Duwamish: The People the Government Won't Recognize

The river that drains into Elliott Bay, the river that William Boeing chose for his first airplane factory, the river that the city's industrial corridor follows south toward the tide flats, is called the Duwamish. It was named for the people who lived on its banks. Those people are still here. The federal government, for the purposes of law and services and treaty obligations, does not recognize that fact.

The Duwamish Tribe has occupied the watershed of the river that bears their name for thousands of years. Their leader Si'ahl signed the Point Elliott Treaty in eighteen fifty-five alongside leaders from dozens of other tribes. The treaty ceded Duwamish territory to the United States and in return promised reserved rights and, for other tribes, reservation lands. The Duwamish received no reservation. They were expected to relocate to the reservations of neighboring tribes, which most refused to do.

The tribe filed a formal petition for federal recognition in nineteen seventy-seven. The Bureau of Indian Affairs took the petition through nearly twenty four years of review. In two thousand one, career BIA staff approved the petition, a determination that, if allowed to stand, would have entitled the Duwamish to federal health services, housing assistance, educational programs, and the restoration of treaty rights. The determination was reversed within days. Political appointees in the final hours of the Clinton administration had signed off on that recommendation just before leaving office. The incoming Bush administration overturned it. The Obama administration reviewed and declined to change it.

Without federal recognition, the Duwamish Tribe receives none of the federal services available to recognized tribes. They operate a longhouse in South Seattle on land the tribe purchased privately because they have no federal land base. The longhouse sits about two miles from the tideline where Si'ahl met the first American settlers in the eighteen fifties.

The legal standard for federal recognition requires demonstrating continuous community existence, political authority, and descent from a historical tribe. Duwamish advocates argue the tribe meets all three criteria and always has. The government has not said the tribe doesn't exist. It has declined to say it does. The distinction is the difference between a people and, for federal purposes, a legal void.