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The Spokane (Spokan) people are an American Indian Plateau tribe who traditionally occupied much of northeastern Washington. They hunted, fished, and gathered food throughout northern Idaho and Montana.

They are one of the Interior Salish tribes that included the Coeur d'Alene, Colville, Kalispel, Lakes, Nespelem, Okanagan, Pend d'Oreille, San Poil, Salish, and Shuswap.

Historically, the Spokane people were divided into three geographical divisions: Upper, Lower, and Middle. The Upper (Sntʔtʔúlixʷ) Spokane had villages along the Little Spokane River and the country east of the Lower Spokane, to the borders of the Coeur d'Alene and Kalispel. The Middle (Snxʷme̓nʔey) Spokane occupied the area near Spokane Falls, to Hangman Creek and Deep Creek to Tum Tum, while the Lower (Scqesciłni) Spokane lived along the lower Spokane River, from Little Falls to its confluence with the Columbia River.

The Spokane language, Npoqínišcn, is a dialect of Montana Salish and belongs to the Interior Salishan language family. It shares similarities with the languages of neighboring tribes like the Bitterroot Salish (Flathead) and Pend d'Oreilles.

In Salishan, Spokane translates to "children of the sun" or "sun people." They are believed to be either direct descendants of the original hunter-gatherers in the region or of tribes that migrated from the Great Plains.

Early Spokane were a river people, living a semi-nomadic way of life; like many other American Indian groups, they moved seasonally to follow the availability of game or other sources of food. With their more permanent villages along the banks of the Spokane and Columbia rivers and their tributaries, more than half of their diet came from the water. This included salmon, steelhead, eel, and shellfish, which made up more than half of their diet. They also hunted for game and supplemented their diet with seeds, nuts, fruits, and roots.

Spokane culture was influenced by coastal tribes; like these tribes, they built plank homes or put houses to serve as winter shelters. They also adopted elements of the Great Plains tribes, including teepees, which were commonly used after the introduction of the horse in the 1750s.

Traditional Spokane religion was similar to that of other American Indian tribes in some ways, in that they believed in a Great Spirit, as well as other spirits associated with nature, such as atmospheric spirits like wind and thunder, as well as supportive animal spirits. When Christianity was introduced, traditional beliefs were often combined with Christianity.

The first European people encountered by the Spokane were fur traders and explorers. By the time the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered them in 1805, they were already suffering the devastating effects of European diseases, such as smallpox.

The North West Company built the Spokane House, a fur-trading post, near the confluence of the Spokane and Little Spokane rivers in 1810, and the Pacific Fur Company established Fort Spokane in 1811. The frontier outpost later served as an Indian boarding school for Spokane children from 1898 to 1906.

The Spokane took part in the Coeur d'Alene War of 1958, a series of conflicts between the United States Army and allied American Indian warriors from the Coeur d'Alene, Kalispell, Palouse, Northern Paiute, Yakima, and Spokane, which centered in ancestral Spokane territories in Washington and Idaho.

By treaty, the Spokane people ceded most of their territory and accepted removal to the Spokane Reservation, which was established in 1881. In 1877, the Lower Spokane (Scqesciłni) people agreed to move to the Spokane Reservation. In 1887, the Upper (Sntʔtʔúlixʷ) and Middle (Snxʷme̓nʔey) Spokane people agreed to move to the Colville Reservation, where the Colville people were predominant.

Not all Spokane people accepted removal to a reservation, which caused some conflict with white settlers. In the Nez Perce War of 1877, the Spokane remained neutral despite pleas from Nez Perce Chief Joseph to join them in their efforts to expel the settlers.

Prior to European and American colonization, a small group of Kalispel people lived in the area of Chewelah. The Chewelah (slet̓éw̓si) Band of Indians is currently part of the Spokane Tribe.

The contemporary Spokane Indian Reservation in northeastern Washington represents a fraction of the tribe's ancestral lands, although many Spokane people live off of the reservation.

In the 1950s, uranium was discovered on the reservation. It was mined from 1956 to 1962, from an open pit, a practice that was ended; then, from 1969 to 1982, uranium was mined at the Midnite Mine. Now inactive, it is a Superfund cleanup site.

Topics related to the Spokane people are the focus of this part of our web guide.

 

 

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