Advertising

The Seattle Times Company

NWjobs | NWautos | NWhomes | NWapartments | NWsource | Classifieds | seattletimes.com

The Seattle Times

Columnists


Our network sites seattletimes.com | Advanced
Hi | Contact us

Originally published Sunday, November 9, 2008 at 12:00 AM

Comments (16)     E-mail article     Print view

Danny Westneat

For tribes, disparity lives on

This is a tale of two Indian tribes. Both are tiny and poor. Both are tiny and poor. Both signed the same treaty 153 years ago, giving away the land where Seattle and King County now sit.

Seattle Times staff columnist

This is a tale of two Indian tribes.

Both are tiny and poor. Both signed the same treaty 153 years ago, giving away the land where Seattle and King County now sit.

And both, this month, have built something new for the first time in generations.

I went out to the first the other night and was stopped by a line of stretch Hummer limos. Women in cocktail dresses stepped from the limos, joking about "catching a whale." Men trailed behind, smoking fat cigars.

After 150 years in a legal and financial wilderness, the Snoqualmie Indians have opened a 170,000-square-foot casino.

It has strained the tribe and put it into massive debt. Yet it is a remarkable achievement that it exists at all. Follow signs to "Snoqualmie Indian Reservation," and when you get there you realize nobody lives there. The entire reservation is the casino.

That's because the Snoqualmies never got their promised reservation — not until 2006. Only in 1999 did the federal government give the Snoqualmies official tribe status.

So now they can have a casino. I bet it transforms them as they hope it will. I used to doubt gambling would be any salvation to tribes. But in 15 years, it has catapulted many of them out of a century or more of grinding poverty, aimlessness and welfare.

Inside, at the People of the Moon's craps table, I put down $40 in bets. The place was jammed with twitchy 20-somethings and chain-smoking older folks, nearly all white. No Indians were in sight.

There's some karmic justice at work here. We bamboozled the Indians out of their land. Now they are suckering us out of our money.

Sure enough, after a few rolls of the dice, I crapped out. Poof went my $40 — a contribution, I guess, to Indian reparations.

When I left at 1 a.m., there was still a line of cars idling in the rain, waiting for a chance.

advertising

The next day, I dropped by the other tribe. Seattle's first people, the Duwamish, will open a cedar longhouse Nov. 22 next to a pallet yard south of downtown.

It's a post-and-beam meeting place and museum on a half-acre — the only land they've owned since they gave up 54,700 acres in the 1855 treaty. They never got the promised reservation. The government now won't recognize they are a tribe at all.

The reasons for this are galling. One time the feds ruled the Duwamish aren't a tribe, in part because they had no land. Which was true. It was all taken from them.

In 2001, the feds agreed the Duwamish are a tribe. Only to renege 48 hours later because a bureaucrat hadn't signed the forms on time.

So they go maddeningly on, in an identity limbo. The longhouse, now about done on West Marginal Way, seems as much about proving they exist as it is a celebration of culture. As beautiful as it is, it won't bring jobs.

What's happened to the Duwamish is a disgrace. There's no difference between the Duwamish and the Snoqualmies. Except the Snoqualmies got the right signature on the right piece of paper. So only they get to enter this curious Indian lottery.

Our city is named after a Duwamish chief. Yet we pretend they're not a tribe, too?

Looking out from the new longhouse, trucks rumbling by scrap yards with downtown skyscrapers a few miles away, to me it seems as obvious as it overdue:

This is a fine spot for a casino.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

More Danny Westneat headlines...

E-mail article Print view      Share:    Digg     Newsvine

Latest comments
Oh and one more thing...Native American versus American Indian...a lot of native people have gone back to being called American Indian, because...  Posted on November 10, 2008 at 11:18 AM by Corina Roberts. Jump to comment
Nice article, thank you for writing it. Casinos sometimes cause tribes a whole new bag of problems; hopefully the last fifteen years will give...  Posted on November 10, 2008 at 11:14 AM by Corina Roberts. Jump to comment
I'm embarrassed to say that I spent my whole life around Seattle, and never knew it was named after a Chief. Born in 55... and outside of what your...  Posted on November 10, 2008 at 10:22 AM by JBseven. Jump to comment

Advertising

Buy a link here

About Danny Westneat
Danny Westneat takes an opinionated look at the Puget Sound region's news, people and politics. Send tips or comments to dwestneat@seattletimes.com. His column runs Wednesday and Sunday.
dwestneat@seattletimes.com | 206-464-2086

Danny Westneat: TV's digital promised land

Danny Westneat: When rules trump ingenuity

Danny Westneat: What hooked you on the Web

Danny Westneat: Taking the bad with the good

Danny Westneat: Showing up is a show of strength

Advertising

Video

AP's News Minute
All of today's news in one minute.

Marketplace

 
Most read
Most commented
Most e-mailed
 
 
Advertising