The Boldt Decision, Fifty Percent of the Fish

On February twelfth, nineteen seventy-four, a federal judge named George Boldt issued a ruling that upended a century of practiced injustice in the Pacific Northwest. The case was United States versus Washington. The question, at its core, was this: what did the phrase in common with all citizens of the Territory actually mean when the Stevens Treaties of the eighteen fifties guaranteed tribal fishing rights at all usual and accustomed stations?

Boldt read the treaties carefully. He commissioned historical and linguistic research. He concluded that the phrase had meant, in the diplomatic context of the eighteen fifties, an equal sharing, that the tribes had ceded only half their rights to fish, retaining the other half for themselves. His ruling gave the treaty tribes of Washington the right to catch up to fifty percent of the harvestable salmon and steelhead passing through their recognized fishing grounds. He also made the tribes co-managers of the state's fisheries.

The reaction from non-tribal fishing interests was furious. Boats blockaded rivers. Bumper stickers appeared demanding Judge Boldt's impeachment. Some state officials refused to enforce the ruling. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Boldt in nineteen seventy-five. The United States Supreme Court let the affirmation stand in nineteen seventy-six.

The Boldt Decision reshaped the political and environmental landscape of Washington State. Tribal fisheries managers, suddenly holding legal authority over half the resource, became among the most sophisticated salmon advocates in the region. When the salmon runs began collapsing in the nineteen nineties, it was the tribes who pushed hardest for habitat restoration, pointing out that a fifty percent share of zero was still zero.

Their reasoning was sound. It still is.