The Suquamish Tribe: People of Chief Seattle - History & Culture Page 1 of 3 Search... Login Home History & Culture Employment Departments Museum Suquamish Foundation Contact Community Notices You Are Here: History & Culture Monday, August 1, 2016 History & Culture The Suquamish are a Lushootseed (Puget Salish) speaking people that traditionally lived along the Kitsap Chief Seattle Peninsula, including Bainbridge and Blake Islands, across Puget Sound from present Seattle. Many of the present Suquamish live on the Port Madison Indian Reservation in the reservation towns of Suquamish and Indianola. The ancestral Suquamish have lived in Central Puget Sound for approximately 10,000 years. The major Suquamish winter village was at Old Man House on the shoreline of Agate Passage at d’suq’wub meaning “clear salt water.” The Suquamish name translates into the “people of the clear salt water.” The Suquamish depended on salmon, cod and Chief Seattle other bottom fish, clams and other shellfish, berries, roots, ducks and other waterfowl, deer and other land game for was an food for family use, ceremonial feasts, and for trade. The Suquamish, due to the absence of a major river with large ancestral leader salmon runs in their immediate territory, had to travel to neighboring marine areas and beyond to harvest salmon. of the Suquamish The Suquamish Tribe born in lived in shed- 1786 at the roofed, cedar Old-Man-House plank houses village in Suquamish. His father was during the winter Schweabe, a Suquamish Chief, and his months. The was mother Scholitza, a Duwamish Suquamish had from a village near present Kent. winter villages at Seattle was a six years old when Suquamish (Old- Captain George Vancouver anchored in Man-House), Point Suquamish waters off Bainbridge Bolin, Poulsbo, Silverdale, Chico, Colby, Olalla, Point White, Lynwood Center, Eagle Harbor, Port Madison and Battle Island in 1792. Point. The best known winter village was at Old Man House, the home of Chief Seattle and Chief Kitsap. The Suquamish periodically left their winter residences in the spring, summer and early fall in family canoes to travel to Seattle achieved his status as chief of temporary camps at fishing, hunting and berrying grounds. The seasonal camps consisted of portable frames made the Suquamish and a confederation of of tree saplings covered with woven cattail mats. Duwamish bands after he planned and executed an attack strategy that saved the Central Puget Sound people from a sneak attack from upriver tribal forces The Suquamish produced a variety of ingenious tools and other devices to efficiently from present King County. Seattle, harvest fish and gather other foods. The Suquamish are best known for their traditional who was in his early twenties at the basketry. The “hard baskets” made from coiled cedar roots were used for gathering time, devised a plan calling for falling berries, but were also watertight, which made them ideal for carrying water and also for trees across the White (now Green) cooking. The Suquamish would heat stones in a fire and drop them into the water-filled River above Renton that would capsize baskets to make soups from smoked salmon and wild potatoes. The Suquamish decorated and disorient the raiding party allowing the berry baskets by imbricating them colored barks in a various designs. for Seattle’s forces to attack and capture them. The plan worked and The Suquamish mostly traveled by water in dugout cedar canoes. The canoe maker fashioned the canoe from a the people were so impressed that he single cedar log, which after carving required steaming and spreading to make the canoe wider for buoyancy and was promoted to Chief and the former greater cargo space. The Suquamish also had a large network of trails leading from their winter villages to important leaders became his sub-chiefs. camping areas and neighboring tribal villages. http://www.suquamish.nsn.us/HistoryCulture.aspx 8/1/2016 The Suquamish Tribe: People of Chief Seattle - History & Culture Page 2 of 3 The Suquamish had their first recorded contact with non-natives in 1792 with the arrival of British explorer Captain Chief Seattle witnessed the transition George Vancouver. Vancouver anchored off Bainbridge Island and traded with the Suquamish and surveyed of his people from their ancient Suquamish waters. Over the next fifty years, the Suquamish adapted to a changes brought on by the entry of non- aboriginal life ways to a new one natives into the Puget Sound. Fur traders and missionaries were the first and were then followed by permanent brought by the arrival on non-natives settlers traveling over the Oregon Trail. Settlement intensified in the 1850s after Congress passed the Oregon and imposed on them by the United Donation Land Claim Act that opened Suquamish and other tribal lands to non-native settlement. Entrepreneurs also States Government. The Suquamish began building sawmills to harvest the vast stands of virgin timber on Suquamish lands, including mills at Port had to adapt their culture based on Madison, Port Gamble and Port Blakely. The Suquamish cut and delivered logs to the mills to support themselves. fishing, hunting, berry and root gathering and traveling by canoe to In 1855, accept a new economy and lifestyle Washington forced upon them by religious, social Territorial and political institutions. Missionaries, Governor Isaac fur traders and finally, permanent Stevens arrived in settlers brought new technology, a Puget Sound currency system, disease and the intent on clearing concept of private property to the the land for more Puget Sound. intensive settlement. Four The change was destructive and years earlier, the disruptive. The United States had City of Seattle, already freed land up for settlers by named for Chief allowing non-natives to claim Indian Seattle, was lands under the Donation Land Claim established by Act, angering many of the Tribes. The Seattle pioneers, United States wanted to clear the land who were of Indian title to allow for settlement indebted to the via a new transcontinental railroad. The federal government accomplished this by signing Treaties with the Indian tribes. Fearing a military conflict that Suquamish/Duwamish Chief for helping them during their early struggles to survive. Governor Stevens needed to could not be won in the long term, clear the aboriginal title to the land to claim the property ahead of his plans to bring the transcontinental railroad to Chief Seattle signed the 1855 Treaty Puget Sound. On January 22, 1855, Suquamish leaders, led by Chief Seattle, signed the Treaty of Point Elliott at of Point Elliott with the U.S., agreeing Mukilteo. The Suquamish gave up title to their lands, which encompassed most of present Kitsap County, for to live on the Port Madison Indian acknowledgement and protection of their fishing and hunting rights, health care, education and a reservation at Port Reservation and give up title to the Madison. remainder of Suquamish lands. The U.S., led by Governor Isaac Stevens, The Suquamish continue to live on the Port Madison Indian Reservation. The Suquamish Tribe has 950 enrolled agreed to provide health care, members of which half live on the reservation. The Suquamish have persevered despite attempts by the federal education and recognize fishing and government to assimilate them through land policy; especially the allotment of the reservation into separate parcels hunting rights. assigned to family heads in 1886, the destruction of Old Man House village and scattering of the tribal settlement in 1904, and the mandatory attendance of Suquamish children at Indian Boarding Schools from 1900-1920. The Some of the Tribes, such as the Suquamish presently are experiencing a cultural resurgence and are planning to begin construction of a new Puyallup and Muckleshoot who signed community house in the tradition of Old-Man-House. We continue to exercise their treaty rights to fish and gather the Treaty of Medicine Creek, were shellfish. We are exercising our ancient right to self-governance and currently have 240 employees in a variety of angered by the Treaty and their government programs. Relying on our ancestral traditions, the Suquamish look forward to a prosperous future. reservations, and took up arms against the settlers and the military. The Indian forces eventually attacked the settlement on Elliott Bay. Chief Seattle kept his forces out of the battle and remained at Suquamish. For this action, other acts of kindness and long friendships with early Seattle residents, the founders of the city named the settlement after Chief Seattle. Seattle remained on the reservation but continued to travel to the City he was named for intertribal meetings and other business. It was in Seattle that he had his only known picture taken and he gave his famous speech . Chief Seattle died in 1866 in Suquamish. http://www.suquamish.nsn.us/HistoryCulture.aspx 8/1/2016 The Suquamish Tribe: People of Chief Seattle - History & Culture Page 3 of 3 Seattle died before the federal government enacted “Americanization” policies intended to assimilate the Suquamish into the larger society and eliminate tribal governance thereby relieving the U.S. of their treaty committments. These policies included: 1) allotment of Indian reservationi lands to individual families to scatter the Tribe away from their concentrated winter villages 2) forced attendance of Suquamish children at off-reservation boarding schools where use of tribal language and culture was prohibited and punished and 3) the federally sponsored sale of reservation lands to non-natives that has resulted in the loss of 14 miles of reservation waterfront and over 5,000 acres of Suquamish landholdings. The assimilation policy failed and Chief Seattle’s people, the Suquamish Tribe, continue to persevere by honoring their ancestral ways and preserving their culture. A group of Seattle pioneers placed a marble headstone on his grave in 1890 in recognition of his legacy.