The remarkable photographs in Peoples of the Plateau capture the lives of Pacific Northwest Indians at the turn of the twentieth century--and at a turning point in their own history.

The Columbia River Plateau, in the interior Pacific Northwest, was populated for centuries by the Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Cayuse Indians. By the late nineteenth century, after the U.S. government had confined these peoples to a single reservation, their lives began to change irrevocably. Major Lee Moorhouse, a businessman and former militia officer, served as an Indian agent during this period....