500-square-mile reservation will be opened to settlers. With available homesteads in Chehalis County nearly exhausted, officials anticipate a wave of immigration into the fertile Quinault River valley, which is rich in timber. Agent Eells, who has served since 1871, noted that while the transition aims to integrate the land into the local economy, it also represents a massive change for the roughly 500 inhabitants of the Quinault tribes.
“The demand for homesteads in Chehalis county during the past two years has exhausted the supply of available lands, and if the Quiniault reservation is thrown open for settlement it will immediately be followed by an immigration that will result in developing the most resourceful territory on the Pacific coast.”
This report captures the late 19th-century 'Allotment Era' policy, which sought to break up tribal land ownership under the guise of homesteading. The push for development described here resulted in the loss of vast tracts of Indigenous land, a pivotal moment in the history of Washington State land ownership and sovereignty.
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