Coast Salish Peoples - History

History

The following is a provisional list of historical events, primarily from an American perspective. Coast Salish peoples in British Columbia have had similar economic experience, although their political and treaty experience has been different—occasionally dramatically so:

• c. 9,000–8,000 BCE: Evidence of established settlement at Xa:ytem (Hatzic Rock) near Mission, British Columbia
• 6th century CE: Prominent villages along the Duwamish River estuary. These remained continuously inhabited until sometime in the later 18th century.)
• 15th century: Construction of boulder walls for defensive and other purposes along the Fraser Canyon
• 1792: Brief contact with the Vancouver expedition by the Sḵwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and others.
• 1810s: Coastal fur trade with infrequent ships extends south from farther north.
• 1810s through 1850s: raiding by northern peoples, esp Euclataws and Haida, of Georgia Strait-Puget Sound Salish peoples.
• 1824: John Work and party of the HBC traveled the length of the central and south Georgia Strait-Puget Sound.
• 1827: HBC Fort Langley established east of present-day Vancouver, B.C. Contact and trade began accelerating significantly, primarily with the Fraser River Salish.
• 1833: Fort Nisqually and its farm established by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company a subsidiary of the HBC, between present-day Olympia and Tacoma, Washington. Contact and trade began accelerating significantly with the southern Coast Salish. Significant social change and change in social structures accelerates with increasing contact. Initiative remained with Native traders until catastrophic population decline. Native traders and Native economy were not particularly interested or dependent upon European trade or tools. Trade goods were primarily luxuries such as trade blankets, ornamentation, guns and ammunition. The HBC monopoly did not condone alcohol, but freebooter traders were under no compunction.
• 1839–40: Catholic missionaries arrive in Puget Sound country. 1841–43: Interest diminishes. 1840–42: Methodist missionaries arrive, have no success at all.
• 1840–on: Missionaries. In the United States, churches divided territory among themselves by the federal Peace Policy of 1869.
• 1854-55: Treaties. Reservations. Some tribes do not participate and others dropped out of treaty negotiations. (See, for example, Treaty of Point Elliott #Native Americans and # Non-signatory tribes.)
• The Muckleshoot Reservation is established after the Puget Sound War of 1855–56.
• 1850s–60s: Traditional resources are less and less available. Sawmill work and employment selling natural resources begins and continues; Native men work as loggers, in the mills, and as commercial fishers. Women sell basketry, shellfish, and make other adjustments.
• 1870s: Agricultural work in hopyards of the east Sound river valleys grows, even mushrooms.
• 1880s: White-Indian demographics shift dramatically. Commercial fisheries employment begins to decline significantly.
• 1885: After legislation amending the Indian Act was passed the previous year, the potlatch is banned in Canada, effective January 1, 1885 and in the U.S. some years later.
• 1934 (U.S.), 1951 (Canada): Official suppression of the potlatch ends. Some potlatching becomes overt immediately, and a renaissance follows.
• 1960s: Renaissance of tribal culture and national civil rights engenders civil action for treaty rights.
• 1960s–1970s: Employment in commercial fisheries has greatly declined; employment in logging and lumber mills declines significantly with automation, outsourcing, and the decline in available resources through the 1980s.
• 1974, Supreme Court upheld 1979: The Boldt Decision, based on the Treaty of Point Elliott of 1855 restores fisheries rights to federally recognized Puget Sound tribes:

  The right of taking fish at usual and accustomed grounds and stations is further secured to said Indians in common with all citizens of the Territory,

  In implementation, this means half the catch, at sustainable levels by subsequent negotiations.
• 1970s–present: Many federally recognized tribes develop some economic autonomy with (initially strongly contested) tax-free tobacco retail, development of casino gambling, fisheries and stewardship of fisheries. Extant tribes not federally recognized continue ongoing legal proceedings and cultural development toward recognition.