The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians in the United States is a federally recognized confederation of more than 27 Native American tribes and bands who once inhabited an extensive homeland of more than 20 million acres from northern California to southwest Washington and between the summit of the Cascades and the Pacific Ocean.

The word siletz translates to a description of something that is coiled like a rope or a snake, describing the route of the river winding through the mountains circuitously to the ocean.

The Coast Reservation originally comprised 1.1 million acres, which was established by the executive order of President Franklin Pierce on November 9, 1855, only weeks after the start of the last phase of the Rogue River Wars.

In 1894, 551 individuals received federal allotments from the remaining reservation, and tribal members were forced to cede the "surplus" for 74 cents an acre.

Their initiatives included the restoration of the tribal cemetery on Government Hill and aggressive lobbying of Congress and the office of the President to again recognize Siletz as a federal Native American tribe.

At the time Senator Hatfield presented his restoration bill he was quoted as saying that the Siletz People were "ill-prepared to cope with the realities of American society" when the Termination act went to effect and that they had been "tossed abruptly from a state of almost total dependency to a state of total independence ...[forcing them] to leave the only way of life they had known."

Unlike its 1975 predecessor, it did not include that the hunting or fishing rights be restored (although a companion bill was sent by Rep. Les AuCoin to the United States House of Representatives, H.R.

The tribe owns and operates the Chinook Winds Casino and Convention Center, the Chinook Winds Golf Resort[9] in Lincoln City (including the Chinook Winds Resort hotel purchased from Shilo Inn hotels in 2004), the oceanfront Lot 57 north of Chinook Winds Casino, Hee Hee Illahee RV park in Salem, the Logan Road RV Park,[10] the Salem Flex Building where the Salem Area Offices currently exist, the Portland Stark Building which was purchased in August 2007, which is the site of the tribe's Portland Area Office, the Eugene Elks building which houses the Eugene Area Office, the Siletz Gas & Mini Mart, the old Toledo Mill site, and a commercial building in Depoe Bay.

During the winter solstice, dancers, singers, and tribal members from the Confederated Tribes visit the Tolowa's cedar plank dance house near Smith River, California.

A partial attempt at the tribal population makeup before it was forced on reservation lands in the mid-19th century is as follows: The ancestors of the Confederated Tribes spoke at least 11 different languages.

[16] However, according to a later report in The Economist, the language has since been at least partially revived thanks to an on-line dictionary project; in some areas, "many now text each other in Siletz Dee-ni.

"[17] The tribe has a language revival program with classes in three area offices and Siletz Valley school.