With its base in Reno, Nevada, the RSIC consists of 1,134 members from three Great Basin tribes: the Paiute, the Shoshone and the Washoe.

The People followed the food and over the years, each band evolved as an efficient, social and economic unit that could comfortably inhabit the land.

Each group believed that the animals of the Great Basin, on which they depended for many for food, also gave insight to creation and wise guidance on how to live.

According to modern science, the burial remains of the Spirit Cave mummy prove that he lived in the area more than 9,400 years ago.

[2] Because Indian land in the Great Basin was one of the last major frontiers to be explored and settled by European-Americans, The People sustained their way-of-life and ethnic identity much longer than most Tribes in other parts of the country.

When first contact occurred between Europeans and indigenous peoples in what would become Nevada, hundreds of other Tribes in areas of earlier settlement were already enduring the fourth major shift in U.S. Government policy toward American Indians.

Spanish records have little documentation of their explorers or traders being in Washo territory, but The People's oral history suggest there were encounters.

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 halted any future treaties with tribes and it gave Congress the authority to isolate the People in order to allow economic growth throughout the United States.

The United States wanted to settle The People on reservations to extinguish their title to other lands and encourage them to adopt the western model of subsistence farming to assimilate to majority culture.

The federal government believed that separating The People from the rest of its citizens would solve land disputes and reduce tensions between cultures.

His administration set aside Indian Territory in lands west of the Mississippi River, far from the traditional homelands of the American Southeast and other areas from which they forced tribes.

In 1859, the Department of Interior recommended that land be set aside for Indian use north of the Truckee River and including Pyramid Lake.

During the Reservation Period, Nevada gained residents but it was approved for admission to the Union during the American Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln wanted to forestall Confederate influence here.

The Meriam Report described the failures of the Dawes Act, finding that the overwhelming majority of Indian people on reservations were extremely poor, in bad health, living in primitive dwellings, and without adequate employment.

To improve conditions and encourage revitalization of self-government, Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

These Indians tried to maintain some of their old ways by building traditional homes, sometimes with modern materials, in camps in urban areas, often near the Truckee River.

In a letter to Nevada Senator Key Pitman, the new council supported the IRA, writing that the bill would be of lasting benefit to the progress of all Indians in the United States.

Additional assistance crafting the constitution came from George LaVatta, a Northern Shoshone from the Fort Hall Reservation who worked as a federal government field agent.

In 1936, the Colony tried to adopt a charter, but the BIA's field superintendent, Alida Bowler, delayed submitting the paperwork to the federal government.

However, the Colony's charter, which was approved on January 7, 1939, included plans for the tribe to establish a cooperating laundry, a store, a meat market, a gas station, arrangements for the raising of poultry, and a harness repair shop for individual Indian members who wanted to do business for themselves.

With input from E. M. Johnstone, a BIA land field agent, LaVatta, and Bowler, a proposal for the purchase of 1,080 acres between Highway 40 and the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks in the Truckee Canyon was submitted to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs on January 25, 1937.

While the RSIC continued to build its sovereignty and explore economic opportunities, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower changed the federal government's policy toward American Indians and began the Termination Era.

To deal with the Indians nationwide, Eisenhower sought complete elimination of the U.S. government's trust responsibility to the tribes.

The tribe also maintains a tribal court system, a police force and a health clinic, and it provides full government services to its membership.

Its appeal procedure is handled by the Inter-Tribal Appellate Court of Nevada, which consists of a three-justice panel that meets each quarter during the year.

Recently, the Colony has been diversifying from reliance on declining tobacco revenues, concentrating on other types of commercial operations to enhance return and security.

However, the tribal smoke shops and other commercial properties have helped generate revenues to provide and expand governmental services to Colony members, residents and neighboring communities.

One recent example of the latter partnerships is the Colony-funded installation of a new traffic signal system and roadway improvements at the cost of $509,000 on South Virginia and McCabe streets.

The Colony participated in the development of the floodwall and levee along the south bank of the Truckee River, prior to the construction of Wal-Mart on East Second Street in Reno.

The redevelopment of Reno's East Second Street neighborhood where half of the Colony's residents live, near Route 395, is another goal of economic development.