The tribal name, Suquamish, is derived from the tribe's ancestral
village name, D'Suq'Wub, on the shores of Agate Pass. A small
park on the Port Madison Reservation memorializes the original
village site. The reservation and the village of Suquamish are less than an hour's drive from downtown Seattle.
A brief history
The Puget
Sound area was inhabited by First Peoples of several tribes
and bands for several millennia before Europeans arrived. The
Suquamish are descendents of peoples who lived in the region.
Their dialect was Lushutseed, a variant of the wider Salish
language. Their traditional territory was lands and waters in
what is now southwestern Canada,
northwestern Washington's Whidbey, Blake and Bainbridge islands, and most of what is now Kitsap
County.
The Suquamish culture flourished from interaction with, and
veneration of its bountiful environment. Tribal members
were master fishers, canoe builders and basketmakers. They also gathered berries and roots, and fashioned items for spiritual
ceremonies.
Fishing was the central pre-contact food source. Sound waters
were the principal fishing grounds; salmon were harvested with
nets, hooks, and line. Smaller fish were gathered into canoes by
means of long rakes equipped with wooden spikes.
The canoe was the Suquamish's primary tool. Most canoes took
form out of a cedar tree. They were an essential means of travel
as well as fishing.
Tight-mesh baskets were used for berry-picking expeditions, dry
storage, and even holding liquids and cooking. Open-mesh
baskets were used to gather seafood, including seaweed; the
contents were rinsed and such unwanted material as sand
washed through. The purse basket evolved following the white
settlers' appearance around the Puget Sound; it was designed to
carry trading items.
Like other aboriginal groups, the Suquamish transmitted
traditions orally and by example from the old to the young.
Respect for elders and traditional leadership, which included
royalty and hereditary leaders, lay at the core of pre-contact
tribal government.
Seattle* (or Sealth), a hereditary leader of the Suquamish Tribe,
was born around 1786 and passed away on June 7, 1866. His
remains rest in Suquamish. Seattle is remembered for
accommodating the early Anglo-European settlers of Alki Point
(later Seattle), and as a negotiator/peacemaker. He also was an
eloquent orator. A quotation attributed to Seattle:
"When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild
horses all tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the
scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by
talking wires, where is the thicket? Where is the eagle?
Gone."
The Suquamish kept the peace with the Anglo-European settlers,
but had numerous run-ins with other tribes, especially the
Duwamish whose land they coveted. The two tribes lost
population partly because of Suquamish aggression. However,
they also traded with other neighboring tribes and the Hudson's
Bay Company at Fort Nisqually.
The tribe came under influence of French Catholic missionaries
in the late 1830s. The leader Seattle was so favorably
impressed by them that he accepted Christianity and was given
the name Noah at baptism.
Bowing to white dominance in the Puget Sound region, the
Suquamish and others became signatories to the Point Elliott
Treaty on January 22, 1855. The document established the Port
Madison Indian Reservation, situated on two sides of Miller's
Bay, for the Suquamish. Kitsap, the tribal leader at the time, took
issue with the treaty and elected not to live there. The original
tract was approximately 1,300 acres, but was enlarged to nearly
8,000 acres by a presidential executive order of October 21,
1864. The original residents were primarily Suquamish and a
few from other tribes included in the treaty. Initially, the entire
reservation was held and used exclusively by the tribe.
However, the treaty was compromised by manipulations meant
to ease Anglo-European land acquisition. The Suquamish and all
other Northwest natives were misadvised and mistreated by
most non-Indians.
From the 1880s to the 1920s, the Suquamish began to experience a
transformation from ancestral lifeways to the ways of the
dominant American culture. A county government had been
formed in the area (1857) and Washington became a state
(1889).
In the 1880s, the federal government commenced to distribute
reservation land allotments to Indian individuals, in an attempt
to induce an agrarian lifestyle. On June 4, 1887, the program
went into effect on the Port Madison Reservation. About 5,910
acres were allotted to 39 natives, and 1,375 acres remained
unassigned. Many residents were relocated from their
accustomed shoreline homes to upland plots. As it turned out,
they did not farm much on their allotments, preferring, rather, to
cling to their fishing and hunting customs.
The Suquamish family also faced disruption. Early in the 20th
century, all tribal children from the ages of four to 18 were
plucked from their parents and packed off to government
boarding schools in Tacoma and Marysville. The rationale was
to assimilate them into American ways and mores.
The children missed out on tribal activities laden with traditions
when they were away during the winter. They were not allowed
to speak their native tongue, nor could they practice any
Suquamish customs they still knew. The pupils were
administered corporal punishment for any deviation from the
rules. The administrations exploited the children for labor at the
schools. The institutions also doubled as sick bays when there
were rampant illnesses; numerous children died from whooping
cough and measles, to which they had no inherent immunity.
Parents were threatened with jail if they refused to hand over
their children. The threats were baseless, but convincing. The
alternative for families was to move off the reservation -- those
who did, unwittingly relinquished title to their land. Most
incarceration threats were tricks to acquire land, which
departing families learned after their property was purchased by
non-Indians.
Tribal leadership formed a constitution on May 23, 1965, as an
Indian Reorganization Act government.
Also in the '60s, the tribe sought compensation from the Indian
Claims Commission for 87,130 acres ceded to the United States
under the Point Elliott Treaty, valued at $78,500 in 1859. On
October 22, 1970, the commission ruled they were entitled to
$36,329.51. On January 21, 1996, the commission announced
that the tribe should receive an additional $42,170.49.
In 1973, the tribal government adopted a reservation law and
order code that was enforced upon resident Indians and
non-Indians alike. However, in the case Oliphant v.
Suquamish Tribe (1978), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
"Indian Tribal Courts do not have inherent criminal jurisdiction
to try and to punish non-Indians, and hence may not assume such
jurisdiction unless specifically authorized by Congress to do
so."
On May 25, 1993, the 11-paddler canoe, Raven,
departed the reservation on a 576-mile journey to Bella Bella,
British Columbia. The trip led up to the June 27-July 3 Qatuwas
Festival, intended to foster unity among coastal tribes and
bands.
The Suquamish today
The Port Madison Indian Reservation comprises two tracts
located in northeastern Kitsap County, on a large peninsula
reaching into Puget Sound. It is home to the federally recognized
Suquamish Tribe, a sovereign nation with about 665 enrolled
members, as well as Alaska Natives, other Native Americans,
and non-Indians. The reservation consists of 2,849.42 acres held
in trust** or in Indian ownership. Land ownership patterns on
the reservation are mixed, but all land within its boundaries are
subject to tribal oversight.
The tribal constitution calls for government administration to be
handled by the elected, seven-member Suquamish Tribal
Council. The government offices, public safety services and
community center are situated on trust land in and near the
waterfront village of Suquamish, whose downtown area boasts a
small shopping mall, a number of small businesses, and
services.
The Suquamish Tribe does not provide on-site primary health
care. Instead, they maintain a benefits package with private
insurers funded by an Indian Health Services contract. Major
services include primary care outpatient visits, diagnostic and
hospital care, inpatient care, pharmacy services, mental health
care, an alcohol and substance abuse program, and a community
health representative program.
A fish hatchery is on trust land near Indianola. Other tribal
hatchery operations exist throughout Kitsap County. The tribe
also has an off-reservation fish hatchery.
The usual and accustomed (U & A) fishing places of the
Suquamish Tribe, at which members also hunted and gathered,
extends well beyond reservation boundaries into several other
counties. The Suquamish Tribe exercises its treaty rights within
the U&A areas.
Set within peerless surroundings are such attractions as the Suquamish
Museum, historic Suquamish Village, the Clearwater
Casino, Ole-Man-House, Grover’s Creek Fish Hatchery and
Chief Seattle's gravesite. They are accessible by good roads,
following a ferry trip from Seattle and Edmonds. The annual Chief Seattle Days is held in August. Highlights
include a wild-salmon bake and canoe racing, as well as a
graveside memorial service for the famous leader.
Currently there is tremendous pressure from developers and the
local government to urbanize near the reservation, which poses
considerable jeopardy to the tribe's environment.
*After whom the city took its name.
**Land owned by the federal government, but maintained by a
tribe.