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Cow Creek Umpqua Tribe flourishes on the 20th anniversary of gaining government recognition and despite a rocky past it now is the second largest employer in Douglas County Oregon.
This week, the Southern Oregon band will mark the 20th anniversary of being recognized by the government
By Alice Tallmadge
ROSEBURG--When the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indians began its push for federal recognition in the 1970s, the deck seemed stacked against them.
The band had dwindled to about 700, some living In Southern Oregon but more than half scattered for up the Pacific coast. The small clutch of tribal leaders--descendants of seven families who made up the core of the band--had resorted to passing around a coffee can at their meetings for spare change to pay for postage.
This week, as the Cow Creek mark the 20th anniversary of their recognition by the US. Government, little remains of the band's hardscrabble past except memories.
The 1,203-member tribe, now the second largest private employer in Douglas County, sits at a pinnacle of cultural and economic success never dreamed of by their plucky ancestors.
The first tribe in Oregon to negotiate a gambling compact with the state, the Cow Creek own and operate the expansive Seven Feathers Hotel & Casino Resort on Interstate 5 in Canyonville as well as several area businesses. The tribe's annual $29 million payroll supports 1,040 full-time workers, most of whom are not tribal members.
The tribe has developed a web of services for tribal members and since 1997 has distributed about $2.3 million to nonprofits throughout Southern Oregon. It also is a major booster for local educational and civic programs.
“We have focused on jobs and building strong people,” said tribal chairwoman Sue Shaffer, 79. “And we've done an excellent job of building strong communities--the outer community as well as the tribal community."
A legacy of determination
Many credit Shaffer with steering the tribe through its successful bid for recognition and helping secure a $1.5 million land claims judgment in 1984 that provided seed money for the tribe’s economic growth.
But Shaffer credits her grandmother, Mary Thomason Furlong, and her mother, Ellen “Nellie” Furlong Crispen, with providing the tribe with leadership and vision throughout the long decades of poverty and neglect.
For years her grandmother’s home was the base of tribal gatherings, Shaffer said. After her grandmother's death in 1941, the leaders met in her mother's kitchen or at picnics at traditional huckleberry patches. Her mother kept scrupulous notes of these meetings. Years later, these notes were essential in documenting that the Cow Creek had been a consistent entity for generations.
“I don’t think she ever dreamed the notes would be so important” Shaffer said. “My family is just a family of hoarders.”
Shaffer has collected a trove of memories. She remembers vividly the despair that came over her extended family in 1932 when they received the news that their bid for a lands claim settlement that dated back to 1853 had been vetoed by then-President Hoover. The tribe was brought to its knees yet again when, along with scores of other Oregon tribes, it was stripped of government recognition in 1954.
Years spent living among elders who shouldered the burden of the dispossessed tribe forged Shaffer’s dedication to seeing justice brought to the Cow Creek. In the 1970s she and other tribal leaders helped win the support of Oregon Rep. Jim Weaver, a Democrat and Sen. Mark Hatfield, a Republican, in the tribe's quest for recognition and in its efforts to win restitution for its land claims case.
Shaffer attended the 1982 hearing held by the Department of the Interior to hear the Cow Creeks petition for recognition. Not even the Bureau of Indian Affairs supported the tribe, she remembers.
"They tried to say that we didn’t know who we were. Well, my God. My family still owns the winter camp of our people. And I might be the only one in the U.S. who has the outright deed to an aboriginal cemetery, the cemetery of my great-grandmother's people.”
The chairman of the department was Sen. Morris Udall, D-Ariz who Shaffer said was outraged at the bureau’s stand.
“Mo Udell was very tall, and after he heard the BIA's testimony--and I never will forget--all nine feet of Mo stands up and he says, ‘You mean to tell me that these people have waited 120 years, and you’re trying to force them…to wait another 20 years?’ Well, that put the end to that.”
The tribe won recognition later that year.
Disputes delay action
In 1984, the tribe won the $1.5 million judgment in its land claims case. Instead of distributing the award in per capita payments, as many tribes had done, the Cow Creek's plan was to reinvest the money and use the interest to fund economic development and other tribal programs.
But the Bureau of Indian Affairs balked, challenging the plan and the authenticity of the tribe's membership roll. The BIA favored per capita payments, Shaffer said, even though it had been known to be the most disastrous program in history for tribes. "We fought not to submit to what we knew was creating another dependency.”
It took four years and intervention from top government officials, but the agency finally issued payments in 1988.
Disagreement about who was a tribal member and how the judgment money should be distributed led to lawsuits and power struggles within the tribe as well.
In 1989, after Shaffer and the elected tribal government faced down a challenge from a splinter group, the way was cleared for the Cow Creek to begin its evolution into an Indian gambling powerhouse.
Far-flung support
The Cow Creek hosted a dinner for 500 tribal members last week and held another dinner Saturday night with a 500-person guest list that included national, state and local politicians, business leaders and community members.
The guest list reflected what many say is the Cow Creek’s most effective tool--its leader's insistence on building and nurturing community.
Sue Shaffer is one of the most highly respected tribal government leaders in Indian country; said Patricia Zell, the majority staff director and chief counsel for the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
"She has always recognized the importance of relationships with non-Indian communities and interest groups," she sad. "And she made it clear the Cow Creek are not only there to stay but have much to contribute to the development of the economy and general well-being of state. That has made an enormous difference in people's willingness to cooperate and advocate for the kinds of initiatives the tribe has engaged in."
COW CREEK BUSINESS VENTURES
The tribe owns or is a major partner in the following enterprises:
Seven Feathers Hotel and Casino Resort
Seven Feathers Truck and Travel Center
Umpqua Indian Foods
K-Bar Ranches
Creative Images
Cow Creek Health and Wellness Center
Rio Communications
Valley View Motel
Riverside Lodge Motel
Canyonville Cubbyholes
the Umpqua Indian Foundation
the Umpqua Indian Utility Cooperative, the first tribal-owned and operated utility in the Northwest
WHO ARE THE COW CREEK
Second-largest private employer in Douglas County with 1,040 full-time employees and an annual payroll of 29 million.
The first tribe in Oregon sign a gambling compact with the state. They own and operate the Seven Feathers Hotel & Casino Resort in Canyonville.
Ellen “Nellie” Furlong Crispen kept records of tribal meetings and was a tribal leader throughout the years the tribe struggled to maintain its identity. Crispen is the mother of Sue Shaffer, tribal chairwoman of the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indians.
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