The Watlala people, also called the Cascade Indians, were a Chinookan tribe living in the Cascades along the Columbia and Willamette Rivers in Oregon.

In 1805-06, Lewis and Clark estimated that they numbered about 2,800. However, because other tribes also lived at or near the Cascades and people moved frequently because the area was a popular fishing spot, it was impossible to identify them with certainty.

Several other known bands, which may have been the Watlala or later, have been included under them, including the Cathlakaheckit, Cathlathlala, Cathlayackty, Clahclellah, Katlagakya, and Yehuh. In 1829, the Native Americans of the region suffered an epidemic, which was called “ague fever,” of unknown nature, which killed, in a single summer, some four-fifths of the population. Whole villages disappeared, and those that were left were consolidated. After the epidemic, the Watlala seemed to have been the only remaining tribe, the remnants of the others having probably united under that name. However, whites commonly called them the Cascade Indians.

In 1854, they were reported to number only 80 people. In 1855, they joined the Wasco Treaty as the “Ki-gal-twal-la band of the Wascoes” and the “Dog River band of the Wasco” and were removed to the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon. Afterward, they were no longer enumerated separately, and those who didn’t join the Wasco were thought to have joined the Wishram tribe.

 

© Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated September 2026.

Also See:

Index of Tribes

Indian Wars

Native American Photo Galleries

Native Americans – First Owners of America

See Sources.