Treaty Day, observed on Jan. 22, is the anniversary of the signing of the Point Elliott Treaty in 1855. While the Treaty is in effect every day of every year, marking this day can provide us with a chance to learn about and reflect on what the Treaty is and how we can best honor and uphold it.
In the late 1800s, as the United States expanded ever westward, it entered into a number of land acquisition treaties with Indigenous peoples. The Point Elliott Treaty is the one that allows those of us who are not Native to live, work, and play in the region that extends roughly west from the Salish Sea and its islands to the Cascades. Several other similar treaties cover the rest of Washington State and the Pacific Northwest.
In exchange for allowing non-tribal US citizens to live here, the Treaty promised to provide ongoing healthcare, education, and other resources to the signatory tribes, and also set aside lands for their exclusive use. These reservations were a fraction of the size of traditional territories; for instance, the Lhaq’temish people once lived throughout the San Juan and Canadian Gulf Islands and nearby coastlines, not only on the current Lummi Nation reservation.
The aspect of the Treaty that is, perhaps, the most talked about is the guaranteed right of tribal members to hunt, fish, and gather at all “usual and accustomed” places. This is not a right that the U.S. gave to the tribes, but rather a promise that the U.S. would respect and protect that right.
Hunting, fishing, and gathering are not only about food, medicine, and useful materials: they are about identity, sovereignty, and community health. A fishing people needs to fish. A “Salmon People,” as so many of our Coast Salish peoples are, need salmon. Salmon is a cornerstone of diet, social organization, livelihood, culture, and worldview. This is an issue that runs soul-deep.
Tah-Mahs Ellie Kinley, citizen of Lummi Nation, comes from a family where every single generation going back to the beginning of time has fished. She is a fisher, as were her late husband and father. Her two sons now harvest the sea, including on the only tribally-owned and operated commercial reef net gear. She says, “When I sit and look at the islands, I’m saddened that we had to give that all up. These places are a part of us, and we’re a part of them. But I’m grateful that we have the Treaty, grateful that our ancestors made sure that our right to harvest throughout our traditional territories would always be protected. Fishing is what my ancestors did, it’s what I do. It’s who we are.”
Just because the Treaty guarantees fishing rights doesn’t mean those rights have always been respected. The Fish Wars started when Billy Frank, Jr. was arrested for fishing off-reservation; the Boldt Decision of 1974 ended the conflict and reaffirmed the tribal right to fish not just on reservation waterways but throughout traditional territories. It also established signatory tribes as co-managers of the fisheries. In the early 1990s, Canada closed down all fishing by Point Roberts, right at the border. Tribal fishermen again had to act to protect the Treaty.
Back in the late 1800s, when Governor Isaac Stevens was negotiating various treaties throughout what was then called the Washington Territories, he would speak to the tribes. In his speeches, he repeatedly promised that tribal rights to harvest ancestral territories would be protected “as long as the mountain stands and the river runs.” And at that time, it was said, the salmon were so thick in the rivers, you could walk across on their backs.
This was the world agreed to at the signing of the Treaty. Implicit in the promise to fish is an abundance of fish to harvest.
Tah-Mahs Ellie Kinley, along with brothers John and Nate, on her late father Jack Solomon’s boat, protesting the Canadian closure of the fishing season near Point Roberts, circa 1994-95. | Photograph courtesy of Tah-Mahs Ellie Kinley
That brings us to what the Treaty means today, and how the Treaty protects us all. Over the last several decades, salmon runs have plummeted; it is no longer possible for most tribal members to practice their traditional lifeways and make their living by fishing alone. Protecting Treaty rights means not only protecting the right to fish, but also protecting the “usual and accustomed places” and the fish themselves.
When there was a proposal to build North America’s largest coal export facility on traditional Lummi sacred ground—a coal port that would’ve threatened our clean air, our clean water, our local economies, our public health, and tribal fishing—Lummi was able to invoke Treaty rights and stop the project from happening. When broken culverts and other infrastructures were impeding salmon from getting back to their spawning grounds, the courts ruled that the infrastructure needed to be removed or fixed so that the salmon could swim upriver and reproduce, continuing the species.
Salmon are a cornerstone species, they are a measure of our ecosystem’s health. If the Salish Sea and its river systems cannot support salmon, we, as part of that same ecosystem, will also eventually be in danger. We can no longer afford to think that we are separate from nature: the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe becomes part of our bodies. Our health depends on the health of the air, water, and food. All of us who live here, in some way, are connected to salmon. This knowledge of our interconnectedness is knowledge that all of our ancestors once had, otherwise they’d have never survived. This is wisdom that our Indigenous relations have held on to, wisdom that they generously share.
Treaties are agreements between sovereign nations and are, according to the U.S. Constitution, the “supreme law of the land.” Anyone who lives here and all U.S. citizens are party to the Treaty; it is up to all of us to uphold it. If we are relative newcomers to this place (like, fewer than hundreds of generations), it could be considered a fundamental decency to honor and learn from the culture and lifeways of the people on whose land we now live. But beyond legal and moral considerations, when we open our hearts and minds to this place and how to live well here, we can see that tribal sovereignty and Treaty rights help protect the abundance, vitality, and spirit of our shared beloved home, and so protect us all. We are all Treaty people.
There are some great resources for learning more about the Treaty. As a starting point, you might try:
Children of the Setting Sun Productions
- Annual Treaty Day Film Festival
- Digital archive, including a video of Darrell Hillaire’s acclaimed play about the Treaty: “What About Those Promises?”
- Video on Treaty Day produced for Lummi Nation and the Ferndale School District
The Treaty of Point Elliott can be found at americanindian.si.edu/environment/pdf/04_02_Treaty_of_Point_Elliot.pdf
Lhaq’temish-led Sacred Lands Conservancy / SacredSea.org longer two-part article “We Are All Treaty People” published by The Mountaineers:
- mountaineers.org/blog/we-are-all-treaty-people-part-i
- mountaineers.org/blog/we-are-all-treaty-people-part-ii
Treaty flash points:
- Fish Wars: started in 1945 when 14-year-old Billy Frank, Jr. was arrested for fishing off-reservation and continued until the Boldt Decision, with acts of civil disobedience by, and violence against, tribal members in the 1960s and ‘70s
- Boldt Decision: United States v. Washington, 1974
- “Pacific Salmon War” of 1994
- US Army Corps of Engineers decision to deny a permit for the proposed coal port, 2016
- The “Culverts Case” United States v. Washington, 2018
A Note on Sovereignty
All federally recognized tribes are Native sovereign nations. Sovereignty means that, among other things, they have the rights to self-determination, self-governance, their own language, economies, cultural, and spirituality. As treaties can only be executed between sovereign nations, the sovereignty of a Native nation is recognized and affirmed by virtue of being signatories to treaties with the United States.
Map of Treaty lands, including the Treaty of Point Elliott and the other treaties signed by Governor Stevens
Meet Julie Trimingham
Julie Trimingham is a mother, writer, and non-tribal member of the Sacred Lands Conservancy (SacredSea.org), a Lhaq’temish-led non-profit dedicated to protecting Native sovereignty, treaty rights, sacred sites, and the life and waters of Xw’ullemy (the Salish Sea bioregion). Her heart is filled by the work to protect and promote ancestral place-based knowledge so that we can all learn to live here, with one another, and with Mother Earth, in a good way.
