“The Last Victims of the Indian War”: Celilo Falls, the Dalles Dam, and Infrastructural Colonization

Abstract

In 1957, the Dalles Dam was constructed on the Columbia River between Washington and Oregon. When the dam was completed, it inundated Celilo Falls, a Native American fishery and cultural gathering point that had been in use for at least 12,000 years. Prior to dam construction, the federal government and local agencies issued a number of reports stating the necessity of the dam for economic development through hydroelectric power generation, improved shipping navigation, flood control, and expanded irrigation capacity. These reports often sought to determine the financial payout that would be made to the groups with treaty rights to fish at their “usual and accustomed” places, such as Celilo Falls. However, the reports rarely engage with the cultural significance of Celilo Falls or the depth of opposition that people had to the dam. The research discussed here is based on archival government reports alongside the voices of affected tribal members preserved through The Confluence Project and other sources. This article develops the idea that reclamation infrastructure in the U.S. West plays a key role in colonizing efforts from federal to local scales, reflecting the aims of the settler state. Through an analysis of government documents alongside the recollections of Indigenous elders from the mid-Columbia region, this article offers insights into how reclamation infrastructure functions as an aspect of settler colonialism and relies on theorizations of this process from the people most affected by the loss of Celilo Falls.