The Fish Wars were a series of
civil disobedience protests in the 1960s and '70s in which
Native American tribes around the
Puget Sound
Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...
pressured the U.S. government to recognize fishing rights granted by the
Treaty of Medicine Creek
The Treaty of Medicine Creek was an 1854 treaty between the United States, and nine tribes and bands of Indians, occupying the lands lying around the head of Puget Sound, Washington, and the adjacent inlets. The tribes listed on the Treaty of Medic ...
. A series of fish-in demonstrations in the
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...
, that started in 1963, grew to attract celebrity participation and national media attention before the US Federal Government intervened to sue the state of Washington. The 1974 decision in ''
United States v. Washington'' was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 1979.
History
In 1855, two years after
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
was split from the
Oregon Territory
The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Oregon. O ...
, the government of Washington signed various treaties with local tribes to compel natives to move onto
reservations. Under the
Point No Point Treaty
The Point No Point Treaty was signed on January 26, 1855, at Point No Point, on the northern tip of the Kitsap Peninsula. Governor of Washington Territory, Isaac Stevens, convened the treaty council on January 25, with the S'Klallam, the Chim ...
, tribes on the
Kitsap and
Olympic Peninsula
The Olympic Peninsula is a large arm of land in western Washington that lies across Puget Sound from Seattle, and contains Olympic National Park. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and th ...
s had most of their land ceded to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, but retained rights to their traditional fishing areas. Some tribes resisted the loss of their farmland, leading to a series of armed skirmishes known as the
Puget Sound War
The Puget Sound War was an armed conflict that took place in the Puget Sound area of the state of Washington in 1855–56, between the United States military, local militias and members of the Native American tribes of the Nisqually, Muckl ...
. By the end of the conflict, and for the next several decades, most of the treaties were largely forgotten or routinely ignored.
In 1916, the city of
Tacoma donated 60,000 acres of land to the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
to build
Fort Lewis. Two-thirds of the land came from the
Nisqually reservation, including several miles of the Nisqually River.
To preserve some of his traditional fishing areas, one of the residents of the reservation, Willy Frank Sr., bought a six-acre plot on the Nisqually River from Winthrop "Wint" Humphrey Bennett for $50 and moved his family to what would eventually be known as "Frank's Landing". For this act Willy Frank Sr. bestowed upon Winthrop the title of 'White Eagle.'
[
In 1937, a federal court granted a petition to prevent the state of Washington from interfering with native fishing rights, but there was no enforcement of the decision. Local authorities continued to police the water and issue citations and arrests.
In 1945, Willy Frank's 14-year-old son, Billy Frank, Jr., was arrested for fishing with a net.] This would prove to be the first of many confrontations between the younger Frank and state authorities. Before selling 'Frank's Landing,' to Will Frank Sr., Winthrop Bennett would disallow authorities trespass through his land as they attempted to cite and remove Nisqually nets, requiring a warrant. In such time as it took to acquire a warrant, Winthrop would warn the Nisqually to remove their nets. And for this act of aiding the Nisqually and Willy Frank Sr., Fort Lewis condemned the Bennett property for which Winthrop, his two sons John and Sam along with his daughter Sissy left the Nisqually River Valley, friends and neighbors, which included the Bragets and Brown families.
In 1957, the Washington Supreme Court was split 4–4 on the issue regarding the arrest of Robert Satiacum
Robert "Bob" Satiacum (1929–March 25, 1991) was a Puyallup tribal leader and an advocate of native treaty fishing rights in the United States. He was convicted in 1982 of attempted murder, embezzlement of tribal funds, and other charges but fle ...
, a Puyallup and Yakima
Yakima ( or ) is a city in and the county seat of Yakima County, Washington, and the state's 11th-largest city by population. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 96,968 and a metropolitan population of 256,728. The uni ...
man, for fishing steelhead
Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and ...
with fixed gill nets out-of-season. Although a treaty had guaranteed Native people in the region the right to fish in their traditional ways, this arrest, and the others that occurred at the time, showed that the rights of the Natives were not been upheld or protected. Since the case was settled in the lower courts, and the judges found Satiacum guilty, the state was allowed to make decisions regarding the fishing and hunting of Native Americans.
Demonstrations
Some native fishermen refused to obtain licenses or obey fish and game restrictions on certain fisheries, eventually setting up encampments along the shore illegal in the state's eye but within the federal law and Treaty of Medicine Creek.
In 1963, the first fish-in was held at Frank's Landing
Frank or Franks may refer to:
People
* Frank (given name)
* Frank (surname)
* Franks (surname)
* Franks, a medieval Germanic people
* Frank, a term in the Muslim world for all western Europeans, particularly during the Crusades - see Farang
Curr ...
down stream from the Nisqually Reservation. By the end of the 1960s, Frank's Landing previously owned by Winthrop Humphrey Bennett Winthrop may refer to:
Places United States
*Winthrop, Arkansas
*Winthrop, Connecticut is a village in Deep River, Connecticut
*Winthrop, Indiana
*Winthrop, Iowa
*Winthrop, Maine
**Winthrop (CDP), Maine
*Winthrop, Massachusetts
* Winthrop, Minnesot ...
as a ferry crossing under the name 'Bennett's Landing,' now owned by Billy Frank, Jr., had become a haven for unlicensed "fish-ins" in which, despite numerous arrests and convictions, fishermen would return to their fishing ground time and again, allowing themselves to be re-arrested for asserting their treaty rights. The fish-ins spread throughout Washington and Oregon.
By 1964, the dispute over fishing rights began to receive national media attention. Several celebrities took up the cause, including Marlon Brando, Buffy Sainte-Marie
Buffy Sainte-Marie, (born Beverly Sainte-Marie, February 20, 1941) is an Indigenous Canadian-American ( Piapot Cree Nation) singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. While working in these ...
, and Dick Gregory
Richard Claxton Gregory (October 12, 1932 – August 19, 2017) was an American comedian, civil rights leader, business owner and entrepreneur, and vegetarian activist. His writings were best sellers. Gregory became popular among the Afric ...
. Brando was arrested in March 1964 for taking two steelhead trout
Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and ...
as part of a protest with the Puyallup tribe
The Puyallup, Spuyalpabš or S’Puyalupubsh (pronounced: Spoy-all-up-obsh) ('generous and welcoming behavior to all people, who enter our lands') are a federally recognized Coast Salish Native American tribe from western Washington state, Uni ...
. The movement also brought in other Native groups from outside the region, such as the National Indian Youth Council
The National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) is the second oldest American Indian organization in the United States with a membership of more than 15,000.National Indian Youth Council, Inc."NIYC History" Retrieved on 2009-09-30. It was the first in ...
and Hank Adams
Henry Lyle Adams (May 16, 1943 – December 21, 2020, Assiniboine-Sioux) was an American Native rights activist known as a successful strategist, tactician, and negotiator. He was instrumental in resolving several key conflicts between Native Am ...
from the Quinault Reservation.
Not all of the actions were nonviolent. In September 1970, Puyallup fishermen on boats, armed with rifles, challenged police and fired warning shots when officials approached their nets. A fish-in leader named Many Dog Hides was quoted as saying, "It's a sad thing we have to bring guns out. But we are a dying people and have to fight for survival, as we have done for about 500 years." One protester threw a fire bomb onto a bridge to slow the game officials' advance, but police eventually raided the boats and camps and forcefully broke up the demonstrators with tear gas and clubs.[
Finally, the U.S. federal government intervened, suing the state of Washington for failure to uphold its treaty agreement.
]
Boldt Decision
In 1974's '' United States v. Washington'' ruling, U.S. District Court Judge George Hugo Boldt stated that treaty right fishermen must be allowed to take up to 50% of all potential fishing harvests, and required that they have an equal voice in the management of the fishery. He emphasized that no court decision or act of Congress had annulled what the treaties preserved for the Native tribes. He declared that when the Native people signed the Camp Stevens treaty of 1855, they had not secured a right from non-natives, but had agreed only to share their resources.
The so-called Boldt Decision was reaffirmed by the US Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of ...
in 1979 and has been used as a precedent for handling other similar treaties.
Aftermath
Tempers flared again in 1976 when wildlife officials closed a number of fishing areas, ostensibly to allow the salmon population to recover. Some tribal members claimed the laws were intended to favor white fishermen, and refused to obey the new laws. A number of small riots and demonstrations ensued. By the mid-1980s, however, cooperation between the various tribes led to a stronger, unified presence in fisheries management under the terms of the Boldt Decision, effectively putting an end to the violence, though legal disputes continue.
Fish-ins became a gathering place of Native American activists, and many people were trained for the foundation of the Red Power movement, which led to the founding of the American Indian Movement
The American Indian Movement (AIM) is a Native American grassroots movement which was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 1968, initially centered in urban areas in order to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police br ...
in 1968 and the occupation of Alcatraz
The Occupation of Alcatraz (November 20, 1969 – June 11, 1971) was a 19-month long protest when 89 Native Americans and their supporters occupied Alcatraz Island. The protest was led by Richard Oakes, LaNada Means, and others, while John T ...
Island in 1969.
References
{{reflist
External links
Documentary on Billy Frank
Protests in the United States
Native American history of Washington (state)