Talk the Language of the Larger World: Fishing Wars, Natural Resources, and the Birth of the Sovereignty Movement in the Postwar Pacific Northwest

“If we're going to say we're nations and we got sovereignty and our treaties are as valid as other treaties, then we got to talk the language of the larger world.”

• 03/02/1964: NIYC “fish-in”
  • Marlon Brando
  • treaty fishermen violating fishing laws and disputing dubious legality
  • fishing wars of 1960s–1970s
  • industrial development postwar vs. natural resource economies

context

• early 1960s: change natural resource management for long-term sustainability
  • Native communities paid a higher price for management: priorrelocation and termination, rights restriction
    • OG and WN: fear annual fish harvest threatened fish returns; small percent compared to reservations for sport and commercial
• 1855 treaties: right to fish at “usual and accustomed places”
  • 1955–1970s dispute and interpretation over treaty
  • “the debate around the treaties of 1855 was not simply a legal one; it also showcased the systemic legacies of colonialism and its impact on Native American communities. As historian Alvin Josephy remarked, "[T]he issue of Indian treaty fishing rights has often been attended more by emotion and racist prejudice than by understanding.”
• Columbia River and Puget Sound
  • political, social, and economic dimensions shaped through fishing wars and resistance; Indian sovereignty
• limits of timber industry in PNW → sustained-yield practice and hydroelectric dams to support industry
  • 44 dams in 1975: few salmon passages
• 1963 9 nuclear reactors w/ Hanford
  • national energy powerhouse
• mid-1960s: reduction of Pacific salmon, extinction (2.1 to 1.1 in 1947–1960; 22mil to 5 pounds (fluctuating))
  • proportional to the poverty and economic rate of Native communities
• treaties succeeded due to provision of right to fish
  • 1887, United States v. Taylor; Yakama
  • 1889, Washington net fishing abolishment attempt
  • 1905, United States v. Winans: illegal to obstruct native waterways
  • 1919, Seufert Brothers v. United States, delimiting vs. regional fish canneries
• special rights claimed to conflict with citizenship
  • 1946: Indian nation vs. citizenship; “dual identity” undermining
  • specific language/pedantry
  • 1960–1970s: fishing site dispute
• The Dalles Dam and “in-lieu” on the Columbia River (Bonneville Dam consequence)
  • 1950s regulation of in-lieu sites
  • inundation led to lower salmon runs; divisioninto zones
    • racist bordering of commercial zones
    • Indian zone reserved for subsistence and ceremony, not conservation
• termination policy and assimilationism
  • 1953 Public Law 280: civil and criminal jurisdiction over reservation transferred to state, allowing vague revision to treaty rights

fishing wars

• 1964 “fish-ins”
  • NIYC, but not CRM; “matter of identity and goals”
    • unique legal relationship, uphold; vs. crm: problematic racial relationship and reverse
    • minority rights vs. treaty rights
    • cultural separatism vs. assimilationism
  • activism began earlier in PNW (mid-1960s instead of late) with roots in treaty rights and natural resources
• mid-1960s: “salmon war” and “fishing war”
  • militant confrontations
  • local, state, federal court disputes
  • Puget Sound and Columbia River
    • areas with treaty rights threatened via state agencies and commercial fishing
    • unique circumstances to each relevant to jurisdiction and PL280

Puget Sound

• under WN, original state in PL280
• first fishing wars: Puyallup River 1954, Robert Satiacum, possession of steelhead
  • 1957: Washington State v. Satiacum
  • 20 year legal ambiguity: guaranteed right to fish, but observations aand arrests varied
• 1963: considering amending or purchasing treaty rights
  • maintaining regulation of natural resources; unequal shares, privilege
• mid-1960s: “natural resource conservation” vs. regulation
  • conflict of “the greater good” conflicting with conservation rates of tribes: 6.5% tribal fishing vs 93.5 commercial and sport

Columbia River

• WN/Oregon; 1950s varied determinations between states
• in-lieu fishing site residence; disagreement with Oregon
• 1965: David Sohappy, Cooks’s Landing
• 1966: 32+ arrests at Cook’ss; releaed after interpreting and citing the treaty rightsto dismiss charges
• annual fish harvest claimed to conflict with greater good; injuring commercial fish economy
  • identical rates to Puget Sound

Shared

• 1967 tensions: vague commercial fishing season dates
  • fishing season established by tribes, state, and individual fishermen
• intervention to further fishing rights cases
• BIA silence and absence until 1968
  • self-determination after Puyallup: defensee of Indians
• 1969: favor in Sohappy v. Smith + United States v. Oregon
  • rewrite fishing laws for treaty harvest
  • Belloni: “affected much more by the superior political power of sport and commercial fishermen over a handful of Indians rather than on reason and fairness”
  • no allocation amount granted; temporary relief, but specifics prevent conceding and decisions
  • many did not follow provisions
• 1968: ICRA and preessure to direct BIA: “Special Message on Indian Affairs”
  • self-determination for Natives
  • coincided with 1974: United States v. State of Wahington
  • 3/22/1974: Boldt decision: carry out in accordance with meaning understood by tribes
  • established specifics; landmark in federal Indian policy
  • attempts to appeal failed; no arrests aand upport by BIA on Belloni and Boldt
• postwar growth dissolved by 1973: recession; Fordism
• environmentalism, Greenpeace and EPA (1970): preserve and sustain vs. evelop and exploit; rejection of dams
• self-determination without termination: 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act
• 1976: 25y program for development: American Indian Development Authority for jurisdiction and provision of Native communities