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Coachella Valley Indian Tribes
Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians Augustine Band of Mission Indians Cabazon Band of Mission Indians Cahuilla Band of Indians Morongo Band of Mission Indians Torres-Martinez Band of Desert Cahuilla Indians Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians

Aside from their casinos -- and the billboards which remind travelers of their existence -- seven tribes and hundreds of tribal members own tens of thousands of acres of land scattered throughout and around the valley.

Native American settlement in the valley dates back several hundred, if not several thousand, years. The ancestors of the current Cahuilla Indians hunted in the mountain areas and gathered food from native plants. They dug wells -- Indian Wells is named for one of their once-flowing watering holes -- and lived in groups of nuclear and extended families.

Though Spanish explorers had passed through the region much earlier, the valley Cahuillas had little contact with European settlers until the mid-1800s. Most of the valley's current Indian reservations were first recognized by presidential executive order in 1876 and later expanded to their current 90,000 acres, mostly in the San Gorgonio Pass, Palm Springs, and east of Indio and Coachella. (Half the Torres-Martinez Indian Reservation now lies beneath the Salton Sea.)

Non-Indian settlers were drawn to the valley in the late 1800s and early 1900s as the region became known for its rich agricultural land, hot mineral springs and dry air that soothed ailing lungs. Thousands of non-Indians now live in subdivisions and gated communities in and near Palm Springs built on land leased from members of the Agua Caliente tribe.

Legal battles fought by the Cabazon and Morongo bands of Mission Indians during the 1980s lead to a 1987 Supreme Court decision legalizing gambling on all Indian reservations in the country, sparking the construction of scores of tribal casinos across the United States and five in and near the Coachella Valley.