Some Cascades survived the disease, warfare, and displacement by Americans. One was Kalliah, also known as Mary Wil-wy-i-tit, the great-grandmother of photographer and author Chuck Williams. Kalliah, who was appointed by the US government to pick up mail from a steamboat below the Cascade Rapids and deliver it locally, continued to live on the Columbia River. Williams said hundreds of living Native Americans are part Cascade, but only a few are full-blooded Cascades. Today, Cascade descendants are members of the Yakama, Warm Springs, and Grande Ronde Reservations.
Williams, whose mother is white and father was half Cascade, is enrolled with the Grande Ronde Reservation.
Williams identifies himself as a Native American and is accepted that way by other Indians. However, he said that his family’s mixed heritage was hard for some of his relatives in the past, because they were not accepted by white or Indian society.
Chuck Williams discusses the difficulties of a multicultural heritage
Kalliah’s descendants continued to hold her land allotment near Beacon Rock until recently, when they donated it as a wildlife preserve to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. It is now part of the Franz Lake National Wildlife Refuge.
Franz Lake National Wildlife Refuge
