The Duwamish are still not federally recognized. The Muckleshoots are trying to keep it that way.

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September 5, 11:27 PM

by Benjamin Lukoff, Seattle History Examiner

 

 

Chief Seattle, perhaps the most famous
member of the Duwamish tribe, in 1864.
Photo by E.M. Sammis.

An appointee of President Bush revisited the Duwamish case, deciding that the tribal members no longer exist as a people, primarily because of what officials said was a lapse in tribal government and social cohesion from 1916 to 1925 -- the [very] period when they were abandoned, left homeless and hungry.

And I believe I had heard back in May that the Duwamish were suing the federal government for recognition once again. What I hadn't heard was that the Muckleshoots just filed a motion to intervene -- on the side of the government.

The case, Hansen et al v. Kempthorne et al (Cecile Hansen is tribal chairwoman; Dirk Kempthorne is the Secretary of the Interior), was filed in Seattle federal court on May 7 before John C. Coughenour, and alleges the following:

BIA officials violated the Administrative Procedures Act by acting arbitrarily and capriciously, and abused their discretion in evaluating the tribe's petition for federal recognition; the tribe was denied due process under the Fifth Amendment; and the federal government violated the law by issuing a decision that was politically motivated rather than impartially based on the merits of the petition.

I suppose if I knew this aspect of local history better, I wouldn't have been surprised. Says the lawyer for the Duwamish, "Oftentimes, tribes that are seeking federal recognition are opposed by other federally recognized tribes... in the gauntlet the tribes have to run through, sometimes their principal opponents are their own relatives." Indeed, a little bit of Googling turns up at least two other examples of local internecine fighting: the Muckleshoots and Duwamish clashed in 1990 over ownership of two recently discovered dugout canoes, found in Angle Lake, which were anywhere from 200 to 300 years old; and in 1985, the Suquamish attempted to claim the "usual and accustomed fishing places" of the Duwamish on the eastern shores of Puget Sound. The theory was that, as the Duwamish no longer existed, the Suquamish were their "successors in interest." When they lost their case two years later, they appealed, and the Tulalpis, Lummis, Muckleshoots, and Upper Skagits joined the case -- again, on the side of the federal government.

Hansen is convinced that this time, the Muckleshoots' opposition rests on gaming -- i.e., that a newly recognized Duwamish tribe could build a casino to compete with the Muckleshoots' own in Auburn. The Muckleshoots deny this, but do mention fishing in their motion. The P-I quotes it as saying that "many of the prominent Indian families of the villages from which the Duwamish plaintiff claims descent moved to Muckleshoot and other reservations," which is essentially the same argument the Suquamish tried to make over 20 years ago.

Whatever happens, it's a reminder that the events of 153 years ago are still with us today -- and that "divide and conquer" is as applicable now as it always has been.

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