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Yakama Nation
Fourteen tribes and bands beneath Mount Adams
The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation govern a reservation of more than a million acres in south-central Washington, stretching from the farm towns of the Yakima Valley west to the slopes of Mount Adams, the sacred peak the Yakama call Pahto. The Nation brings together 14 tribes and bands named in the Treaty of 1855, signed with territorial governor Isaac Stevens, in which they ceded more than 11 million acres while keeping this reservation and the right to fish, hunt and gather across the ceded lands.
The Yakama War broke out almost immediately as miners and settlers poured onto ceded land before the treaty was even ratified. In 1972 President Nixon returned about 21,000 acres, including the eastern side of Mount Adams, that had been left out by a survey error. The Nation's treaty rights remain powerful: in 2019 the Supreme Court held that its right to travel shields a Yakama business from Washington's fuel tax. The Nation's agency headquarters is at Toppenish, and it manages extensive forests and Columbia River fisheries.