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The Muckleshoot tribe traces its heritage back to the Duwamish people. Its ancestral lands of both tribes extended along the Green and White Rivers, reaching all the way to the headwaters in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, within what is currently the state of Washington.

In 1854, Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens negotiated the Treaty of Medicine Creek with the Puyallup, Nisqually, and Squaxin Indians. He then traveled to Mukilteo, where he negotiated the Treaty of Point Elliott with the Duwamish, Suquamish, Snoqualmie, and other tribes and bands living in the area between the White River and the Canadian border.

Under the terms of those treaties, the tribes ceded their territories for the promise of small reservations and the right to fish, hunt, and gather resources off of the reservation. Chief Seattle, whose mother was Duwamish and whose father was Suquamish, signed the Treaty of Point Elliott for the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes.

In 1856, Governor Stevens met with the ancestors of the Muckleshoot to discuss their dissatisfaction with tiny reservations. At this meeting, the governor agreed to establish the Muckleshoot Reservation, but the executive order that was subsequently signed in 1857 included a much smaller area.

Duwamish people moved from their traditional villages to the Muckleshoot Reservations, where they anticipated less pressure from white settlers, and that they could feed themselves through the treaty rights allowing them to hunt and fish off-reservation.

In the latter part of the 19th century, U.S. policies were designed to break up tribal communities by allocating reservation lands to individual tribal members, while selling other parts of the reservation to white settlers.

The Muckleshoot Tribe maintained their tribal government structure, although most of the reservation land had been allotted to families, and many of these families subsequently sold their land in order to survive. By the 1970s, the tribe owned less than one acre, the site of the Muckleshoot Community Hall.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Muckleshoot Tribe repeatedly challenged state efforts to prohibit tribal members from fishing at their traditional fishing locations, resulting in a lawsuit against the state in 1970. Other tribes joined in on the suit, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the court's decision that the tribes that were party to the treaties signed by Governor Stevens were entitled to take fifty percent of the fish available for harvest at these locations free of most state regulations. The Court also affirmed the recognition of the Muckleshoot Tribe as a political successor to the Duwamish and Upper Puyallup bands that were parties to these treaties.

Beginning in the 1990s, renewed access to fishing resources and the introduction of bingo and casino gaming on the reservation created revenues that were used to begin buying back their reservation land.

Online resources for the Mucleshoot Tribal government, tribally owned businesses or industries, schools, museums, medical facilities, organizations, or programs are appropriate for this category, as are businesses owned by individual members of the Muckleshoot Tribe, and informational sites focused on the tribe or tribal history.

 

 

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