In Search of Recognition

In Search of Recognition. . After the U.S. government's failure to ratify the Tansy Point treaties signed by chiefs of five Chinookan tribes, the Chinook continued to hold tightly to their identity as a tribe and to their homeland. In 1855 on the Chehalis River, Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens tried once again to sign a treaty with the Chinook and other tribes. Unlike Dart at Tansy Point, Stevens wanted them to leave their lands. The Chinook refused. In the years that followed, the Chinook were given many privileges only available to treaty tribes, including allotments and hunting and fishing privileges., This changed in 1954 with the passage of the termination acts, through which the U.S. government sought to end all obligations to tribes. The U.S. eventually acknowledged the injustice of termination and restored the sovereignty of most tribes. The Chinook continue to seek this recognition.,

"We are fully aware that the Chinooks are an Indian Tribe." , Melvin E. Robertson Supt, Western Washington Agency 1954

"They acknowledged that we exist as Indian people but won't recognize us officially as a tribe." , Gary Johnson, Chinook, 1996

Captions: , (top right) In 1910, Edward Curtis photographed Catherine Hawks George, who was known as Cha'ist to her descendants. Cha'ist attended Tansy Point negotiations, and was known for her remarkable recollection of names, family relationships and village locations of nearly all 1851 Chinookan treaty signers. Northwestern University Library. Edward S. Curtis's 'The Nortb American Indian': the Photographic Images, 2001 , (bottom right) Chinook fishermen fashioned net weights like this one to sink the bottom of a seine net. NPS Collections