Kilchis ( ə́lšəsor ə́lčəsin Tillamook) or ( �eǀtʃəsin IPA) (c. 1806–1866) was one of the last free chiefs of the Tillmook. He lived during the 19th century near

Tillamook Bay Tillamook Bay is a small inlet of the Pacific Ocean, approximately 6 mi (10 km) long and 2 mi (3 km) wide, on the northwest coast of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located just north of Cape Meares in western Tillamook Count ...

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

. Chief Kilchis and Chief Illga (also known as Tse-tse-no or Illga Adams) were the last Tillamook leaders to preside uncontested in the Tillamook's homeland around Tillamook Bay. Kilchis may have been a descendant of one of the survivors of a Spanish

Manila Galleon The Manila galleon (; ) refers to the Spain, Spanish trading Sailing ship, ships that linked the Philippines in the Spanish East Indies to Mexico (New Spain), across the Pacific Ocean. The ships made one or two round-trip voyages per year betwe ...

that wrecked near

Neahkahnie Mountain Neahkahnie Mountain is a mountain, or headland, on the Oregon Coast, north of Manzanita, Oregon, Manzanita in Oswald West State Park overlooking U.S. Route 101, that has a pass elevation of approximately , which is the third highest point of the ...

and the mouth of the

Nehalem River The Nehalem River is a river on the Pacific coast of northwest Oregon in the United States, approximately long. It drains part of the Northern Oregon Coast Range northwest of Portland, originating on the east side of the mountains and flowing in ...

. Known as the

beeswax wreck The Beeswax Wreck is a shipwreck off the coast of the U.S. state of Oregon, discovered by Craig Andes near Cape Falcon in 2013 in Tillamook County. The ship, thought to be the Spanish Manila galleon ''Santo Cristo de Burgos'' that was wrecked in ...

, it was probably the ''Santo Cristo de Burgos'', which was lost in 1693 while sailing from the Philippines to Mexico. Warren Vaughn, an early white settler in Tillamook, knew Kilchis and believed he was a descendant of one of the survivors of the wreck, and said that Kilchis himself claimed such ancestry. Kilchis was described by many people as looking strikingly different from other native Tillamook people. Many assumed he was partially of sub-Saharan African ancestry, having curly hair and beard, and other features settlers saw as African. There are various stories about his supposed ancestry. Warren Vaughn claimed that Kilchis's father was a "full-blooded negro" who had been a blacksmith on the "wax-ship" and had been taken in into the Tillamook tribe. Kilchis's mother was, according to Vaughn, a Nehalem Tillamook woman who had married the blacksmith survivor. Vaughn did not know when the "wax-ship" wrecked. If it was the Spanish galleon of 1693 then Kilchis's father could not have been one of the survivors, but a more distant ancestor could have been. Chief Kilchis appears in the historical novel ''Trask'' by Don Berry, in which he is described as "part-negro". American settlers began encroaching on Tillamook land after the 1850

Donation Land Claim Act The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850, sometimes known as the Donation Land Act, was a statute enacted by the United States Congress in late 1850, intended to promote homestead settlements in the Oregon Territory. It followed the Distribution-Pre ...

, which encouraged American

homesteading Homesteading is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. It is characterized by subsistence agriculture, home preservation of food, and may also involve the small scale production of textiles, clothing, and craft work for household use or sale. H ...

Oregon Territory The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the United States, Union as the Oreg ...

. During the 1850s white settlers literally crowded the Tillamooks off their beaches and many conflicts occurred. Chief Kilchis and Chief Illga met with the settlers Elbridge Trask and Warren Vaughn to negotiate peace, but conflict continued intermittently.

Anson Dart Anson Dart (1797–1879) was the Superintendent for Indian Affairs in the Oregon Territory from 1850 to 1852. Dart negotiated treaties with the tribes in the territory (now the states of Oregon and Washington), thirteen of which were negotiated Au ...

, the

Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs The Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs was an official position of the U.S. state of Oregon, and previously of the Oregon Territory, that existed from 1848 to 1873. Background The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was created in 1824 to regulate ...

, tried to make land cession treaties with the Tillamook under Kilchis, and the Nehalem people, and many others. The treaty with Kilchis of August 7, 1851, went unratified. Dart's successor,

Joel Palmer General Joel Palmer (October 4, 1810 – June 9, 1881) was an American pioneer of the Oregon Territory in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. He was born in Upper Canada, and spent his early years in New York and Pennsylvania before se ...

, was able to make new treaties, which were ratified, to acquire large amounts of native land, including the Tillamook land. During the many inter-related Indian wars of the 1850s, such as the

Yakima War The Yakima War (1855–1858), also referred to as the Plateau War or Yakima Indian War, was a conflict between the United States and the Yakama, a Sahaptian-speaking people of the Northwest Plateau, then part of Washington Territory, and the tr ...

and

Rogue River Wars The Rogue River Wars were an armed conflict in 1855–1856 between the U.S. Army, local militias and volunteers, and the Native American tribes commonly grouped under the designation of Rogue River Indians, in the Rogue Valley area of wha ...

, Kilchis was pressured by the

Klickitat people The Klickitat (also spelled Klikitat) are a Native American tribe of the Pacific Northwest. Today most Klickitat are enrolled in the federally recognized Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, some are also part of the Confederated ...

to join the fight, but the Tillamook obeyed Kilchis's order that they remain peaceful and demonstrate their peaceful intentions to the whites. In 1856, after the wars, the Tillamook people were removed to the

Coast Indian Reservation The Coast Indian Reservation is a former Indian reservation in the U.S. state of Oregon, established in 1855. It was gradually reduced in size and in the 21st century is known as the present-day Siletz Reservation. History The Coast Reservation ...

(today called the

Siletz Reservation The Siletz Reservation is a 5.852 sq mi (15.157 km2) Indian reservation in Lincoln County, Oregon, United States, owned by the Confederated Tribes of Siletz. The reservation is made up of numerous non-contiguous parcels of land in east-centr ...

), becoming part of the

Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians 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 Calif ...

References

Further reading