They asked for a doctor and a nurse because people were already dying of the white man’s diseases. Smallpox had already swept this area about the time of the treaty. Whole families, whole tribes were absolutely wiped off the face of the earth. There was no doctor, and of course, the Indians had never seen smallpox before. The raging fever meant to them that they should take a cold bath, or they used the sweat bath and they were dead almost instantly. So that was one of the things that these Indians talked about. Some of the tribes who are listed on the treaty are now extinct.
The Signing
My grandfather said that hour after hour, paragraph after paragraph, the treaty was read in English, and since George Gibbs wrote it, he read it aloud. Then Michael Simmons translated it into Chinook Jargon. We had another Indian there. I don’t remember his Indian name,3 but his English name was John Taylor. He is also mentioned in the treaty.4 He was the interpreter. He interpreted the treaty from the Chinook Jargon, since George Gibbs read it in English. Then it was translated, first of all into Snohomish because they were seated closest to Mukilteo to the side. Then the Lummis—they translated it into their language. Then it was translated into the languages of all of the other tribes—Skagit, Samish (their language is similar to ours, but Lummi is different), and so on. There were three interpreters who helped John Taylor: Pat Kanim, Chowitshoot, Goliah; these three . . . and Sdapəlq.5 So, it took hours to translate it. After they heard each paragraph, the leaders said, “That is all right. That is what we asked for.”
My grandmother didn’t get to the council meeting. They didn’t bring the girls to the Mukilteo council meeting. They just kept them at home. The men and the boys came if the families were there and camping around Mukilteo. A lot of the women went to the treaty, but most of them stayed at home with the children. Some tribes were very strict about women being there in a council, but some of the men told their wives to come and sit behind them. The women did not sit in the line of council. If they brought their son or daughter, the daughter sat behind too. They have been asked by their children and grandchildren, “What did you hear?”
As they came up to sign on January 22, 1855, the first one who signed was Isaac I. Stevens. It says on the treaty that he was governor and superintendent. Below him was Chief Seattle, the chief of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. Of course, you could almost tell where his territory was: the Duwamish River, Lake Washington, and what is now Seattle. He was the first Indian man who signed the treaty. He was one of the older men. He liked the white people because he was living at Seattle, near the Duwamish River, so that the people he met happened to be nice people.
The second Indian man who signed the treaty was Pat Kanim, chief of the Snoqualmie. The treaty said he is chief of the Snohomish, but some of the Snohomish very deeply resented that statement. He was not a chief of the Snohomish.
The third signer is Chowwitsut, chief of the Lummi. The Lummi are the Indians who have a reservation near Bellingham.
The fourth signer is called Goliah. He had an Indian name, but the secretary decided he wouldn’t even try to write it. Then he asked him if he had an English name. He asked all of them, “Do you have another name, besides?” They said no, but many of them had been baptized because priests were here just before that time. But this man did say “Goliah,” so it says Goliah in the treaty. He is a chief of the Skagit Tribe, which is the name of another river, the Skagit River.
The next one is xwəltəb, which is how it is pronounced in our language. Here, in the treaty, he is called Kwalatum(b). He is another chief of the Skagit Tribe.
The next one is Sxotsut, another one of the chiefs of the Snohomish Tribe.
I was always interested in this next one. On the treaty it says Sdapəlq, or Bonaparte. The white man called him Bonaparte. He was, it says here on the treaty, a subchief of the Snohomish, but he was one of the chiefs.
Then, of course, the next one is Sqwəšəb, subchief of the Snoqualmie, and he is the one who said, “Let’s kill them all.”
Then, the next one after Sqwəšəb is Si?aləpə?əd, or Seallapahan, who was also called “the Priest.” He came from a smaller tribe, but he was also a devout Catholic, even by this time. If you should ever read the history of the Catholic Church here, this Seallapahan is part of that history.
The next one is Hixwəkaydəm [Heehuchkaydim], George Bonaparte. He is a subchief of the Snohomish. Just remember, George Bonaparte.
The next one is Səda?talq. The treaty has his mark. His English name is Joseph Bonaparte. He is one of the chiefs of the Snohomish Tribe.
The Bonaparte Family
Now, there are two Bonaparte brothers. There is Hixwəkaydəm, George Bonaparte, and Səda?talq, Joseph Bonaparte. The seventh name on the treaty is Səda?talq; he was called just Bonaparte. On the treaty they are called Napoleons. He was the father, and those were his two sons, Joseph and George. I am very interested in them because this is a part of our unwritten history.
At treaty time the Indians were told that, in one year, they were to come down to Tulalip. They were to move to the Tulalip Reservation. The year would have been 1856. They did come, but there was nothing here—no agent—although there were three white men who had homes here and they had a mill. The Indians stayed for a month. Then, “since there is no Indian agent and no white people,” they went back to their longhouses along the Snohomish River and over on Whidbey Island. It was too cold here at Tulalip because they came in November or December, after the fall fishing. Then the Indians were more upset.
My grandfather lived on Whidbey Island when a confrontation took place between the Bonapartes and another family that is mentioned here. I don’t like to mention the name because they are a big family here on this reservation, and they are quite as belligerent as their great-grandfather. He, the leader of this family, blamed the Bonapartes, Səda?talq, for the situation they were in. He was angry, and he said, “All right. What have you brought us to?” When I say these words, I hope you remember they did not speak English, but that is what the words meant. “What have you brought us to? You signed the paper. Where is our reservation? Where is some of the food they said they would bring? There are more and more white people running all over, going crazy, picking up all of the land. Just see where our people are. They are hungry over there on the Tulalip Reservation, and here we are.6 There is no room on Tulalip for us. There is no agent, no white man over there to tell us what to do. We have drunken white men going by here in rowboats. They shoot at the Indians. There is no peace. There is nothing here anymore, and it is all your fault. It is what you did.” The older man, Bonaparte, said, “We did the best we could. We had no choice. We had to sign it and hope the white man would live up to it.”
They got into a big argument, and they threatened each other, and they met on a trail about halfway between Sandy Point and Useless Bay on Whidbey Island. Most of the Indians who lived there were on the reservation, but some were still living at Sandy Point. A lot of Indians lived there before they went down to Tulalip. It was a lovely sandy beach. Then farther south from there on Whidbey Island is Useless Bay. That is the name of it, but the Indians had a different name. The longhouse was at Dəgw as, which was the Indian name for Useless Bay. It means “an inlet.” My father and his group used to get upset with the white people calling it Useless Bay. I remember when I was little the beach was the greatest place to play. You could run, run, run on that beach.
Many of the Indians who lived at Sandy Point were on the reservation, but some were still there and they got into an argument. This is one time that I speak of on Whidbey Island. The younger Bonapartes had become addicted to whiskey. They were alcoholics. My grandmother used to tell about it when she was visiting us. They didn’t talk about it all of the time. Long after my grandparents were dead, I asked my father and he repeated it again.
One leader said, “I am going to kill them. What they have brought us is—Well, where are we? We’ve got no reservation. We’ve got no place to go. Nobody to tell us
anything.”7
My grandfather was with the Bonapartes (I will call them Bonapartes). He was a young man. He wasn’t married then, and he happened to be in the village with Napoleon. Napoleon’s name was Səda?talq. One of his sons had his name. On the treaty he is called Snatalq. In their argument, the Indians were divided into two groups. They were “broken up”—worried—over the argument between these two families, these two leaders.
The two brothers were very drunk. But they got ready for the confrontation because a runner came, an Indian runner, who said so-and-so “is coming after you and he has his group with him. They are going to kill you. They are going to meet you on the trail (between Dəgwas and Sandy Point) right away.” But these two brothers were so drunk. Their father talked to them and said, “I will go.” One brother said, “No, we will go and meet them on the trail.” They knew where they were to meet, because the Indians had names for places such as the bays, the points of land; whether they were called Sandy Beach, the Place of Brown Leaves, or whatever. The Indians knew where that was. So the brothers got ready.
They got their guns, muzzle-loaders, which will only fire once. Their wives cried and tried to hold them by the arms and begged them not to go. “Don’t go. You can talk to them tomorrow when you are sober. You are not well. You can’t talk to anybody now.” They got ready and fixed their knives. Indian men carried knives—and I think a lot of the pioneers did too. They were double-bladed knives that were several inches long. My father said his folks told how terrible it sounded when they were getting ready: sharpening their knives and spears. Their wives still begged them not to go, but they went. They jerked their arms away from their wives and they left.
My grandfather [Wheakadim] said they had on calf-length moccasins and just a breechcloth. Indian men didn’t wear the white man’s trousers and shirts then. My grandfather’s relatives said to him, “Take a gun.” So he was one of those who went along. But he said when they met the other group, the leading man said, “I have come to kill you. You signed that paper, and we don’t know what it said.” The young men were trying to raise their guns, and that Indian pointed at him, and my grandfather said they both fired at the same time. The first brother, Joseph, tried to aim, but he was drunk and he was the one who got killed. The leading man killed him. Then, of course, the other brother fired, but that shot went far away. The other chief said, “All right, that’s how I feel about you. I refused to sign the treaty. You signed it, and you are responsible for what is happening to us.” He turned around and left because by then the old man, Bonaparte, the father, who went along with them, was trying to pick up his son, but he was already dead. The shot went right through his heart. They brought the body back to the longhouse. Then there was nothing but sadness, nothing but divided families. Other Indians said, “We will pay them back. They aren’t going to get away with this.”8
My father and the others said that it was too bad because those two younger men were just very nice, very kind people. They were helpful and kind to all people.
My mother saw Tləbšiłtəd when she came here in 1878, and she saw him just the one time at a meeting. She said he was a very austere man. He never smiled. He never said one word. My mother, coming from another tribe, went to the meeting with her cousins and they listened. When he did speak, he got up and he said, “You folks do what you want to do. I haven’t anything to say.” I can’t recall what they were talking about. I think it had to do with setting aside some of their land for a cemetery. He said, “I wash my hands of the whole thing. You folks do what you want to do. You’re the ones that signed the treaty—not me.” All of his life he was somebody who was just out there all by himself. He was my paternal grandmother’s uncle. I don’t think she liked him that well either; it seemed like she was a little afraid of him. As I said, he was an austere man.
My mother heard Tləbšiłtəd’s younger brother, Steshail, and that was my great-grandfather’s brother.
So when you read about the treaty, the white man is always so sure he brought us such a great thing. He brought us civilization. Actually, the people who signed this treaty were putting their lives on it because many Indians said, “I won’t sign anything.” No, they signed the treaty knowing one thing: It is not going to be any good, because that man was lying. Governor Stevens, the representative from the white father in Washington, D.C., was standing there lying to the Indians. The government didn’t build a school, like they said they would—not for fifty years. There was no hospitalization for the Indians, no medical care. Medical care was just for the students in the boarding school.
Mission Beach at the turn of the twentieth century.
William Weallup and his wife cleaning salmon. Photograph by Norman Edson.
The Shelton family home at Mission Beach. Parents William and Ruth with children Harriette, Robert, Ruth, and William Alphonse.
William and Ruth with children William Alphonse, Ruth, and Thelma.
Grandmother Medline (Magdelene, or adz?k̓oliksə). Photograph by Ferdinand Brady.
Tulalip leaders. Front row, from left: Charlie Hillaire and son Philander, Frank LeClaire, Chief William Shelton, Bob Gwahadolch, Tommy Johnson, George Sneatlum. Back row, from left: William McLean, (name unknown), George Bob, Josie Celestine, Charlie Sam, Alphonse Bob, John Brown.
Family members and other relatives picking hops. Martha Lamont (hand over face), Ruth, William, Robert Shelton, Magdelene Wheakadim, and Mary Moses.
A work party for the Priest Point cemetery.
1 At this time, being Tulalip became an ethnic identity, whereas prior to this members would state the name of their tribe, and outsiders were required to remember to say Tulalip Tribes, not the Tulalip Tribe.
2 This geography lesson is also political and social history that illustrates the relationship between these three groups.
3 Sah-ghu-ghlas (Maryott and Shelton 1938:162).
4 See Duwamish et al. 1927.
5 Quoting Ruth Shelton, Mrs. Dover’s mother. The tribal affiliations are Snoqualmie, Lummi, Skagit, and Snohomish. Sdapəlq was Bonaparte Sr.
6 The tribal members weren’t told the treaty had not yet been ratified by Congress.
7 Settlers were pressuring the native people to leave their villages so that they could claim homesteads.
8 This incident at Scadget Head was reported in the Pioneer Democrat, September 18, 1857, page 2, column 3. According to the article, the mother, the two sons, and two other Indians were killed and several were wounded.
2 / Settling on the Reservation
THE Indians came down to Tulalip after the fall fishing, in November or December, because they said it was already cold. The year was 1856, because the treaty was signed in 1855. They had been told to come one year later and they did, but there was nobody here from the government to meet them—no agent. No one came to tell them that the treaty was not yet ratified by Congress. The Treaty of Point Elliott was ratified on April 11, 1859.
Living Conditions
There was no housing and no water for the people who came, except for two creeks that were one half mile and another one mile away. Indian people were living at Spibida and Quilceda, and later at Priest Point, where Father Chirouse and another priest founded the Catholic Mission; that was how it came to be called Priest Point. But in Tulalip Bay there was not enough housing available for all of the Indians who came. If you were married with two babies, you would have to walk all of the way down here to this little creek and carry two buckets of water to do your washing. It is pretty hard to keep children clean, to keep yourself and your clothes clean. The reservations were like that—no housing and no water. The policy was to move Indian people onto the reservation and tell them to stay there.
By the fifth or sixth year after the Indians signed, they could certainly see the effects of the treaty. People were starving on the reservation. I think the starvation for the Indians was really worse in the Middle West, but for the Indians here it was bad enough because there were times the whites
ordered these Indians not to leave the reservation.
During the Chief Joseph War in 1876–77, the Indians all over were ordered to stay on the reservation, nobody could leave. Some of the Indians would go over to Whidbey Island on their canoes to hunt or to dig clams. The revenue cutter, the United States launch, or whatever, by that time had steam engines; it would stop the Indians and tell them they had to go back to the reservation. “You can’t go anyplace.” My mother remembered that; she was older than my father. She remembered when she was a little girl that they were ordered to go back to Guemes Island. So, that was another time of great worry. My father was growing up on Whidbey Island where he was born, and he said every morning at daybreak all of the Indians there at Sandy Point and at Possession Point—what is now called Useless Bay, if you look at the map—would look and watch the day come. And my father and the others, my grandparents, would remember, what the Indians would say. “Where is he? Is he still all right?” Talking about Chief Joseph, because now and then white people would come by and say there is a big war. The army is chasing this man and his whole tribe. These Indians listened and tried to pray and hoped that Chief Joseph was all right. Every morning they watched the daybreak coming over the mountains. And I am telling you, young people, do that some time. Get up at three o’clock in the morning and watch the daybreak come. Even in a place like this you see the morning star, and it moves up really fast, but years back when I was growing up, my father would wake me up and over on Whidbey Island would want me and all of us young people to watch the day come, watch the day come over the Cascade Mountains. It is a very beautiful, majestic sight.
Tulalip, From My Heart Page 7