Duwamish people

The Duwamish (, ) are a Lushootseed-speaking Southern Coast Salish people in western Washington, and the Indigenous people of metropolitan Seattle.

Prior to colonization, the center of Duwamish society was around the Black and Duwamish rivers in Washington. The modern Duwamish primarily descend from two separate groups: the , or Duwamish, and the , a group of peoples whose traditional territory extends around Lake Washington. Although the primary language used by the Duwamish today is English, the Duwamish historically spoke a subdialect of the southern dialect of Lushootseed, a Coast Salish language spoken throughout much of western Washington.

For centuries, the Duwamish have lived in at least 17 villages around the Seattle area. In 1855, the Duwamish were among the signatories of the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott, in which they ceded their land to the United States government and in return would remove to reservation lands established by the treaty. Two reservations were created for the Duwamish: the Muckleshoot and Suquamish reservations. However, no reservation was ever created directly in the Duwamish homeland. Since then, although many Duwamish did move to the reservations, many others did not, preferring to remain in their homelands, creating a schism between Duwamish descendants. Today, the Duwamish, including the modern tribes descended from the aboriginal Duwamish such as the Suquamish Nation, the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, and the unrecognized Duwamish Tribe, have been a large part of the modern history of the Seattle area, continuing to advocate for their treaty rights and the preservation and revitalization of their culture, language, and land.

Duwamish people today are enrolled in several different tribes. These include the unrecognized Duwamish Tribe and the federally recognized tribes:

Lummi Tribe of the Lummi Reservation
Muckleshoot Indian Tribe
Suquamish Indian Tribe of the Port Madison Reservation
Swinomish Indian Tribal Community
Tulalip Tribes of Washington

Name and etymology

The name "Duwamish" is an anglicization of the Lushootseed name . The name means "people inside the bay."

The name is composed of the prefix , meaning "toward, to," the suffix , meaning "people," and the root word , a variant form of , meaning "inside something relatively small."

Prior to colonization, "Duwamish" () originally referred to just those from Elliott Bay and the Duwamish, Black, and Cedar Rivers. and the Shilshole ('), whose village was located on Salmon Bay. At the time of initial major European contact, these peoples considered themselves wholly distinct from the Duwamish.

Territory

The center of Duwamish territory was historically the area at the confluence of the Black and Cedar Rivers, called the Lake Fork.

History

Prehistory and early contact period

Western Washington has been permanently inhabited since at least 12,000 years ago, to the Pleistocene epoch and the end of the Last Glacial Maximum. Although it is possible that humans lived in the region before that time, the landscape was highly volcanic and unstable, leading to vast alteration of the coastline and rivers over time. Archaeological sites at the former village at West Point () date back at least 4,200 years. Villages at the mouth of the Duwamish River such as and had been continuously inhabited since the 6th century CE.

In the first half of the 19th century, the Duwamish began facing extreme raiding from the Lekwiltok and Kwakwaka'wakw, who raided much of the Puget Sound area for slaves and loot.

By 1851, the Duwamish had 17 villages with at least 93 buildings, including longhouses, around the present-day Seattle area. There were four prominent villages on Elliott Bay and the lower Duwamish River.

Duwamish contact with Europeans was sporadic until the 1850s. From the early 19th century, the maritime fur trade in the Puget Sound–Strait of Georgia regions greatly accelerated the pace of social and organizational change.

Due to the American government's policy of consolidating many smaller peoples into large treaty tribes and Stevens' personal political motivations, prominent leaders were designated as chiefs for the purposes of the treaties. Signatories were appointed more or less at the behest of the Americans, bypassing what they saw as the maddening fluidity of tribal leadership. Four people represented the Duwamish on the treaty: Seattle, Ts'huahntl, Nowachais, and Hasehdooan. It was originally planned by the treaty commission that all tribes west of the Cascades would eventually locate to the Tulalip Reservation, including the Duwamish, and some Duwamish did indeed move to the Tulalip Reservation at the time. The then-believed temporary Port Madison reservation was established for use primarily by the Duwamish,

In August 1856, the Fox Island Council was held to address the grievances held by people after the treaty. There, Isaac Stevens agreed to establish a reservation, the Muckleshoot reservation, for the Duwamish and other tribes living along the Duwamish watershed, including the White and Green rivers, in hopes that the remaining Duwamish would move to the reservation. The reservation was understood by the Indigenous people at the meeting to consist of a wedge of land between the White and Green rivers, however the official documents only include the area of today's reservation. It was created in 1857 by executive order.

Reservation era (late 19th century)

thumb|right|Seattle waterfront with moored Indian canoes (c. 1892)

In the years following, most of the remaining Duwamish moved from their historical homelands along Lake Washington and along the Duwamish and Cedar Rivers to the Suquamish Reservation, with others moving to the Muckleshoot and Tulalip reservations, although some still stayed behind, refusing to move. Some of those who remained assimilated into white society. This period led to the modern split between the Duwamish descendants: the Muckleshoot, Suquamish, and eponymous Duwamish tribes. The remaining Duwamish were expelled from the town of Seattle following the passage of Town of Seattle Ordinance No. 5.

Efforts were made to increase the size of the already existing reservations or create another reservation for the Duwamish to accommodate the influx of people. G. A. Paige, the Indian Agent in charge of the Port Madison reservation, wrote in 1857 that a reservation should be established at the Lake Fork, as requested by the Duwamish. Around that time, around 150 Duwamish had requested to speak to Isaac Stevens about the creation of a reservation, and he promised to them that "if he were properly informed about their situation" he would create a reservation for them. In 1864, the Port Madison reservation was enlarged by executive order at the request of Seattle and a delegation of other natives. Proposals were made by the US Superintendent of Indian Affairs in 1866 to create another reservation in the Duwamish homeland near what is now Renton and Tukwila, but American settlers wrote to Arthur Denny, the territorial delegate to congress, complaining about the proposal. Denny himself signed the complaint petition, as well as David Denny, Henry Yesler, David "Doc" Maynard, and virtually all of Seattle's establishment, saying that "such a reservation would do a great injustice" and be "of little value to the Indians." The petition was forwarded to the BIA and subsequently, the proposal was blocked later that year. In 1868 President Andrew Johnson was recommended to sign an executive order to designate all land between the Green and White rivers as part of the Muckleshoot reservation. However, the order was either misplaced or set aside, and no action was taken. The Muckleshoot reservation was eventually expanded by executive order in 1874, in order to provide a home for the other Duwamish living on the lower Duwamish drainage system.

After the 1860s, the Duwamish who remained off-reservation continued to live in their traditional communities along Lake Washington and the Black, Cedar, White, and Green rivers. Traditional longhouses were built at these sites into the mid-1800s. One such settlement was located at the confluence of the Black and Cedar rivers. The settlement was led by William (also known as Stoda), the most powerful political leader of the Duwamish from the mid-1800s until his death. William led the Duwamish both at the confluence and on the reservations, keeping their political integrity intact. William brought Duwamish from the still-existing Duwamish villages, as well as those living on the Port Madison and Muckleshoot reservations, to a sing gamble ceremony in 1894. After his death in 1896, the off-reservation Duwamish community began to move to new white settlements. By 1910, all known independent Duwamish settlements had disappeared. This was greatly effected by Ordinance No. 5, which in 1865 banned Native Americans from living in the city unless housed and employed by a white settler, and also by the repeated burning of still-existing Duwamish settlements.

The Duwamish continue to be involved in Seattle's urban Indian culture and are represented in institutions such as United Indians of All Tribes and the Seattle Indian Health Board.

Federally-recognized tribes such as the Muckleshoot and Suquamish as well as the Duwamish Tribe have worked closely with the city of Seattle to promote and develop and preserve local Native culture and history, both for the Duwamish, and non-Duwamish urban Indians. As of late 2022, Indigenous businesses have begun to open in Seattle, including ʔálʔal Cafe, which uses local ingredients and shares traditional Native American dishes from around North America.

The Duwamish also work with nearby cities to preserve and protect their history. The Duwamish Hill Preserve in Tukwila is a culturally significant space in traditional stories and served as a historical vantage point. In addition, the Renton History Museum in Renton, Washington, has a small exhibit on the archaeological and cultural history of the Duwamish.

Traditional culture and society

thumb|right|Duwamish man and woman, Old Tom and Madeline, Portage Bay, Seattle, c. 1904. "Old Tom" is likely Cheshiahud

The village

Like many other Coast Salish societies, traditional Duwamish society was dominated by the village. It was the basis of societal organization for the Puget Sound peoples and, in the pre-contact period, the village was the highest form of social organization. Each village had one or more cedar plank longhouses housing one or more extended families. Longhouses were often divided into sections by dividers made of cattail or cedar, with each family having their own section of the house with a fire pit in the center of the section. A single longhouse could support as few as tens of people, to as many as hundreds of people. The Center's design of the main hall of the Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center closely echoes a traditional longhouse.

For most of their history, the Duwamish were not a unified tribe. Instead, villages were completely autonomous, linked by shared language, culture, location, and family. While some villages held higher status and had a certain influence over others, there was no official authority of one village over another.

Duwamish villages, due to their geographical and familial closeness, were historically tightly allied within their drainage. Duwamish villages also were closely allied with their neighbors, such as the Hachuamish, the Sammamish, the Snoqualmie, the Stkamish, the Puyallup, the Homamish, Suquamish, and many more. As marrying distant peoples to get unique access to far-away resources was ideal, some Duwamish intermarried and allied with peoples as far away as the Stillaguamish. Good marriages gave prestige and could result in the gain of material wealth.

Intermarriage between villages created a large trade network stretching across much of the Pacific Northwest, extending up into what is now British Columbia and over the Cascade Range.

Successor tribes

thumb|right|Cecile Hansen, chairwoman of the [[Duwamish Tribe, 2011]]

Today, Duwamish people are primarily enrolled in the federally recognized tribes, the Lummi Tribe of the Lummi Reservation, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, Suquamish Indian Tribe of the Port Madison Reservation, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, and Tulalip Tribes of Washington, and the unrecognized Duwamish Tribe. or the state of Washington. Until 1974, the Duwamish Tribe mostly pursued land claims agreements in court, entitled to treaty tribes by Congress. They first and unsuccessfully attempted to pursue claims against the Court of Claims and in Congress in 1934, however, in 1962, they were successful in submitting a claim to the Indian Claims Commission.

They have sought and been denied federal recognition by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1996, 2015, and 2019. In 2001, they were briefly granted recognition by an executive order from President Bill Clinton as he left office. However, it was reversed less than two days later as the incoming President George W. Bush cancelled the many executive orders Clinton signed in his final days citing "procedural errors."

In 2022, the Duwamish Tribe sued for federal recognition in The Duwamish Tribe et al. v. Haaland et al., heard in Washington Western District Court. Representatives of the Muckleshoot, Suquamish, Tulalip and Puyallup tribes have voiced their opposition to federal recognition for the Duwamish Tribe, pointing out that many Duwamish people are enrolled in their tribes.

The Duwamish tribe owns and operates several services and organizations. In 1979, the Duwamish Tribe established the Duwamish Tribal Services, a 501(c) nonprofit organization which provides social services to the organization's members. In addition, the Duwamish Tribe constructed the on purchased land along Marginal Way, across from Terminal 107 Park. It is built near the site of the former village .

In 1991, the Duwamish Tribe had about 400 members, and in 2019, they had about 600 members.