Why the Treaty of Point Elliott Matters for Hikers

Today is the 171st Anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Point Elliott which determined much of the land ownership in what is now Washington State. Jennie discusses how hikers can learn more about treaty rights and Indigenous history and culture.

Read the treaty here

Learn about the Duwamish fight for federal recognition

Transcript

 Welcome to the Washington State Hiking Podcast. I'm your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming, 

and I'm your co-host Craig Romano.

Craig and I are happy to have you here. We provide practical and timely seasonal hiking advice for hikers, trail runners, and potential hikers and trail runners of all skill and ability levels that is helpful, accurate, fun, and inclusive.


Hi everyone. Jennie here this week. Craig is off enjoying some sunnier weather and doing one of his awesome long runs in Nevada. So good luck, Craig. I hope that's going well. Today. I have a short and a little bit different episode for you. What I wanna share about a little bit today is the importance of today's date, which is January 22nd,

on January 22nd, 1855 is when the Treaty of Point Elliott was signed. I wanted to mention is that I was born in Washington state. I grew up here. This wasn't something that I really knew about until I was an adult and until I had already moved to Alaska for many years and moved back to Washington.

Now, I'm sure somewhere in some textbook somewhere there might have been a footnote about this. But since then I have learned how important this and other treaties are for us Washingtonians to understand. So if you're thinking. Jennie, what does this have to do with hiking? Well, it has everything to do with hiking.

So the Treaty of Point, Elliott was one of several treaties that were signed around this same time period, and they really determined how land was going to be owned in Washington. Let's put this in a little bit of. Context

and when we say Coast Salish people, we're talking about people more generally, and if we say Duwamish or Muckle shoot, then that is something that's more specific. And again, as I've said before, and Craig has as well, neither of us are native people. It is just as important for people who are not native to understand this history and to share it as well as for people who are Native American.

So January 22nd, 1855 is when this particular treaty was signed. So I wanna just share a little bit about the treaty and then revisit some ways that you can learn more about these things as a hiker this year, Craig and I have some episodes planned with Native American people from Washington who will share a bit more about their experience and their perspective.

I also wanted to just remind you that if you missed it or started listening, since this time, back in October, October 23rd, episode 86. Craig and I did an episode about ways to learn about indigenous culture and history while hiking in Washington. So that is another episode to go back and get some specific places and trails where you can learn about this.

So why is the history of the land important for hikers? Well, to be honest with you, there's a lot of people who maybe don't care about this topic. I care about it a lot. I think part of it is because while I am not indigenous, my family has been here for four generations, so I do have a deep connection to this land, but I didn't know much about the indigenous history of Washington state until probably 15 years ago.

So I certainly don't want anyone to feel bad for not having this knowledge. That's why Craig and I want to keep raising this topic and giving people an opportunity to learn. So the land that we are hiking on is typically public land. And in a place like Washington where the land has. Only been politically divided for a relatively short period of time.

We're not that far away. From a time when people moved around a bit more freely and this, you know, firm idea of land ownership was different, and that isn't the same for all indigenous people. With this treaty and some others that were signed around this same time, we're talking about the Treaty of Point, Elliott, because today, January 22nd is the anniversary of that treaty being signed.

But this was a time when there was rising tension between settlers and indigenous people, and the idea was that this treaty would govern who had rights to what land Now. This probably isn't a surprise to students of history, but indigenous people were not treated well in this treaty. Um, they were mostly pushed onto reservations and gave up a lot of land and.

Not every, signatory to this treaty received land or received a reservation. So even though that was not good, I'll just say it, that sucks to be pushed into a particular area. Not everyone even got that. So for example, the Duwamish tribe, which was the, actually the very first signatory on the Treaty of Point, Elliott, chief Seattle or Chief South, was Duwamish and Suquamish, and he was the first person to sign.

And the Duwamish have never. Received federal recognition even though the United States government has signed a treaty with the Duwamish people. I will put a link to the Duwamish tribe in the show notes, and you can even support them by becoming a real renter, which is a particularly cool thing for people who live in Seattle.

Okay, so. I'm not gonna go into all the details about exactly what happened with different reservations. There's, there's lots of places you can find that information if you're interested. But this historical event happened at what, it was called Point Elliott by settlers. But, um, this was Muckle Teo. Is the indigenous word for this place and also the indigenous word for this place today.

So Muggle Teo, which is between Seattle and Everett, has a ferry that goes over to Whidby Island. It has its indigenous name, it's not called Point Elliott anymore, and hasn't been for a long time. Like I said, there were many different tribes who signed the, uh, treaty or many representatives, chiefs and sub chiefs of different groups.

And I'm going to put a link in the show notes to the actual, document that shows what was actually in this treaty and. It includes. So this isn't everyone, but this is just some of the groups that were involved with this treaty. These are going to be very familiar names for residents of Western Washington, the Duwamish, the Suquamish, the Snoqualmie Snohomish, the Lummi Skats.

And many others. That's just a few. And then for Washington, so keep in mind that this was before Washington was a state. So this is 1855. And at that time, Washington was a territory of the United States. It was not a state and territorial governor. Isaac Stevens was the other person to sign this treaty, and some other government officials as well.

So I would encourage you, if you're heading out to Whidby Island, which I know a lot of you are, because a lot of you listen to our Whidby Island Hiking episode, if you're taking the ferry, spend a little time to go out to the spot. There's a beautiful park there. Today, there's a lighthouse and there are some interpretive signs that talk about this treaty as well.

I think just to come back to why does this matter for hikers? I think knowing the story of our land, who lives on it, who lived on it in the past, who lives on it today, the people, the different tribes who signed this treaty are vibrant tribes today, so. People. These, this is people who in many cases have particular, fishing and gathering rights in places.

It's really important for those of us who are not native to respect those. We've talked about Kukutali Preserve, for example, um, near Connor in Skagit County. That's a really cool partnership between the Sonomas tribe and Washington State Parks. That's another, we talked about that in our, in our previous episode where we talked about learning about indigenous culture.

It's a wonderful trail. There's many others that we talked about in that episode. But the point I wanna make here is that even though this treaty was signed in the past. It's also an important part of our story today.

Many of these reservations, um, still exist. Many of the things in this treaty have not been honored and that started very early on. So I think it's important to know what's in here. I think it's important to know the ways in which the US government has broken these treaties.

And, in the future it'd be cool to do an episode about the FIsh Wars, but I know we've talked about the Billy Frank, Jr. National Wildlife Refuge near Olympia. And that is named for Billy Frank, Jr. Jr. Who in the 1970s was very involved in fighting for some of these treaty rights that came out of this treaty, but also others.

So I hope you get a chance today to learn a little more about this treaty. I hope you next time you're in Mukilteo, or if you make a special trip, get to head out and see this spot where this happened, um, and hope us share this really important part of our history as Washingtonians and part of our present and part of our future, especially for tribes that are still fighting for recognition like the Duwamish.

So thanks for listening. And see you next week.

If you are enjoying the Washington State Hiking Podcast, Craig and I would love to have you leave us a rating and a review that helps other people find us. And if you wanna support us financially, you can leave us a tip through the show notes. No account, no commitment, nothing like that. Thank you so much for listening and see you next week.