The Swinomish are an historically Lushootseed-speaking Native American

people A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

in western

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 on ...

state in 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 territorie ...

. The Tribe lives in the southeastern part of Fidalgo Island in northern

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 ...

, near the

San Juan Islands The San Juan Islands are an archipelago in the Pacific Northwest of the United States between the U.S. state of Washington and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The San Juan Islands are part of Washington state, and form the core of ...

, in Skagit County, Washington. Skagit County is located about north of

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

. Swinomish people are enrolled in the federally recognized

Swinomish Indian Tribal Community The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, also known as the Swinomish Tribe, is a federally recognized Tribe located on Puget Sound in Washington, United States.Swinomish Channel from

La Conner La Conner is a town in Skagit County, Washington, United States with a population of 965 at the 2020 census. It is included in the Mount Vernon– Anacortes, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town hosts several events as part of ...

Language

The Swinomish people speak a dialect of the Salishan Lushootseed language.

Culture

The lifestyle of the Swinomish, like many Northwest Coast indigenous peoples, involves the fishing of

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

and collecting of shellfish. They reserved the right to fish and harvest in their usual and accustomed areas in the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855.

History

The Swinomish moved onto reservation lands after the signing of the Point Elliott Treaty in 1855.Mapes, Lynda V
"Swinomish are told to restrict shellfish."
''The Seattle Times.'' 19 April 2007 (retrieved 28 July 2009) The Swinomish police department was the second in the U.S.--and the first in Washington State—to be state-accredited.

Native American Advocacy

The current Swinomish Chairman,

Brian Cladoosby Brian Cladoosby (born May 13, 1959) is a Native American leader and activist. He served as chairman of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community from 1997 to 2020 and was elected to his first of two terms as president of the National Congress of Amer ...

, is the 21st president of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI).

Swinomish Indians of the Swinomish Reservation of Washington

File:"Dr. Joseph," chief medecine (i.e. medicine) man of the Swinomish Reservation - Photo by O.J. Wingren., La Conner, Wash. LCCN2015645623 (cropped).jpg, "Dr. Joseph," chief traditional medicine man of the Swinomish Reservation, La Conner in 1907 File:"Old Joe," Swinomish Indian - Photo by O.J. Wingren., La Conner, Wn. LCCN2015645625.jpg, "Old Joe" of La Conner in 1907Swinomish Indians of the Swinomish Reservation of Washington

Notes

External links

* * *
''March Point'' (2008)
a film about the Swinomish Reservation
''March Point'' page
from Independent Lens site

a brief history at u-s-history.com {{authority control Native American tribes in Washington (state) Geography of Skagit County, Washington Coast Salish