The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

the JoLt fRoM BoLdt 121
salmon, a staple of Indian life for nutritional and spiritual sustenance,
while the Game Department controlled fishing for steelhead, a sea-going
trout prized by the non-Indian anglers whose fees largely funded the
agency. Indians were not allowed to net steelhead, which traditionally had
helped sustain them during winter months. They were also prohibited
from selling any they caught on their reservations. 2
The tribes believed the white man was the real “Indian giver,” breaking
promises since the 1850s when the territorial governor, Isaac Stevens,
signed treaties covering some 8,000 natives from Neah Bay at the tip of
the Olympic Peninsula to the Nisqually along Puget Sound. In return for
surrendering their claims to much of their land and agreeing to live
henceforth on the reservations the Great Father had set aside for them,
the Indians would receive payments over the next 20 years, plus assistance
in learning agriculture and other help “becoming civilized.” Further,
Stevens said, they would be protected from the encroachments of
the “bad” white men who had tried to harm them.
“The importance of the fish to the Indians seems to have impressed
Stevens,” a dynamic 35–year-old frontier bureaucrat. “He did not intentionally
reserve to the Indians any more rights than he thought necessary,
but he understood that the one indispensable requirement for securing
agreement of any kind from Pacific Northwest Indians was to assure
their continued right to fish.” Each treaty he signed contains this provision:
“The right of taking fish, at all usual and accustomed grounds and
stations, is further secured to said Indians in common with all citizens of
the Territory.” For the next 120 years, “in common with” was translated by
the courts as “no different than.” Indians, in other words, were subject to
state laws governing the resource. In particular, they were barred from
net fishing on rivers and streams. 3
State enforcement agents and Indian fishermen clashed often in the
early 1960s. Willie Frank, the Nisqually elder whose magnificently wizened
face belonged on a quarter, filed a petition with the federal court,
accusing state enforcement agents of brutality. Frank asked for an independent
investigation.
Warren G. Magnuson, Washington’s senior senator, attempted to produce
clarity with two Senate joint resolutions in 1964. The first recognized
the tribes’ treaty rights but stipulated that off-reservation fishing would
be subject to state regulation. The second called for a federal buy-out of
the off-reservation fishing rights. The state supported both; the tribes,
increasingly emboldened, neither. The proposals died in committee. Five
years later, Governor Evans embraced a ruling by the U.S. District Court