Afterword
Vine Deloria Jr.’s Indians of the Pacific Northwest was originally published in 1977 and remains the classic and authoritative one-volume Native history of this region. This book focuses mostly on the tribes of western Washington’s Puget Sound—the body of water now officially known as the Salish Sea. Since that time, much has happened with the tribes in this region, enough so that an entire book can and should be dedicated to this topic. For the purpose of this afterword, however, I will focus on only a few areas that have been of most importance to tribal people: the successful struggle to finally secure inherent fishing rights, the ongoing campaign to restore the salmon, the emergence and rapid growth of Indian gaming and economic development, educational self-determination and general school improvement, and the revitalization of tribal culture.
Vine concluded his discussion of fishing rights with United States v. Washington—the famous Boldt decision, which in 1974 reaffirmed the inherent right of the tribes to fish at the “usual and accustomed” places but, more controversially for most Washingtonians at the time, allotted 50 percent of the annual amount of harvestable salmon to tribes. As Deloria predicted, this federal district court decision handed down by the conservative judge George H. Boldt—one of the most thoroughly researched and comprehensive decisions in the history of American jurisprudence—did not end the fishing controversy. The State of Washington, led by their fiery state attorney general Slade Gorton, openly defied the court’s ruling on the grounds that it was so radical it would most certainly be overturned by a higher court. Gorton was wrong. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Boldt decision, and soon afterward the US Supreme Court refused to review the case. The state responded by simply refusing to enforce the decision. At this point, Judge Bolt lost his patience with the State of Washington and declared that the federal government would take over control of fishing law enforcement. The legality of this drastic action was also upheld by an appellate court. The state continued to encourage its commercial and sport fishing groups to file lawsuits, and the resulting chaos eventually forced the US Supreme Court to once again take up—for the seventh time—the issue of Northwest Indian fishing rights. On July 2, 1979, in Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Association v. Washington, the highest court in the land upheld the entirety of the Boldt decision in a 6–3 decision. After three-quarters of a century of litigation, the State of Washington was finally forced to acknowledge tribal fishing rights. The Boldt decision served to usher in the era of scientific fish management. No longer could the state make unsubstantiated claims that tribal fishing was depleting the resource. It also brought tribes to the table as comanagers of fish and other natural resources. In 1974, the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission was formed to allow treaty tribes to collectively organize and implement their own fish management efforts. Billy Frank Jr.—the iconic symbol of the Northwest Indian fishing rights movement—has served as the director of this organization since 1975. Although the treaty tribes found it necessary to return to the courts and to the Boldt decision once more, in 1999, to win their inherent right to harvest shellfish, relations between the tribes and the state have greatly improved, and today the two entities engage, if often times uneasily, in cooperative fish management.
While the fishing wars had come to a close, the campaign to save the salmon has just begun. More than a century of commercial overfishing and the degradation of habitat have combined to drastically reduce natural salmon runs to only a small fraction of their historical abundance. In recent years it has become difficult, if not impossible, for tribal members to make a living as full-time fishermen. The Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission and its twenty member tribes have led the way in attempting to preserve the few remaining runs of wild salmon while intelligently reintroducing hatchery-raised fish into the ecosystem. Washington State tribes now operate more than forty fish hatcheries and other facilities that produce and release back into the wild more than 35 million salmon each year. But despite the best efforts of tribes and others, salmon populations continue to decline. The key to salmon conservation is habitat restoration. Salmon are anadromous fish, meaning their life cycle includes a time period spent at sea before they return to freshwater rivers to spawn. Urban expansion, river-choking dams, unsound logging practices, poisonous runoff from industries and farms that pollute both rivers and oceans, the effects of climate change, and a multitude of other factors have all combined to destroy salmon habitat. In 2007, tribes again successfully invoked the Boldt decision to force the state to begin removing the hundreds of culverts that had impeded the return of salmon to their spawning grounds for decades. Tribes have also lobbied successfully for the removal of outdated hydroelectric and recreational dams that have produced sediment and debris detrimental to the production of salmon. In 2011, the Elwha River Dam was the first to be removed—largely through the lobbying efforts of the Lower Elwha tribe—and allowed that river to flow free for the first time in one hundred years. Other dams have been targeted for removal, and it is believed that this trend will hopefully contribute to salmon restoration on impacted rivers.
Fishing rights and the restoration of salmon are issues that are synonymous with tribal sovereignty. For tribes in the Pacific Northwest, treaty rights mean little if there are no fish to catch. In 2011, the treaty tribes of western Washington came together to produce a major report entitled Treaty Rights at Risk: Ongoing Habitat Loss, the Decline of the Salmon Resource, and Recommendations for Change. In this paper, the tribes have called for greater federal leadership, intervention, and direct action to protect and restore salmon habitat and, consequently, for the government to uphold tribal treaty rights.
In general, Northwest coast tribes continue to rely heavily on natural resources. With the decline of salmon populations, it has become extremely difficult. In addition to fishing, a number of tribes, particularly those on the Olympic Peninsula, possess considerable timber resources. For these tribes, the Intertribal Timber Council, a national organization founded in 1974, effectively plays the same role as the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission does for fishing tribes. Currently, the Quinault, Tulalip, and Makah Nations are the three largest tribal timber producers in the region.
In 1987, the Supreme Court decision California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians acknowledged gaming to be an inherent right of tribal sovereignty and thus opened the door to casinos springing up throughout Indian Country. Nowhere was this emerging wave of Indian gaming facilities more apparent than in the Pacific Northwest. In Washington State there are now twenty-two tribes operating twenty-seven casinos, generating $1.6 billion in 2010. The vast majority of these casinos are located in western Washington and especially along the Interstate 5 corridor connecting Portland, Oregon, with Vancouver, British Columbia. Many of these casinos have evolved into resort facilities and vacation destinations for people living in the larger Northwest urban areas. In addition to gaming, many offer first-class entertainment and several have even expanded to include golf courses. Revenues from casinos have dramatically changed the economic reality for many tribes. Tribes have used casino monies to benefit their people in numerous ways, mostly in improving the quality of health and education. From immunization to diabetes prevention, from school retention programs to college scholarships, casino revenues have greatly enhanced the standard of living for thousands of tribal people in the Northwest. Casino monies have also been used to enhance housing, police and fire protection, and numerous other programs. In addition, the State of Washington has also benefited greatly from Indian gaming by having .5 percent of all machine revenues given to various statewide charitable organizations. In recent years, this has amounted to about $5 million annually. In addition, casino monies have also given tribes and tribal people more disposable income—much of which also benefits the state businesses and tax revenue. A 2010 study by the Harvard Program on Economics reported that tribes were growing “economic engines” that conservatively contributed almost $3.5 billion to the Washington State economy. Most of this money was casino generated.
Another benefit of casino revenue is that it has allowed tribes to become important political players in both state and federal politics for the first time. The Washington State Indian Gaming Commission and a number of individual tribes, for example, have been able to support candidates at both the state and federal levels who share tribal views on issues like social welfare, human rights, and especially the environment. In addition, a number of tribes are now able to afford full-time lobbyists in Olympia and Washington, DC.
Other than the casino industry, economic development that benefits individual tribal members on the reservation continues to be insufficient, and unemployment levels remain high. Some tribes are beginning to invest casino revenues into economic development and creating small business opportunities, but much more needs to be done. Tax-free tobacco and fireworks sales bring in some money, but this income is rather marginal or seasonal at best.
Educational achievement levels among Native Americans in Washington State remain dismally below the national average compared to non-Native students. But definite improvement has been recorded in terms of reducing the high-school dropout rate and increasing graduation numbers. In addition, the establishment of a number of tribally run schools is also a promising development. The number of Northwest Native students attending and graduating from mainstream colleges and universities, although still relatively low, has also shown steady improvement. Undoubtedly the most important development in Indian education over the past several decades has been growth of the tribal college system. The Lummi Indian School of Aquaculture was founded in 1973 and then was chartered in 1983 as Lummi Indian College—a two-year school granting associate degrees. In 1988, the institution recognized a broader mandate to serve all Northwest tribes and was renamed Northwest Indian College. Today, Northwest Indian College, in addition to offering numerous associate degrees, offers two fully accredited bachelor’s degrees—one in Native American studies, the other in Native environmental science. In all, the college provides academic courses to more than twelve hundred students from more than one hundred tribes at its main campus in Lummi and its seven satellite campuses.
Since the 1970s, a cultural revitalization movement has also swept the Northwest. This movement has manifested itself in a number of ways. Not surprisingly, most Northwest tribes have sought to renew their ancestral ties to the salmon. Many tribes, for example, have brought back First Salmon ceremonies, which honor the return of this fish to tribal waters. Traditional tribal arts such as wood carving, the weaving of cedar into hats and other items, have also experienced a renaissance. The Coast Salish Institute at Northwest Indian College and a number of tribally run schools have dedicated themselves to preserving and teaching their languages and the cultural values that have long sustained their people. The most spectacular cultural effort can be seen in the annual canoe journeys that take place each summer. This event began in 1989, when nine traditional cedar dugout canoes—eight from Washington and one from Bella Bella, British Columbia, Canada—participated in the Paddle to Seattle, making the journey from to their tribal communities to the Port of Seattle to participate, somewhat ironically, in the one hundredth anniversary of Washington statehood. In the years since, this event has grown to nearly a hundred traditional oceangoing canoes from indigenous nations, from as far north as Alaska and the Queen Charlotte Islands and as far south as Oregon, paddling to a common destination, most often a host nation among the Coast Salish people. The journey itself may last two or three weeks for some tribes traveling from some of the more northern points of origin.
One of the more controversial issues in terms of cultural restoration has been the efforts of the Makah Nation to bring back whaling—a practice that has literally defined the Makah people since time immemorial. The 1855 Makah Treaty very specifically acknowledged the right of this tribe to hunt whales. As in the case of salmon, commercial non-Native whaling drove most whale species to the brink of extinction by the 1920s, and the Makah voluntarily ceased hunting the gray whales, which had traditionally sustained the tribe. Strict conservation efforts brought back whale populations, and in 1994 the gray whale was removed from the endangered species list. When the Makah sought to renew their whale hunting tradition on a very limited basis—with support from the federal government and the International Whaling Commission—they met with fierce opposition from some Washington State officials and various environmental groups. The issue has twice reached the Ninth Circuit Court, in Metcalf v. Daley (2000) and Anderson v. Evans (2002). Although both cases acknowledged the right of the Makah to hunt whales, they delayed any such hunts until such time the Makah submit satisfactory environmental assessments—a condition widely viewed by the tribe as a simple delay tactic used by whaling opponents. It remains unclear at this time what the ultimate outcome of this issue will be.
For tribes, the restoration of culture as manifested in language, ceremony, arts, and, in the case of the Makah, the right to whale is not simply a matter of window dressing but rather a matter of survival. When a culture disappears, a people disappears with it. Most reservations in the Northwest face serious social problems, especially among their most precious resource, the youth. There seems little doubt that problems such as gang membership and the rapidly increasing use of illegal drugs among Native youth is a direct result of alienation from their cultural heritage. Saving the youth begins with saving the culture. Saving the culture begins with saving the environment.
One final issue to be considered is the status and place of urban Indians. As with Indian Country in general, the majority—more than 60 percent—of tribal people in the Pacific Northwest live in cities. In Washington State, there are more than thirty thousand Native people living in the Seattle-Olympia area alone. Many of these Native people are from Northwest tribal communities. Some can trace their urban existence back to the devastating termination policy and relocation program of the 1950s and 1960s. Others moved to cities later simply because of the lack of economic opportunity back on their home reservations. How to deal with these displaced relatives—what rights and privileges should be afforded them—promises to be one of the most important issues that must be addressed in the future.
For the Indian tribes of the Pacific Northwest it has always been—and will always be—about survival. Since the first moment of contact, they have been forced to endure efforts to dispossess them of their land and deny them their inherent sovereign rights as a people. They have withstood assaults against their language, spiritual beliefs, and identity. And in recent years, they have been forced to fight for the very land and especially the salmon that has always given them life. Throughout it all, they have survived. They have always been here and will always remain the original and true inhabitants of the Salish Sea region.