Ozette Indian Reservation (Washington)

The Ozette Reservation was located in northwestern Washington, 15 miles south of the tip of the Olympic Peninsula, on the Pacific Coast


 * Established -- 12 April 1893
 * Agency (BIA) -- Neah Bay Agency (1861-1933), Taholah Agency (1933+)
 * Principal tribes -- Ozette
 * Population -- No living Ozette (Osette part of Makah) Indians in the United States remain.

History
The Makah Reservation, including the Ozette Tribe, was established by Treaty of Neah Bay, Jan. 31, 1855 (xII, 939). An Executive orders, Apr. 12, 1893, established a separate 719 acres south of the Makah Reservation as a separate reservation for the Ozette Indians. That reservation reverted to the United States on Oct. 22, 1970, to be held in trust for the benefit of the Makah Tribe, since there were no recognized Ozette Indians remaining.

The Ozette Indians were a part of the Makah group who had come from the west coast of Vancouver Island and settled on the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula. Their population figures gradually diminished from about 1880 until 1937, when there was only one Ozette Indian remaining. He lived the last part of his life on the Makah Reservation. The population of the tribe on the Ozette Reservation, as reported in A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest , was as follows:


 * 1870 -- 188
 * 1872 -- 200
 * 1888 -- 91
 * 1901 -- 44
 * 1906 -- 35
 * 1914 -- 17
 * 1923 -- 8
 * 1937 -- 1

Records
The 1900 census of the Ozette Reservation is available on microfilm at the National Archives and their Regional Archives and at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, as well as at other research facilities. It is also available online at Ancestry.com as a part of their paid subscription service.

On Mar. 4, 1911, the U.S. Congress passed an act (36 Stat. 1345) directing the Secretary of the Interior to allow members of the Ozette Tribe to receive allotments on the Quinault Reservation, after the members of that tribe had received their allotments.

Most of the Bureau of Indian Affairs records of the Ozette Tribe were kept by the Neah Bay Agency, 1861-1933. Most of the Ozette Indians were deceased by the time the jurisdiction for the tribe was transferred to the Taholah Agency. Some records for members of the tribe may be included in the records of the following agencies:


 * Makah Agency
 * Olympic Peninsula Agency
 * Quinaielt Agency
 * Taholah Agency