Suquamish
The Suquamish are a Native American tribe living in what is now Washington State . Its official name is Suquamish Tribe, Port Madison Reservation, Washington , as around 500 of them live in the reservation of the same name. Today half of the 950 tribe members live outside the reservation in the neighboring towns of Sequim , Bremerton , Port Orchard , but also in Seattle on the other side of the inlet and in Tacoma .
Culturally, the Suquamish belong to the coastal Salish and they spoke a dialect attributed to the Lushootseed . The best-known descendant of the tribe is likely to be Chief Seattle , who gave the largest city in Washington its name. He was born on Blake Island around 1786. His father was a chief of the Suquamish, his mother was of the Duwamish .
The name "Suquamish" is derived from a village on the Agate Passage on the Kitsap Peninsula, near the present-day city of Suquamish . The word "d'suq'wub" means "clear water". The Snohomish who lived eastward on the other side of Puget Sound called them the "mixed race".
history
Early history
The Suquamish, like most coastal Salish, were only permanent in winter. They lived between Gig Harbor and Appletree Cove, between Hood Canal and Admiralty Inlet and south to Case and Carr Inlets , on the islands of Blake Island , Bainbridge Island and Whidbey Island . Between Hood Canal and Admiralty Inlet stood three villages with long houses that, like the Ole Man House, could be up to 160 m long and 30 m wide. Almost all Suquamish lived here in winter. Other villages existed at Point Bolin, Poulsbo, Silverdale, Chico, Colby, Olalla, Point White, Lynwood Center, Eagle Harbor, Port Madison and at Battle Point.
As with most tribes of the coastal Salish, the boundaries between the groups were very permeable, there were close relationships and the house groups were largely autonomous. Around 1825, however, Kitsap rose to become a kind of chief who led a coalition of tribes on Puget Sound against the Cowichan raids .
An extensive trade in whale oil, mussels, salmon, blankets and baskets reached as far as Vancouver Island and Oregon. This was not only due to the close contact between the Salish groups, but also to the fact that the Suquamish lived on land that did not have large salmon migrations, as occurred annually elsewhere, and which ensured rich winter supplies. Therefore, they had to swarm out very early in order to catch fish.
First contacts with Europeans, northern slave hunters, treaty with the USA, reservation
The first contact with Europeans came in 1792 when George Vancouver explored the region and made contact with Suquamish on Bainbridge Island. The father of chief Seattle, Schweabe, was involved in wars with the Chimakum who, according to oral tradition, wanted to occupy the Suqamish land. The Suquamish, in turn, tried to conquer the Duwamish land.
In 1833 the British Hudson's Bay Company built Fort Nisqually as a trading post. Through this connection, Catholic missionaries came to the Suqamish around 1840. In 1844 their number was estimated at 525, two counts in 1856 were 441 and 509. With the Oregon Donation Land Claim Act, Congress forcibly opened all Indian land in the region to white settlers. Sawmills soon sprang up, as in Port Madison, Port Gamble and Port Blakely, which cleared the originally dense forest.
The Suquamish had to cede their land in the Treaty of Point Elliott on January 22, 1855. Their chief and six sub-chiefs - in American diction - signed the treaty. They were recognized as a tribe and were given a reservation, the Port Madison Indian Reservation near their winter village on Agate Pass . The reserve comprised 7,284.48 acres. It was often called the "Fort Kitsap Reservation," although the latter refused to live there, but also the "Seattle Reservation".
5,909.48 acres are privately assigned to 39 Indians. The remaining 1,375 acres were not privatized. The minor government support was not enough to make life on the reservation possible, so many of them had to look for work outside of it. In addition, the government did not protect them from raids by the Haida and other northern tribes who traveled the Pacific in their canoes and made easy prey here. The Suquamish resisted this type of slave hunt and in 1859 attacked a Haida group on the west bank of Bainbridge Island.
In the long term, the sales trips of the so-called whiskey peddler, who sold schnapps and whiskey to the Indians, were much more serious. In October 1862, headmen, hereditary leaders, attacked such a boat.
Industrialization, privatization, attempts at assimilation
As the number of sawmills around Puget Sound grew, so did the Suquamish who worked for whites. They were initially paid for with tin money.
On October 24, 1864, Congress redefined the reserve boundaries. The so-called Indianola Tract, separated from the reserve by a narrow waterway, was added to the area. In 1886 the land was given to individual owners and the tribal area was dissolved. In 1904 the village around Ole Man House, which had been burned down in the 1870s on the instructions of an Indian agent, was dissolved. From 1900 to 1920, all children had to attend Indian Boarding Schools, where the use of their mother tongue was prohibited.
In 1909 there were only 180 tribal members, many of whom were forced to sell their land. In 1980 over 800 non-Indians lived in the reserve, and another 2,500 in the neighborhood. At the beginning of the 20th century, the village of Suqua was bought and converted into a military base. The Suquamish, now scattered in isolated houses, refused to become farmers and continued to live off fishing and doing odd jobs. However, by 1920, white fish companies also dominated this industry.
Self-government
On May 23, 1965, the tribe adopted a constitution. Since then, a seven-person committee has managed its affairs. Like many Indian tribes, the Suquamish claimed jurisdiction on their reservation area, but in 1978 Congress rejected this claim in the Oliphant vs. Suquamish Tribe and made the right to punish non-Indians subject to the express approval of Congress.
The tribe - one of 11 tribes in the region that are suing - was able to assert that compensation was paid for the cession of traditional territory through the Treaty of Point Elliott against the Indian Claims Commission. For 87,130 acres of land minus the 1,280 for the reservation, he was awarded compensation of $ 78,500 based on the 1859 value. The Suquamish received $ 42,170.49 for their share of the land.
Todays situation
In 1977 the tribal council opened an office that ran cultural programs. A tribal center was completed in 1980 after the one that had already been built burned down the year before. In 1985, the tribe became the second to open their own museum in the USA, the Suquamish Museum & Cultural Center. There are 123 artefacts and over 9,300 photos. A new museum is due to be completed in 2009 to house the National Museum of the American Indian's Coastal Salish exhibit . Chief Seattle Days take place in August each year .
In 1985 the tribe had 577 members, in 2008 about 950. Of the original reservation, only 2,849.42 acres were owned by the tribe in 1985. Some Suquamish worked in the fishing industry, others in the nearby nuclear submarine plant (Trident). A significant number of them now work in tribe administration and in casinos .
literature
- Robert H. Ruby / John A. Brown: A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest , University of Oklahoma Press 1992, pp. 226-229.
Movie
- Lands in the Sky Story Pole ( WMV ; 27.9 MB)