Puget Sound lies nestled between two great mountain ranges -- the Olympics and the Cascades. Saltwater from the Pacific Ocean travels inland for hundreds of miles to fill its countless bays and inlets. Its meandering shoreline covers more miles than the entire Pacific Coast from Baja California to the Canadian border.

Surrounded by lush forests and blessed with a moderate climate, the Puget Sound area is one of the most productive ecosystems on earth. Its vast natural resources, particularly its abundant salmon runs, have provided an excellent quality of life to native peoples for many thousands of years.

The eastern shores of Puget Sound and the rivers and streams of the Cascade Range that flow into it are the ancestral homeland of the federally-recognized Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. The Muckleshoot Reservation is located south and east of the City of Seattle on a rising plateau between the White and Green Rivers. This MAP (49K) provides both a regional and a local perspective of the reservation's location.

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Who We Are

The Muckleshoot Indian Tribe is comprised of the descendants of the area's original Coast Salish peoples. The Tribe has lived in this area for thousands of years, possibly since the last glaciers receded. The Tribe's ancestral homeland, now known as the Muckleshoot Usual & Accustomed Area (or U & A), consists of a vast area stretching along the eastern and southern reaches of Puget Sound and the western slope of the Cascade Range.

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People of the Salmon

During the millennia that preceded their displacement by American settlers and industrial interests, Tribes living in the Northwest Coastal Region were among the most prosperous on the continent. At the base of their prosperity was the Salmon, which -- then as now -- the people regarded with great reverence. Season after season, the rivers and streams were literally filled with spawning salmon. The knowledge of how to smoke and preserve them for year-round use did much to free the people form the endless pursuit of food. In fact, surplus quantities of smoked salmon, as well as other commodities, were traded far and wide in an extensive network of commerce spanning the entire Pacific Northwest and extending across the Cascade Mountains and far into the dry country beyond.

First Salmon Ceremony

Each year the first salmon to return from the saltwater sea to the freshwater streams of it's origin -- a Spring Chinook -- was ceremonially captured and brought to the village as an honored guest. Its flesh was meticulously removed from its bones and ceremoniously shared by all members of the community. Later, the skeleton of the salmon would be returned to the river with equal ceremony and placed in the water facing the same direction in hopes that it would tell its brother and sister salmon of the fine hospitality it received from the Muckleshoot people. This First Salmon Ceremony remains an integral part of Muckleshoot culture today. The Muckleshoot people their ancestors were also well-known for their hunting prowess, and are intimately familiar with the mountains.

The Newcomers

The coming of European and, later, American commercial and exploratory vessels to the area began in the late 1790's. By the mid-1800's, after a few decades of flourishing trade between the Native Peoples and the newcomers, the United States emerged as the dominant power in the area and began to consolidate and institutionalize its control over the area.

Native peoples were essentially powerless at this time because the newcomers also brought diseases for which they had no resistance. During the course of a generation or so, Native population was decimated by a catastrophic series of fatal epidemics. Entire Families and communities were wiped out by these lethal plagues, and the fabric of tribal society itself was permanently altered. By the 1840's, Native population numbers were only one-tenth what they had been when the newcomers first came. It was during this tragic period of Native depopulation that white settlers began claiming the choicest spots among the lands of the Puget Sound Area for themselves.

At first, the Native Peoples helped them to survive and were valued neighbors. Before long, however, the newcomers wanted them removed so that they could have this soon-to-be prosperous region all to themselves. During the 1850's, unfair treaties were forced upon the Indian people that left them with only a tiny fraction of their former homelands. They were required to move to very small reservations, freeing up the rest of their vast territory for settlers to claim. At this time, many Native people felt that they had been pushed too far and had nothing to lose. They fought back in what is now known as the Puget Sound Indian War. Many ancestors of today's Muckleshoots' played an active role in this last-ditch effort, and were well represented at the Battle of Seattle.

Relocation to the Muckleshoot Indian Reservation

After this brief period of armed resistance, the ancestors of today's Muckleshoot people settled on their current reservation, which was set aside for them pursuant to Treaties of Point Elliott and Medicine Creek. It is located at a place called Muckleshoot Prairie. Northwest Native Peoples are generally named after the locations of their villages. Thus, within a few years, those who relocated there, who had called themselves by names like Stkamish, Yilalkoamish, Skopamish, Smulkamish and Tkwakwamish came to refer to themselves by the name of their new home: "Muckleshoot."

As time passed, a number of people from other local tribes, such as the Duwamish and Snoqualmie, were absorbed into the Muckleshoot Tribe, as well as other neighboring federally recognized Tribes such as the Tulalip and Suquamish. The six square-mile Muckleshoot Reservation, which is laid out diagonally, has 20 miles of boundaries. Soon after its establishment, it was surrounded by the farms of settlers, which remains the case today, except that urbanization has increasingly encroached on the westerly portion of the reservation.

The Fish Wars

Perhaps the most important element of the Muckleshoot Tribe's battle for recognition of its inherent rights as the original people of this ecosystem was the battle over treaty fishing rights. The right of tribal members to take Salmon at all of their "usual and accustomed" fishing sites was explicitly guaranteed in the treaties, and efforts to reassert those rights led to the so-called "Fish Wars" of the 1960's and 70's. The subsequent Boldt Decision, which reaffirmed the Tribe's treaty fishing rights, had a vast impact on the Muckleshoot Tribe, resulting in improved economic conditions and an opportunity to serve as co-manager of regional salmon resources. Many of today's Tribal leaders were active participants in the Fish Wars.

Unfortunately, the period of prosperity resulting from the restoration of the fishing rights so long denied was somewhat short-lived due to the precipitous decline in salmon populations in recent years. The Tribe's Natural Resources Department has worked hard on many fronts to stem the environmental degradation that has led to this state of affairs; however, the causes are many, our resources are limited, and the area that comprises the tribal homeland is becoming urbanized so rapidly that the struggle to preserve the salmon runs is a difficult one indeed. The age-old relationship between the Muckleshoot people and the salmon is one that will endure, though, and the Tribe is committed to preserving the runs.

TODAY'S MUCKLESHOOT TRIBE . . .

Through the Indian Reorganization Act, the Tribe adopted its constitution in 1936. It provides for a nine-member council serving rotating three-year terms. With the advice and input of the General Council, which is comprised of all community members, the Muckleshoot Tribal Council provides a full range of governance services to the reservation.

Today's Muckleshoot Indian Tribe (MIT) is one of Washington State's larger Tribes, with an on- or near-Reservation population of about 3,300. Over the years, in common with other Northwestern Tribes, the Muckleshoots' have been active in asserting their rights and defending their traditional freedoms. Self-governance has been the cornerstone of these efforts and, as a federally recognized tribal government, the Muckleshoot Tribal Council has actively sought out opportunities to improve the social and economic well-being of the Tribe.

New sources of economic and educational opportunity are now being developed. The advent of tribal gaming has been a large factor in opening up new possibilities for Indian people everywhere, and the Muckleshoot Tribe has been very entrepreneurial in capitalizing on its urbanized location, establishing successful casino and bingo enterprises. These, in turn, have provided the seed money that, for the first time, puts the Tribe on an equal financial footing with other governments and makes it possible for the Muckleshoot Tribe to realistically plan for the future of its people.