Treaties
This 1854 treaty ceded the land many of us live and work on today.
Treaty of Point Elliot
This set of conflicts in newly formed Washington territory from 1856-88 is often misidentified as the "Yakama Wars."
Pacific Northwest Indian Wars
A young woman living among the Hidatsa Mandan tribe, she led the Lewis and Clark expedition safely to Oregon territory while carrying a young child strapped to her back.
Sacagawea
This expedition in the 1790s led to the renaming of a variety of important locations in the Pacific Northwest, including Mount Rainier and Puget Sound.
The Vancouver Expedition
This powerful Indigenous nation once spread out across the Columbia Plateau and into Idaho dominated the land based trade and cultivated their own horse breed.
Nez Perce
This 1855 treaty council that included George Gibbs, Isaac Stevens, and several, often disconnected, Native groups led to the formation of new "tribes" and three reservations for Yakamas, Nez Perce, and Umatillas.
Walla Walla Treaty Council
This event occurred largely as the result of retribution for increased settlement and failed healing efforts after waves of measles hit Cayuse peoples in the 1840s.
Whitman Massacre
This Duwamish leader became a valuable ally to white settlers in Seattle and allegedly gave a powerful speech at the signing of the Treaty of Point Elliot in 1854.
This centuries old Indigenous practice was banned in Canada between 1885 and 1951 as white settlers struggled to understand why anyone would give wealth away.
Potlatch
Landing on Alki in 1851, this group--named after a prominent early settler of Seattle--was met by a large and friendly group of Duwamish. The group leader later betrayed Duwamish peoples by signing a petition to deny them a promised reservation.
Arthur Denny or the Denny party
Leschi's dissatisfaction with this 1854 treaty was well known and contributed to an attack on settlers during the "Indian Wars" that led to his execution.
Treaty of Medicine Creek
This war on the California-Oregon border in the 1870s broke out after the death of R.S. Canby during negotiations. Kintpuash and many others successfully thwarted U.S. military by using natural lava beds as their fortress.
Modoc War
He served as the first governor of Washington territory and set out on a whirlwind treaty tour between late 1854 and 1856 in order to "clear" the land for settlement.
Isaac J. Stevens
Traders came pouring into the Columbia District after the positive reports from the Lewis and Clark Expedition, leading to the Hudson Bay Company merging with this formal rival in 1821.
Northwest Company
What is responsible for the rapid decline of Indigenous populations in the Pacific Northwest between the mid 18th and mid 19th century?
Various kinds of disease
Oregon Treaty of 1846
Although it is often labeled a war, it more resembles a nearly 1300 mile game of cat and mouse between Native peoples and the U.S. military. Unfortunately, it ended 30 miles before Native peoples reached the Canadian border.
Nez Perce War of 1877
This U.S. General was tasked with chasing down Joseph and his band of Nez Perce on their way to Canada in 1877.
General Oliver Howard
What legislation passed in September of 1850 opened up lands in Oregon territory to encourage settlement. It also excluded full blood Native peoples, African Americans, and anyone of Hawaiian descent.
This ethnographer, lawyer, and self-declared Native expert, used his observations to assist Isaac J. Steven in creating template style treaties in Washington territory.
George Gibbs
This 1855 treaty is the only treaty in the United States to explicitly include the right to hunt whales.
Treaty of Neah Bay
What two factors led to the Yakama War of 1855?
Rapid settlement of the region
Murder of Yakama women and girls by miners
He was posthumously exonerated of murder in 2004 as the killing of soldiers during wartimes are considered a consequence of conflict, not murder.
Chief Leschi
This form of pidgin developed in BC made its way across the Pacific Northwest and became primarily used in simple trade negotiations between Indigenous peoples and fur traders.
Chinook Jargon
Seattle Ordinance no. 5