The Treaty with the Kalapuya, etc., also known as the Kalapuya Treaty or the Treaty of Dayton, was an 1855 treaty between the United States and the bands of the Kalapuya tribe, the Molala tribe, the Clackamas, and several others in the Oregon Territory. In it the tribes were forced to cede land in exchange for promised permanent reservation, annuities, supplies, educational, vocational, health services, and protection from ongoing violence from American settlers. The treaty effectively gave over the entirety of the Willamette Valley to the United States and removed indigenous groups who had resided in the area for over 10,000 years. The treaty was signed on January 22, 1855, in Dayton, Oregon, ratified on March 3, 1855, and proclaimed on April 10, 1855. It is not to be confused with the Treaty with the Umpqua and Kalapuya of 1854, also known as the Treaty of Calapooia Creek. Background In the mid-1830s — partially driven by public interest in the concept of manifest destiny — the option of expanding across North America emerged. Following this, writers began exhorting Congress to occupy the Oregon Territory. This drove some of the first American settlers to the region, and the development of the Oregon Trail began to bring larger numbers to the area by the early 1840s. Unlike California, which was at the time still controlled by Mexico, the lands that later became the Oregon Territory were only tentatively claimed by American or European settlers. Starting in the late 1700s, American and European explorers and settlers introduced a series of diseases, causing epidemics that decimated the populations of the Santiam, Tualatin, Yamhill, Luckiamute Kalapuyan, and other indigenous peoples who lived in the region. By the 1850s, the remaining indigenous population had few options when faced with increased harassment and land encroachment from those who believed that the United States should reach to the Pacific Ocean. Many of the early American 'settlers' moved to the Willamette Valley, a fertile region drained by the Willamette River, the home to Kalapuyan tribes for over 10,000 years. The Americans were not the first white settlers there; a group of French Canadians, former employees of the Hudson's Bay Company, had made their homes in the French Prairie area of the valley. The Americans who arrived almost immediately began sending petitions and letters back east requesting the United States government to formally claim the area and protect them from