The Point Elliott Treaty of 1855 is a living document that protects the rights and culture of the Tulalip people. The signing of the Treaty, a written contract between sovereign nations, is one of the most pivotal points in Tulalip literary past. It is when the signatory tribal people had their first significant exposure to literacy. Becoming a literate society has a difficult history for the people of Tulalip. However, as time went on and Tulalip became a literate community, literacy became a form of liberation to turn the oppression into power and healing.

The above quote is from a display panel at the Hibulb Cultural Center near Marysville, and while it refers specifically to the Tulalip tribe to whom the Center belongs, it speaks as well to a historic truth that could just as easily apply to any of the other tribal signatories to the Treaty of Point Elliott. In summary, according to the Center’s exhibit about the treaty, “The treaty allowed the U.S. government to open up lands to settlers, while we moved our homes to new reservations. We also agreed to abolish old traditions like slavery and to avoid alcohol. In exchange, we received a variety of goods and services, including a school, a doctor and $150,000, and reserved our traditional rights to fish, hunt and gather natural resources.”

Unfortunately, like most treaties signed between the United States of America and Native American tribes, the written promises typically did not hold up in practice — and this was the case as well with the Treaty of Point Elliott. In this second part of our Tales of the Magic Skagit series, “Treaty Day,” we look at the reasons the signatory tribes signed a document written in a language they did not understand, and the consequences of their doing so. Finally, we consider the counter-intuitive reasons why Coast Salish tribes would celebrate the event that took place in Mukilteo 169 years ago that forever changed their way of life.

Broken Promises

Negotiations with White people were not something new for the Coast Salish people, who had a 30-year history of dealing with the “King George’s men” of the Hudson’s Bay Company. It should be noted that while the Hudson’s Bay Company had a reputation for driving a hard bargain, they also had a history of sticking honestly to what they agreed to, and for treating Whites and Natives impartially. This practice continued through the dealings of the local Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) under Superintendent General, Joel Palmer. Together with Indian Agent Mike Simmons, Palmer was described as among the few “even-handed men” in the Bureau. As such, the Native tribes were not prepared for the less straightforward approach of Washington Territory Governor Isaac Stevens and his staff.

Stevens frequently made oral promises to tribal representatives that were not matched by what his office put in writing. As oral cultures, the Native tribes took him at his word. Stevens approved treaties which Judge James Wickerson would characterize forty years later as “unfair, unjust, ungenerous, and illegal”.

The Washington Territory treaties, such as the Treaty of Medicine Creek (1854) and the Treaty of Point Elliott of 1855, were followed by the Treaty of Walla Walla, also in 1855. In pursuing these negotiations, Governor Stevens ignored federal government instructions to confine himself to sorting out the areas where Natives and settlers were immediately adjacent to one another, or where settlers encroached on Native places, and instead tried to mediate Native issues for the territory. Needless to say, Natives were angered by this intrusion into their customs and relationships. For them, the concept of war had more to do with resources and complex concepts of prestige than with conquest or annihilation, which were not even considered, and historians have since argued that Stevens appointed certain chiefs of tribes in order to facilitate the goals of his administration.

There were few settlers in the area of the Point Elliott treaty at the time of its signing, which left the vast majority of lands open and unclaimed. However, as more settlers came, the open and unclaimed lands quickly began to disappear and the tribes became increasingly constricted to the reservation, where food and resources were scarce. Unfortunately, the Treaty obligations were not upheld by the United States Government as money was not received for housing. In addition, government schools and hospitals were not established until many decades after diseases rapidly decreased Native populations. Indian Claims Commission cases filed by tribes decades later found the United States paid “unconscionable consideration” for tribal lands.

Indian tribes believed the treaties became effective when they were signed by the officials they had dealt with. But United States law required Congress to approve all treaties after they were negotiated by representatives. European Americans began to settle about 1845, but Congress did not approve the Treaty of Point Elliott until April 1859, which made such settlement legal. The U.S. government also never implemented the provisions of the Treaty for the Duwamish and several other tribes.

As a display in the Hibulb Cultural Center exhibit on the Treaty of Point Elliott explains, “Negotiations led us to believe that under this Treaty, the government would provide healthcare and education, and we would retain our right to hunt, fish and gather throughout our territories. The government negotiators and tribal leaders struggled with the translations. Negotiations moved back and forth from English into Chinook Jargon into Lushootseed. One thing was clear after it was over: we relinquished the majority of our lands and the government did little to live up to the promises of the treaty.”

“This paper secures your fish” (Governor Stevens, 1855)

Although Chief Pat-ka-nam of the Snoqualmie people, seven sub-chiefs of the Snohomish, Chief Seattle of the Squamish and Duwamish, and a number of other leaders ceded millions of acres of land to the U.S. government, not everyone agreed that signing the treaty was a good idea. Some leaders felt, however, that they did not have a choice and that signing was the only way to preserve their traditional way of life for future generations. “We chose to remain on our lands and secure our children’s future,” is how the Hibulb Cultural Center answers the question of “why we signed.”

“Our leaders ensured that the Treaty of Point Elliott would secure our access to our most important resources: the salmon, other fish, shellfish and game as well as harvestable plants, bark and roots that would sustain our cultural lifeways. The treaty defined our rights to harvest all species of fish and shellfish that are found in marine waters, rivers, sea beds and that pass through the waters in all our ‘usual and accustomed’ areas – well beyond reservation boundaries. It reserved the right to hunt and gather on open and unclaimed lands throughout the Washington Territory. This treaty still holds today.”

Another compelling reason to sign the treaty was its promise to provide tribal communities with medicines and medical care. By 1855 half of the Tulalip population alone had been wiped out from devastating outbreaks of smallpox and other diseases.

The Power of Literacy

In 1855, not one of the tribal leaders whose signature or “X” is on the treaty, understood or spoke the language in which it was written. While they understood the significance of the document, it is almost certain that the translation of the complicated concepts being negotiated would have been difficult to express in Chinook Jargon, a trade language of approximately 300 words. This monumental disadvantage created a strong incentive among people whose language was not written to not only learn the foreign language in which their rights were defined, but to also create a written representation of their language as well.

In essence, the tribes affected by the Treaty of Point Elliott became a literate people, and as a result there have been significant legal cases since the treaty’s signing in which literacy has helped combat historic wrongs. One Tulalip tribal leader in particular, William Shelton, played a pivotal role in using literacy to bridge a gulf of misunderstanding between Native People and the government.

William Shelton deserves a Tales of the Magic Skagit episode devoted to his story, and I intend to deliver on that imperative. One of his many accomplishments was collecting Treaty narrative recounts in 1926 from twelve Tribal elders who were present at the treaty signing. The purpose of these testimonies was to support the tribes in a land claims case. Tribal people had not been compensated for their homes and lands as had been negotiated in the treaty.

In the years following the ratification of the Treaty, the Tulalip Tribes have renewed the authority and stipulations guaranteed to them in the Treaty. One of the most significant court cases was US v Washington, more commonly known as the “Boldt Decision of 1974.” In this landmark Indian law case, Judge George Boldt upheld the rights guaranteed to tribes in the Stevens Treaties, the right to fish in all usual and accustomed grounds and stations. The Tribes were able to leverage the written language of the Treaty to enforce promises that had been disregarded by the State of Washington. For tribes like the Tulalip, this has meant nothing less than being able to practice their lifeways in the same manner as their ancestors since time immemorial. With treaty reserved rights, Tribes are able to fish, hunt, and gather in their traditional territories – providing strengthened opportunities to pass on teachings, songs, and knowledge into perpetuity.

“Why We Celebrate”

“Treaty Day is not the celebration of losing our land, but the regaining of our right to practice our spiritual traditions.” — Vi Hilbert (tagusablu), Upper Skagit Elder, Lushootseed Linguist, Language Advocate, Educator, Storyteller

Following the Treaty of Point Elliott, tribal ceremonies were banned by the Unites States government. But in 1912, William Shelton and other leaders convinced Indian Superintendent Buchanan and the U.S. Secretary of Interior to allow the construction of a traditional longhouse for a Treaty Day celebration commemorating the signing of the Point Elliott Treaty. In 1914, after a longhouse was completed, the first Treaty Day Commemoration was held.

As the Hibulb Cultural Center explains, “Treaty Days became a time for singing, dancing and feasting. It also allowed the Tulalip parents to see their children who were shut away at the government school. The old people built the bleachers in the longhouse for the Tulalip Boarding School children to witness and observe the spiritual way of life. In the words of William Shelton, “we participated in Treaty Days to make our old people feel good instead of discouraged.” As the Hibulb Cultural Center affirms, “Our ancestors’ participation in Treaty Days was not to celebrate the treaty; it was to maintain our cultural continuity.”

Every January 22, the Tulalip and and other Coast Salish tribes commemorate the strength and obligations of the treaty by an open invitation to a Treaty Day gathering and feast. The gathering itself is rooted in an ancient lineage of sacred ceremony and gratitude, with beautiful songs, uplifting speeches, and important reminders of the First People’s relationship with nature and with the Creator.

The Lessons of the Longhouse

“The teaching of the longhouse is that the longhouse belongs to everyone, and when you walk into it you leave all bad feelings outside so you enter as one family,” explains an exhibit at the Hibulb Cultural Center. “With the longhouse as a source of spiritual and community strength, speakers recall the vision of devoted elders who worked to secure access to our most important resources–health, education, fishing, gathering, culture, and language. Elders remind us it is our responsibility now to uphold the things that they sacrificed to keep for us, and they see that young people are listening, remembering the beauty in our culture, and following through in education and ancestral preservation. As our language and cultural values become stronger, we are able to help others understand how to take care of the earth and one another.”

When I, as a non-Native newcomer to the Skagit Valley, first heard of Treaty Day, I was frankly puzzled. It seemed cruelly ironic that anyone would want to celebrate an event that seemingly codified their disenfranchisement to their land and way of life. But as the Hibulb Center reminds us, seeing the treaty signatories in the light of victimhood discounts the very fact of not only their endurance, but their agency as a literate community. In fact, there is a display at the Hibulb Cultural Center that celebrates this achievement and honors the many tribal members who have contributed to it. So I’ll end this second part of our Treaty Day series with a final quote from the Center.

Additionally, the Tulalip people leverage the written word to preserve and tell their own stories, histories, and culture for the future generations. To help uphold the treaty, the tribe has created a Treaty Rights Office to “assist the Tribes and its membership in securing the recognition, implementation and protection of these treaty-reserved rights.” They offer conferences and presentations for government agencies and nonprofit organizations on the history of the Treaty as well as the role it plays in today’s society. Their goal is to share their knowledge and collaborate with other governments to ensure that the rights protected in the Treaty are acknowledged and upheld and the habitats and natural resources are protected and sustained. The Tulalip Tribes continue to uphold the Treaty in cases dealing with land allotments, fishing rights, or sovereignty when rights protected in the Treaty are threatened. The Tulalip people continue to exist today as a distinct self-governing people in no small part because of a single, handwritten document. This is due to the literary accomplishments and powerful words that have been used as a weapon to uphold it. Although the document is made out of paper, it is a living document that protects the rights of the Tulalip people.

Now that, my friends, is truly something to celebrate.