Sqeliz

The Sqeliz, known to outsiders as the Spokane, are an Interior Salish people of the Spokane River in eastern Washington, whose self-name means 'steelhead' after the trout that ran their river. They held some three million acres in Upper, Middle and Lower divisions.

For nine months of the year they fished, hunted and gathered camas, then gathered in winter villages for three. They acquired horses around 1800 and soon counted wealth in them.

The Lewis and Clark expedition met them in 1805, when introduced diseases were already thinning their numbers. The North West Company opened Spokane House in 1810 and the Pacific Fur Company built Fort Spokane in 1811, turning their river into a fur-trade crossroads; by 1829 a trader counted only about seven hundred Spokane, perhaps half their former number.