Duwamish Tribe - History - Before White Settlement

Before White Settlement

See also: History of Seattle before white settlement

What is now Seattle has been inhabited since the end of the last glacial period (c. 8000 BCE—10,000 years ago). Sites at West Point in Discovery Park (in Seattle's Magnolia district) date back at least 4,000 years. Villages at the then-mouth of the Duwamish River in what is now the Industrial District had been inhabited since the 6th century CE.

Thirteen prominent villages were in what is now the City of Seattle. The people living around Elliott Bay, the Duwamish, Black and Cedar Rivers were collectively known as the doo-AHBSH, "People of the Inside" (see below for more detailed discussion of this name). There were four prominent villages on Elliott Bay and the then-estuarial lower Duwamish River . Before civil engineering, the area had extensive tidelands, abundantly rich in seafoods.

The people living around Lake Washington were collectively known as the hah-choo-AHBSH, "People of the Large Lake" (see below for more detailed discussion of this name). At the time of initial major European contact, these people considered themselves distinct from the related People of the Inside, with whom they are joined in today's Duwamish tribe. Prior to the construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal in the 1910s, Lake Washington drained into the Black River in what is now Renton. The Black River joined the Cedar and White (now Green) rivers to become the Duwamish River and empty into southeast Elliott Bay. With ever-increasing European contact, the People of the Large Lake and the People of the Inside became unified under the rubric of the Duwamish Tribe.