Treaty of Point Elliott - Governor Stevens and The U.S. Government

Governor Stevens and The U.S. Government

Washington Territory Governor Isaac Stevens frequently made oral promises that were not matched by what was written down. The Native tribes were all oral cultures. When Stevens, in drafting treaties, acted in a manner that Judge James Wickerson would characterize forty years later as "unfair, unjust, ungenerous, and illegal", Natives were quite unprepared for such behavior by the official representatives of the white man's power. The local natives had a thirty-year history of dealing with the "King George's men" of Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), who had developed a reputation for driving a hard bargain, but sticking honestly to what they agreed to, and for treating Whites and Indians impartially. This continued through the dealings of the local Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Superintendent General, Joel Palmer, who (along with David 'Doc' Maynard's brother-in-law, Indian Agent Mike Simmons) was among the few even-handed men in the BIA.

The Washington Territory treaties such as that of the Treaty of Medicine Creek of 1854 (26 December) and this Treaty of Point Elliott of 1855 (22 January) were followed by the provocative Treaty of Walla Walla of 1855 (21 May). Governor Stevens ignored federal government instructions to stick to sorting out the areas where natives and settlers found themselves immediately adjacent to one another or where settlers moved right in on Native places. After thirty years of dealings with King George's men of the HBC, Natives were angered, particularly since the Native concept of war had more to do with resources and complex concepts of prestige than with conquest or annihilation, which were not even considered.

Stevens appointed chiefs of tribes in order to facilitate goals of his administration.

"The salient features of the policy outlined were as follows:

1. To concentrate the Indians upon a few reservations, and encourage them to cultivate the soil and adopt settled and civilized habits.

2. To pay for their lands not in money, but in annuities of blankets, clothing, and useful articles during a long term of years.

3. To furnish them with schools, teachers, farmers and farming implements, blacksmiths, and carpenter, with shops of those trades.

4. To prohibit wars and disputes among them.

5. To abolish slavery.

6. To stop as far as possible the use of liquor.

7. As the change from savage to civilized habits must necessarily be gradual, they were to retain the right of fishing at their accustomed fishing-places, and of hunting, gathering berries and roots, and pasturing stock on unoccupied land as long as it remained vacant.

8. At some future time, when they should have become fitted for it, the lands of the reservations were to be allotted to them in severalty."

Note that these are significantly different from the verbal assurances provided during negotiations, and that all the Native Nations were oral cultures.

Indian tribes believed the treaties became effective when they were signed. But United States law required Congress to approve all treaties after they were negotiated. Consequently, there was no legal foundation for occupation from the time settlement began in earnest about 1845 until April 1859.

The commitments made by the U.S. government in the Treaty have never been implemented for the Duwamish, and several other tribes.