The Swinomish are an historically

Lushootseed Lushootseed (txʷəlšucid, dxʷləšúcid), also Puget Salish, Puget Sound Salish or Skagit-Nisqually, is a language made up of a dialect continuum of several Salish tribes of modern-day Washington state. Lushootseed is one of the Coast Salis ...

-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 o ...

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 Fidalgo Island is an island in Skagit County, Washington, located about north of Seattle. To the east, it is separated from the mainland by the Swinomish Channel, and from Whidbey Island to the south by Deception Pass. The island is named af ...

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 a county in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, the population was 129,523. The county seat and largest city is Mount Vernon. The county was formed in 1883 from Whatcom County and is named for the Skagit Ind ...

. 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 This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United ...

Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, also known as the Swinomish Tribe, which is headquartered in Swinomish Village, across the

Swinomish Channel The Swinomish Channel is an long salt-water channel in Washington state, United States, which connects Skagit Bay to the south, and Padilla Bay to the north, separating Fidalgo Island from mainland Skagit County. The Swinomish Channel is the s ...

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 The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a family of languages of the Pacific Northwest in North America (the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana). They are characterised by ag ...

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 The Treaty of Point Elliott of 1855, or the Point Elliott Treaty,—also known as Treaty of Point Elliot (with one ''t'') / Point Elliott Treaty—is the lands settlement treaty between the United States government and the Native American tribes ...

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 Ame ...

, is the 21st president of the

National Congress of American Indians The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is an American Indian and Alaska Native rights organization. It was founded in 1944 to represent the tribes and resist federal government pressure for termination of tribal rights and assimilati ...

(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