The Quinault Treaty (also known as the Quinault River Treaty and the Treaty of Olympia) was a

treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal pe ...

agreement between the United States and the Native American Quinault and

Quileute The Quileute , are a Native American people in western Washington state in the United States, currently numbering approximately 2,000. They are a federally recognized tribe: the ''Quileute Tribe of the Quileute Reservation''. The Quileute peo ...

tribes located in the western

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 ...

north of

Grays Harbor Grays Harbor is an estuarine bay located north of the mouth of the Columbia River, on the southwest Pacific coast of Washington state, in the United States of America. It is a ria, which formed at the end of the last ice age, when sea levels flood ...

, in the recently formed

Washington Territory The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...

. The treaty was signed on 1 July 1855, at the

Quinault River Quinault may refer to: * Quinault people, an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast ** Quinault Indian Nation, a federally recognized tribe **Quinault language, their language People * Quinault family of actors, including * Jean-Bapt ...

, and on 25 January 1856 at Olympia, the territorial capital. It was

ratified Ratification is a principal's approval of an act of its agent that lacked the authority to bind the principal legally. Ratification defines the international act in which a state indicates its consent to be bound to a treaty if the parties inten ...

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

on 8 March 1859, and proclaimed law on April 11, 1859. Signatories included

Isaac Stevens Isaac Ingalls Stevens (March 25, 1818 – September 1, 1862) was an American military officer and politician who served as governor of the Territory of Washington from 1853 to 1857, and later as its delegate to the United States House of Represe ...

, superintendent of Indian affairs and governor of Washington Territory, and representatives of the Quinault and Quileute, as well as the Hoh tribe, which was considered a subset of the Quileutes. The Quinault Indian Reservation was established under the terms of the treaty. Indian signatories included the Quinault Head Chief Taholah and Sub-chiefs Wah-kee-nah, Yer-ay-let'l, and Kne-she-guartsh, the Quileute Head Chief How-yat'l and Sub-chiefs Kal-lape, Tah-ah-ha-wht'l, along with other tribal delegates.

Context

The Quinault Treaty was one of the last of several signed during Washington Territory's first decade. Acquiring land cession from the Native Americans was one of Isaac Stevens' primary goals as the first governor of the territory. Other similar cession treaties Stevens negotiated in the 1850s include 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 ...

Treaty of Hellgate The Treaty of Hellgate was a treaty agreement between the United States and the Bitterroot Salish, Upper Pend d'Oreille, and Lower Kutenai tribes. The treaty was signed at Hellgate on 16 July 1855. Signatories included Isaac Stevens, superintend ...

Treaty of Neah Bay The Makah (; Klallam: ''màq̓áʔa'')Renker, Ann M., and Gunther, Erna (1990). "Makah". In "Northwest Coast", ed. Wayne Suttles. Vol. 7 of ''Handbook of North American Indians'', ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institu ...

Treaty of Point Elliott 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 ...

, and 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 ...

. The Quinault Treaty continued Isaac Stevens policy of consolidating tribes, often requiring tribes to move far from their homeland to a reservation to be occupied by several unrelated tribes. While not taking this policy as far as the Treaty of Point No Point did, the Quinault Treaty resulted in the establishment of the Quinault Reservation in the Quinault homeland but required the Quileute and Hoh to move there, although few did.

Negotiations

The treaty negotiations were conducted in Chinook Jargon, which, according to Paul Prucha, was "a lingua franca along the Pacific Northwest coast but hardly an effective tool for sensitive negotiations, for it had a vocabulary of only about 500 words, and a single word might be used to translate a number of different English words." The final treaty contained 13 articles. The first described the land being ceded to the United States, which was defined as bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west, the southern boundary of the recent

Makah The Makah (; Klallam: ''màq̓áʔa'')Renker, Ann M., and Gunther, Erna (1990). "Makah". In "Northwest Coast", ed. Wayne Suttles. Vol. 7 of '' Handbook of North American Indians'', ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Instit ...

cession to the north, which ran east to "the middle of the coast range of mountains" (meaning the

Olympic Mountains The Olympic Mountains are a mountain range on the Olympic Peninsula of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are not especially high – Mount Olympus is the highest at ; however, the easte ...

). The eastern cession boundary ran south "with said range" (the Olympics) to the ridge dividing the

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

s of the Chehalis River and the

. From there the line ran west along the watershed ridge to the Pacific Ocean. This somewhat vague definition was further confused by the way the Makah cession boundary had been defined as extending south to the lands occupied by the Quileute. This circular definition, along with the unclear phrases about where the line ran through the Olympics, resulted in confusion and legal problems which continue to the present day.Interpretation of the Indian Ceded Land Treaties
, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife The second article of the treaty described how the reservation would be established and that the tribes would be required to move there. Article three promised the tribes the right of fishing "in all usual and accustomed grounds and stations is secured to said Indians in common with all citizens of the Territory". Hunting, gathering, and the pasturing of horses were also protected with certain provision. In article four the United States promised to pay $25,000 for the land cession, to be paid over a number of years. Article five provides an additional $2,500 to enable tribes to remove and settle upon the reservation. Article six described how the president could any future time and "as he deems fit" make a new reservation elsewhere and requires the tribes to move there, or require the tribes to be consolidated with other tribes on another reservation, with all federal annuities also consolidated. The president could also cause the reservation to be subdivided into lots and assigned to individuals and families. Articles seven and nine dealt with the prohibition of alcohol and debts. Article eight required the tribes to "acknowledge their dependence on the United States", and briefly outlined how crimes would be dealt with. In article ten the United States promised to establish and support for 20 years an agricultural and industrial school, free to the children of the tribes and located at the territorial central Puget Sound agency. A physician was also to be provided, also at the central agency. Article eleven required the tribes to free any slaves they held. Article thirteen forbid the tribes from trading "at Vancouver's Island or elsewhere outside the dominion of the United States", nor to allow "foreign Indians" to live in the reservation. The last article said that the terms of the treaty would take effect upon ratification by the President and the Senate.

After the treaty

Most of the Quileute and Hoh refused to move to the Quinault Reservation once it was established. Both received small reservations of their own. The Hoh Reservation was established by President

Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...

by Executive Order on 11 September 1893. The reservation is only , but includes about a mile of the Pacific coastline south of the mouth of the

Hoh River The Hoh River is a river of the Pacific Northwest, located on the Olympic Peninsula in the U.S. state of Washington. About long, the Hoh River originates at the Hoh Glacier on Mount Olympus and flows west through the Olympic Mountains of Olympi ...

Interpretation

In mapping Indian land cession the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife had to make some guesses and assumptions about the cession boundaries. The line between the Quinault and Makah cession was assumed to extend from current day Cape Alava due east to a watershed divide separating streams flowing north to the

Strait of Juan de Fuca The Strait of Juan de Fuca (officially named Juan de Fuca Strait in Canada) is a body of water about long that is the Salish Sea's outlet to the Pacific Ocean. The international boundary between Canada and the United States runs down the centre ...

and streams flowing to the Pacific. The phrases "to the middle of the coast range of mountains" and "to the summit of the coast-range of mountains" were assumed to mean the dividing crest of the Olympic Mountains separating the Pacific, Juan de Fuca, and

Hood Canal Hood Canal is a fjord forming the western lobe, and one of the four main basins,icRivers; thence westerly with said ridge to the Pacific coast" required further assumptions. The Fish and Wildlife project assumed the "southerly" line was to follow the main drainage divide between the Pacific and Hood Canal. This interpretation of the treaty is just one of many possible and holds no legal weight. The Fish and Wildlife Department writes, "These boundaries are clearly the product of much conjecture and assumption."

References

External links

Treaty with the Quinaielt, etc., 1855
original treaty text (and spellings) and images, Government Printing Office, 1904. {{Quinault Indian Nation United States and Native American treaties Native American history of Washington (state) Government documents of the United States 34th United States Congress 1855 treaties 1859 treaties Quileute Quinault