Fish Wars

The Fish Wars were a series of civil disobedience protests in the 1960s and '70s in which Native American tribes around the Puget Sound pressured the U.S. government to recognize fishing rights granted by the Treaty of Medicine Creek. A series of fish-in demonstrations in the Pacific Northwest, that started in 1963, grew to attract celebrity participation and national media attention before the US Federal Government intervened to sue the state of Washington. The 1974 decision in ''United States v. Washington'' was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 1979.

History

In 1855, two years after Washington was split from the Oregon Territory, the government of Washington signed various treaties with local tribes to compel natives to move onto reservations. Under the Point No Point Treaty, tribes on the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas had most of their land ceded to the United States, but retained rights to their traditional fishing areas. Some tribes resisted the loss of their farmland, leading to a series of armed skirmishes known as the Puget Sound War. By the end of the conflict, and for the next several decades, most of the treaties were largely forgotten or routinely ignored.

In 1916, the city of Tacoma donated 60,000 acres of land to the United States Army to build Fort Lewis. Two-thirds of the land came from the Nisqually reservation, including several miles of the Nisqually River. To preserve some of his traditional fishing areas, one of the residents of the reservation, Willy Frank Sr., bought a six-acre plot on the Nisqually River from Winthrop "Wint" Humphrey Bennett for $50 and moved his family to what would eventually be known as "Frank's Landing". For this act Willy Frank Sr. bestowed upon Winthrop the title of 'White Eagle.'

In 1937, a federal court granted a petition to prevent the state of Washington from interfering with native fishing rights, but there was no enforcement of the decision. Local authorities continued to police the water and issue citations and arrests.

In 1945, Willy Frank's 14-year-old son, Billy Frank, Jr., was arrested for fishing with a net. This would prove to be the first of many confrontations between the younger Frank and state authorities. Before selling 'Frank's Landing,' to Will Frank Sr., Winthrop Bennett would disallow authorities trespass through his land as they attempted to cite and remove Nisqually nets, requiring a warrant. In such time as it took to acquire a warrant, Winthrop would warn the Nisqually to remove their nets. And for this act of aiding the Nisqually and Willy Frank Sr., Fort Lewis condemned the Bennett property for which Winthrop, his two sons John and Sam along with his daughter Sissy left the Nisqually River Valley, friends and neighbors, which included the Bragets and Brown families.

In 1957, the Washington Supreme Court was split 4–4 on the issue regarding the arrest of Robert Satiacum, a Puyallup and Yakima man, for fishing steelhead with fixed gill nets out-of-season. Although a treaty had guaranteed Native people in the region the right to fish in their traditional ways, this arrest, and the others that occurred at the time, showed that the rights of the Natives were not been upheld or protected. Since the case was settled in the lower courts, and the judges found Satiacum guilty, the state was allowed to make decisions regarding the fishing and hunting of Native Americans.

Demonstrations

Some native fishermen refused to obtain licenses or obey fish and game restrictions on certain fisheries, eventually setting up encampments along the shore illegal in the state's eye but within the federal law and Treaty of Medicine Creek.

In 1963, the first fish-in was held at Frank's Landing down stream from the Nisqually Reservation. By the end of the 1960s, Frank's Landing previously owned by Winthrop Humphrey Bennett as a ferry crossing under the name 'Bennett's Landing,' now owned by Billy Frank, Jr., had become a haven for unlicensed "fish-ins" in which, despite numerous arrests and convictions, fishermen would return to their fishing ground time and again, allowing themselves to be re-arrested for asserting their treaty rights. The fish-ins spread throughout Washington and Oregon.

By 1964, the dispute over fishing rights began to receive national media attention. Several celebrities took up the cause, including Marlon Brando, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Dick Gregory. Brando was arrested in March 1964 for taking two steelhead trout as part of a protest with the Puyallup tribe. The movement also brought in other Native groups from outside the region, such as the National Indian Youth Council and Hank Adams from the Quinault Reservation

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