Seattle, WA
Duwamish Tribe excluded from Seattle’s Indigenous Advisory Council
Duwamish Tribe sues once more for federal recognition
A lawsuit was filed Wednesday in search of federal recognition for the Duwamish Tribe, whose forebears embrace Chief Seattle—for whom town of Seattle was named.
SEATTLE – Seattle is known as after Chief Seattle, chief of the Duwamish Tribe from 1840 to 1866, but town’s inaugural Indigenous Advisory Council has no representatives from the Duwamish Tribe.
In 2021, a metropolis ordinance shaped the Indigenous Advisory Council (IAC) with the aim of advising officers on points affecting American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian folks residing in Seattle. The council consists of 9 members—5 appointed by town council and 4 appointed by the mayor—and should embrace elders, youths and delegates of an Indigenous tribe, plus representatives of city Indian organizations.
The Duwamish Tribe says that, regardless of Seattle owing its namesake to their distinguished chief, they don’t have any place on the desk advising on issues that straight have an effect on them.
Chief Seattle statue at Fifth and Denny, 1936. (Seattle Municipal Archives // CC BY 2.0)
“To disclaim the Duwamish Tribe any seat on the newly shaped Indigenous Advisory Council contradicts its legitimacy and intention to be an inclusive and reparative advisory physique,” stated Duwamish Tribal Chairwoman Cecile Hansen. “This determination is much more astounding as a result of the Duwamish Tribe is the one tribe throughout the metropolis limits, town which bears the identify and picture of our nice Chief Seattle.”
On Thursday, town council unanimously authorised the 9 new members of the IAC, who might be suggested on metropolis insurance policies and budgets that have an effect on Indigenous folks.
The Duwamish Tribe hoped to be represented on the IAC by Ken Workman, an enrolled member who can be the fifth-generation grandson of Chief Seattle, himself. Workman allegedly utilized to a number of positions on the council however was not chosen.
Duwamish Tribe sues once more for federal recognition
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Hansen penned a letter to town council in June urging them to rethink, and to incorporate the Duwamish Tribe on the IAC.
“Absolutely the exclusion of the Duwamish Tribe from serving in any place on the inaugural IAC smacks of the Metropolis’s actions in keeping with the 1865 ‘Legislation #5’ outlawing any ‘Duwamish Nation individual’ from town limits, which in in the present day’s context renders the IAC choice as lower than performative efforts at inclusive, reparative justice to handle historic hurt to the Duwamish Tribe,” wrote Hansen.
The tribe stated they and their supporters, together with Actual Hire Duwamish, have testified in opposition to their exclusion from the council.
The Duwamish Tribe isn’t a federally acknowledged Indigenous tribe.
Dave Stephenson
July 29, 2022 at 5:38 pm
The Duwamish nation is not federally recognized because of House Concurrent Resolution 108, by which Congress gave itself the authority to arbitrarily terminate indigenous nations from federal recognition. Like everything an American history, this was done to exterminate Natives and dispossesses of our real estate and resources using whatever nefarious, genocidal means necessary. It’s both ironic and ludicrous to blame or penalize the duwamish people for something if they had no control over. This is a case of blaming and penalizing the victim of what amounts to a centuries-long genocide.