The land was and is very important to the Washoe. From the land, the Washoe found food to eat, and made shelters and clothing. Before white settlers came to this area, the Washoe moved around a lot during the year. At the start of each new season, they would move to the place where the fish or the nuts or the rabbits were abundant.

Lake Tahoe was the center of the Washoe land and the center of the Washoe view of the world. They went there every spring and summer to fish and gather plants.

They did not "own" the land the way most of us understand it today. But the Washoe and the other tribes in the area knew where each tribe hunted, fished, gathered, and lived at different times of the year, and they respected and stayed out of, and sometimes shared each other's land.

Three different groups, or bands, of Washoe made their camps in different areas when they separated after spending the summer at Lake Tahoe. The 'Hung-a-lel-ti are the southern Washoe. The 'Pau-wa-lu are the eastern Washoe, or the people of the valley. The 'Wel-mel-ti are the northern Washoe. The southern Washoe live in the Woodfords area of California. The eastern Washoe live in the Carson Valley. The northern Washoe live north and northeast of Lake Tahoe. Wa-'she-shu is the name for all of the Washoe people.

In the 1840s and 1850s, white settlers arrived in this area to mine for gold and silver. They did not understand that the Washoe lived on all of this land, but did not own it. So the settlers told the Washoe that now they owned the land. The Washoe could no longer hunt, fish, and gather plants and nuts where they used to. They were not allowed to be citizens of the United States until 1924. They could not vote or have rights.

In 1917, the U.S. government bought land in Carson and in Reno-Sparks where the Washoe could live. These are now the Carson Colony and the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony. In Gardnerville, William Dressler and his wife gave forty acres of land to the Washoe in what is now the Dresslerville community. The Washoe Ranch in the Carson Valley was given to the Washoe in 1938-1940. In 1970, the Washoe were granted eighty acres of land in Woodfords, California. In 1980, the Stewart Indian School, to which local and non-local Indian children had been sent since it opened in 1890, was closed. After many years in court, the Washoe Tribe gained rights to some of this land in 1990, and the Stewart community is there today.

All of this land was not nearly as much as the Washoe had lived and hunted and gathered on before, but it was at least a place for them to live. All of these pieces of land make up the Washoe Tribe reservation.