The Puyallup Indian Tribe
- Amy Compare
- Oct 4, 2020
- 5 min read
This past week, I have started a new job with the Washington Conservation Corps (WCC) supervising a crew of 5 AmeriCorps members in completing environmental restoration projects. My crew works solely for Pierce County Surface Water Management, so our projects will only be in Pierce County (the county South of King County where Seattle is located and North of Thurston County where Olympia is found). I decided to learn about whose land I am now occupying. The land we call Pierce County is the ancestral land of many Coast Salish tribes, primarily the Nisqually, Puyallup, Squaxin, Steilacoom, and Muckleshoot tribes. I had learned more about the Nisqually Tribe when I worked last fall at Mount Rainier Institute (we even had the privilege of listening to a tribal member tell the story of the tribe!), and decided to focus today on learning about the Puyallup Tribe who resided primarily in Pierce County, who still have a reservation in the county today, and whose government consists of a tribal council of 7 elected members.
The aboriginal language of the Puyallup people is Southern Lushootseed , a language spoken by many tribes in this area (and it’s being revived today!), and in Lushootseed, the Puyallup people were known as the spuyaləpabš, meaning "generous and welcoming behavior to all people (friends and strangers) who enter our lands." Like many Coast Salish tribes in Washington state, both Salmon and Western Red Cedar are important parts of their lives.
Tribes on the West coast were among the last to encounter settler-colonists, but were negatively impacted by them just like on the East coast. In early years, this culminated in the Treaty of Medicine Creek in 1854 created by territorial governor Isaac Stevens. On December 26th, 1854, 62 leaders of Western Washington Tribes (with Chief Leschi representing the Nisqually and Puyallup people) gathered to sign the Treaty of Medicine Creek in which they collectively ceded 2.24 million acres to the US government. The Puyallup Tribe did so in exchange for the guarantee of fishing and hunting rights, designated land for establishment of Puyallup reservation, and $32,500 over the course of 10 years. Presidential executive orders in 1857 and 1873 defined what land was in the Puyallup tribe’s reservation, with land alongside the Puyallup river, and portions of land in what today are Puyallup, Fife, Milton, and Tacoma being granted to the Tribe. However, much of this land was later lost due to a general allotment act signed in 1887 in which Washington state acquired much tribal land that fell within its borders once it established statehood in 1889 - the Port of Tacoma and other entities eventually acquired much of Tribal land held in Commencement Bay and other riverbed properties as well. It was not until late 1800s that the Puyallup Tribe began to seriously assert their claims on land.
The 1960s and 70s began the Fishing Wars in which the Puyallup and other Tribes began to fight for the rights to fish on ancestral waters. Fishing rights activists included Billy Frank Jr. from the Nisqually Tribe and Ramona Bennet from the Puyallup Tribe. Many tribal members and activists had boats and canoes confiscated by state and local police and many violent and non-violent clashes occurred. In the 1974 US v. Washington case (aka the Boldt decision), Federal district judge George Boldt upheld and reaffirmed fishing rights of American Indians in the state of Washington, and tribes were deemed co-managers along with state of continued harvesting of salmon and other fish. In 1975, the Ninth Circuit court of appeals upheld ruling by Judge Boldt and further recognized the original reservation boundaries of Puyallup Tribe.
In another key case in 1978, Andrus v. City of Tacoma, the Secretary of the Interior started to place parcels of land within the boundaries of the Puyallup Reservation into trust, which is a policy that the federal government has used to restore vast amounts of reservation land that was lost in the 1887 Allotment Act. In other words, the government holds legal title to land in trust for the benefit of a tribe. This action was met by local hostility and the City of Tacoma sued the Department of the Interior (because whenever the Puyallup Tribe became the beneficiary of an allotment of land, the Tribe disputed the civil, tax, and criminal jurisdiction of the city government), which resulted in a ruling that gave Tribes the power to place land into trust. In 1983 in the case Puyallup Indian Tribe v. Port of Tacoma, the 9th Circuit recognized the right of the Puyallup Tribe to 12 acres of riverbed along the Puyallup River.
In the decades prior to the struggle for a Puyallup Land Claims Settlement, the social and economic welfare for tribal members was poor. Having much of their land removed from Tribal ownership, there was little space for considerable economic development, and many Tribal members were unemployed because many non-native work places did not hire Native Americans. Many members were on welfare and alcoholism and drug use was high. Members of the Tribe experienced discrimination by non-Natives daily. As the Tribe began to fight or their land rights, larger communication with government entities and the community began to emerge.
In the later half of the 1980s, a settlement package of about $162 million in land, fisheries, and economic/social development came to be. In 1990, the Puyallup tribe accepted and signed this settlement, known as the Puyallup Land Claims Settlement, the second-largest land claims settlement in US history behind the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971. The tribe also received about 900 acres of land with property provided for industrial fishery, and marine-terminal development, and the federal government created a $22 million permanent trust fund which made health, social, and welfare services available to all Tribal members. The Puyallup Tribe, State of Washington, and local governments were to work together to protect fishing habitat. A $10 million fund was provided to help this effort, and in return, the Puyallup Tribe was to relinquish 20,000 acres of land and clear title to all land within WA that was originally held by the Tribe. The process of the settlement was controversial, but provided the Tribe with the steps to be self-sufficient.
Today, the Puyallup Tribe is an active force in working to conserve the land they call home, including efforts with monitoring water quality, preserving salmon habitat, and taking care of elk populations. While this is a general overview of the Tribe and their history on the land, I look forward to learning more about them and the land over the course of my time with WCC in Pierce County.
Information from:
Comments