CASE NUMBER: 141
CASE MNEMONIC: LUMMI
CASE NAME: Lummi Indians and Salmon
A. IDENTIFICATION
1. The Issue
As "internal colonies", Native American reservations have faced
political military domination and extraction of their resources. In 1974
United States Federal District Court judge George Boldt handed down a
decision defining Native American fishing rights and guaranteeing treaty
Indian 50 percent of the allowable harvest of salmon. This reversed a
century of policy and practice that had come to exclude the Lummis and
nineteen other treaty tribes from the commercial salmon fishery of western
Washington. Most Native American tribes in the United States have a
relationship with the federal government based on treaties. For the most
part Native American treaties reserved a portion of the natural resources
for the Indians' subsistence. In Western Washington State the treaties
reserved to the Indians an "exclusive right" to all resources within the
boundaries of the reservations and an "in common" right to off-reservation
fishing at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations.
2. Description
Conflicts over resources have limited the Lummis' ability to increase
tribal income through fishing. However, the Lummi Nation in recent years
has attempted to exploit its resources creatively in ways which other tribes
might successfully imitate.
An analysis of issues such as environmental limitations, treaty
enforcement, labor discrimination, access to credit, technology, education,
and government transfers strengthen the case that uneven power
relationships have curtailed the Lummis' ability to exploit their own
resources and generate increased incomes. These issues are relevant to
both the Lummis and other tribes.
The Lummi population, like all of virtually all Indian reservations in
the United States, is in a state of dependency. Dependency in the case of
internal colonies, specifically Indian reservations, involves several factors.
Ostensibly independent political entities, the tribes are in effect dependent
on the federal government for their political existence. With unemployment
on reservations averaging 75 percent, Indian communities are dependent
upon the dominant society for financial support, which generally takes the
form of transfer payments administered though federally funded programs
or state-funded welfare. In addition, federal programs provide such
benefits as low-income housing and medical coverage.
The Lummi case is particularly instructive because it illustrates the
hopelessness of Indian dependency even in the face of guaranteed access
to a valuable natural resource. Dependent upon the outside economic
interests to develop and use their resources, Native Americans do not have
access to the economic surplus.
The Lummis were in an ideal situation when salmon fishing became
commercialized in western Washington (see SALMON case). They were
already exploiting the resource with the potential to produce a surplus for
market; they were skilled processors; and they were ideally located to
harvest the most abundant salmon runs -- the Fraser River sockeye.
Nevertheless, as the industry developed the Lummis were pushed aside.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs insisted that the Lummis pursue agriculture
also worked to separate them from the salmon industry. The combined
effect of these factors was that the Lummis were almost totally excluded
from commercial fishing by 1900, as quickly as they had been incorporated
only a few years before.
Between the turn of the century and the mid-1930s, the Lummis came
to the almost totally excluded from the commercial salmon fishing industry.
Lummis, and other Native Americans, did not become citizens of the United
States until 1924. Before citizenship was granted the problem of Lummi's
commercial fishing became a heated issue because according to the
Washington State sessional laws of 1909 obtaining a commercial fishing
license required both residence within and citizenship of the State of
Washington. Since Indians were not citizens until 1924 they could not
qualify for a state license, yet the state fish commissioner insisted that
Indian fishers obtain a license before they could fish commercially.
After a change of governors in the election of 1920, the Lummis came
to be almost totally excluded from the commercial salmon fishing industry.
Lummis did not use commercial toiling, marine gill netting, and purse
seining for a variety of reasons. Resources other than the fisheries were
unavailable to them. The combined effects of increased state and local
regulation, decreasing fishing opportunities, decreasing demand for wage
labor, and the inability of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to offer viable
alternatives caused a marked increase in the Lummis' economic
underdevelopment and further erosion of their access to salmon resources.
By 1934 the Lummis were destitute. What salmon fishing took place was
restricted to the reservation waters, and even on-reservation fishing was
contested by the state of Washington. Excluded from a commercial fishery,
cannery jobs, other work opportunities, and other means of subsistence,
the Lummis were pushed into an increasingly dependent position.
3. Related Cases:
Mohawk case
Eskimo case
Ecuador case
Bragold case
Keyword Clusters
(1): Trade Product = FOOD
(2): Bio-geography = TEMPerate
(3): Domain = North America [NAMER]
4. Draft Author: Kadija Jama
B. LEGAL Clusters
5. Discourse and Status: AGReement and COMPlete
The coming of white society brought disastrous cultural and economic
consequences. The lands and waters were taken from them, which suddenly
eliminated their former affluence. No payments were offered until 1870,
when they were offered $57,000 for all of the San Juan Islands and the
western part of Whatcom County. New diseases decimated them (smallpox
was intentionally introduced into the Northwest in the form of infected
blankets) and new laws often brought harsh punishment without justice.
Yet, there were no wars or uprisings involving the Lummis.
Until 1937 no form of tribal government was permitted. Lummis were
not full U.S. citizens and had no effective recourse under the law. Their
lands, education, health services, housing, law and order, and their
community concerns were under a totally autocratic control from the
outside. Lack of full cooperation from Lummis often resulted in government
retaliation.
In the late 1950s great pressures were exerted (by the Bureau of
Indian Affairs) to force the sale of Indian lands to non-Indians. By the end
of the decade 40 percent of the Lummi allotted lands were owned by non-
Indians.
6. Forum and Scope: USA and UNILATeral
With unemployment on reservations averaging 75 percent nationwide,
Indian communities are dependent upon the dominant society for financial
support, which generally takes the form of transfer payments administered
through federally funded programs or state-funded welfare. In addition,
federal programs provide such benefits as low-income housing and medical
coverage.
The Lummi case is particularly instructive because it illustrates the
hopelessness of Indian dependency even in the face of guaranteed access
to a valuable natural resource. Dependent upon outside economic interests
to develop and use their resources, Indians do not have access to the
economic surplus generated; although short term income may result or
wealth may come to a very few, the reservation community as a whole does
not benefit.
Indian reservations were generally established in areas of little us to
white settlers. Consequently many reservations have limited resources.
Some reservations, however, contained resources whose value was unknown
at the time. The best known example is energy resources. It is now
estimated that Indian reservations contain 30 percent of the coal, 40
percent of the uranium, and a large portion of the reserves of oil shale,
geothermal energy, natural gas, and petroleum in the United States.
7. Decision Breadth: 1 (USA)
8. Legal Standing: TREATY
From the legal point of view, the most significant events in the history
of the tribe occurred in 1886 and in 1937. Up to 1886, when the Federal
Indian Allotment Act was passed, lands and resources of tribes on
reservations were held in common by the tribes. By the terms of the act,
however, the tribes were forced to allot or distribute most of their available
land to individuals for individual title. This was a concept completely
foreign to the Indians. But the law had to be obeyed, and little was
accordingly transferred to individual members from the tribe as a whole,
save from the tidelands adjoining the reservation and small piece which
included the tribe offices and the Lummi cemetery.
The absence of either an understanding of the utility of individual
ownership or of legal help to assure that title passed properly from own
generation to another resulted in Lummi property being tied up as heirship
lands. That is, title to large sections of reservation land no longer rests
clearly in any one person or group but it held in common by all the heirs
succeeding an original owner. In some cases this means that as many as 65
adults, not to mention underage children, have a claim to a particular piece
of property. The land that remains in Lummi hands, including much of that
best suited to collective use, is legally almost impossible to them. Given the
sufficient money, this presumably could be rectified, but the price will be
high.
The other significant event, which occurred in 1937, was the
organization of a Lummi tribal government as a result of new federal laws
passed earlier in the 1930s. The present Lummi constitution and by-laws
were written in 1969; they are based on the earlier ones which had given
the Lummis, for the first time since their subjugation, a measure of self-
government. According to the present constitution, all members of the tribe
constitute a general council. This body, which is in effect a committee of
the whole, is the final governing unit. It meets annually to elect an 11-
person board called the Lummi Indian Business Council which is the
administrative body for the tribe. The LIBC in turn elects its own officers.
As noted above, when a major control was being exercised by the BIA, such
opportunities for self-government were lacking.
In 1966, the situation changed drastically. In that year, an OEO
funded Community Action Program began on the reservation under the
overall leadership of the LIBC. This provided the first full-time salaries job
for a Lummi on the reservation in the history of the tribe.
The OEO's condition were essentially aimed at providing a stable and
independent organization to manage the business aspects of the tribe, and
to set them apart from the annual political decisions at the level of the tribal
council. Over a period of a few short years, the availability of these
programs and the vigorous response of individual Lummis and the LIBC to
those opportunities transformed a community that had been without much
real cause for optimism.
C. GEOGRAPHIC Clusters
9. Geographic Locations
a. Geographic Domain: North America [NAMER]
b. Geographic Site: Western North America [WNAMER]
c. Geographic Impact: USA
The Lummi Indians live on a reservation of about 5,700 acres, some
nine square miles on a peninsula jutting out from the northern Pacific coast
of the state of Washington. The land itself is magnificent. Off the peninsula
lie the San Juan Islands, covered largely by forests of Douglas fir and other
evergreens, which contrast with the blue of the sea and the brown of beach
tideland. Through the reservation pass two rivers, one of which, the
Nooksack, is important in Lummi tradition as well as to the Lummi economy,
since it has always been an important source of food.
Only about 1,200 Lummis live on the reservation, although that is
three-quarters of the total population of the tribe. The small size of the
tribe makes all the more surprising their extensive accomplishments to date.
Most of the people are young, about 60 percent are below the age of twenty
five and more handful are above sixty. By and large, this the result of a
high birth rate and a reduction on the previously high infant mortality rate
together with what has been a very short life expectancy. The same
phenomenon can be seen in developing countries around the world.
Much of the desirable land, particularly that on the waterfront (40 percent
of the land area of the reservation) is not in the hands of the Lummi.
10. Sub-National Factors: YES
There are state and local laws passed by Washington state restricting
Lummi from any kind of fishing, especially salmon fishing. The Lummi
themselves are a kind of sub-state.
11. Type of Habitat: TEMPerate
D. TRADE Clusters
12. Type of Measure: Regulatory Ban [REGBAN]
13. Direct vs. Indirect Impacts: DIRect
The treaty took into consideration the fact that the Native Americans
were a weak and dependent nation with no written language or history,
which made them prone to exploitation by white settlers. The Lummis,
therefore, were allowed to fish at freely on the reservation as well as on
off-reservation territories as long as their activities are undertaken at all
"usual and accustomed grounds and stations." Police authorities had the
right to regulate off-reservation fishing only in order to preserve fishing
resources and protect species against extinction, thus the Lummis were
allowed more freedom than ever to fish at their own convenience. The
treaty made it clear that no discrimination against Indians by state
authorities is permitted, and that fishing is a right for Indians not just a
mere privilege.
The treaty made clear that Northwest Indians were allowed to
establish self-government procedures, according to which, tribes were
allowed to regulate the fishing of their members without any state
interference, as long as the tribes maintained the basic rules and
qualification governing the principles of conservation of resources. Any
arrest of a treaty right fisherman for reasons other than the conservation
of resources is considered unlawful.
In order to give the Indians more economic opportunities, the number
of fish allowed was limited only by (1) the number of species required for
reproduction, and (2) the number of fishes taken by non-tribal members.
Moreover, any fish taken for subsistence purposes is not counted in the
share that treaty tribes are allowed to take. The treaty also stipulated that
state authority are required to take all appropriate action in order to
ensure a fair and equal sharing of fishing opportunities between treaty and
non-treaty fishermen. Additionally, the court ruling obviated old treaty
restrictions on the use of fishing methods and declared it lawful for Indians
to use by fishing method they see fit in order for them to modernize their
fishing techniques.
The Boldt decisions exonerated the Northwest Indians from all charges
brought against them by the state of Washington accusing them of breaking
the law by violating state regulations. Fishing in contravention of law by
tribal members, however, is considered illegal and may subject the
fishermen to arrest. Finally, Native American tribes are required to report
any misuse of fisheries by tribal and non-tribal members to the state of
Washington, who is required to take immediate and appropriate action to
remedy the situation.
14. Relation of Measure to Environment Impact
a. Directly Related: YES SALMON
b. Indirectly Related: NO
c. Not Related: NO
d. Process Related: YES Species Loss Sea [SPLS]
Guaranteed access to the salmon resource, attained through the Boldt
decision, has not benefitted the entire Lummi tribe. The resource continues
to be exploited by individuals, not as a corporate tribal activity. As is
common in technologically developed fisheries, large portions of the users
cannot harvest enough fish to attain a satisfactory standard of living.
Therefore only a small number of Lummi fishers are gaining any real
benefit from the tribal resource.
Lummi poverty, similar to other Native American communities have all
suffered similarly form the effects of economic and political factors that
strive to incorporate Indian resources into the national political economy.
Whether the resources are agricultural and grazing land, as with the
Navajos, or fish as with the Lummis, the outcome has been similar.
15. Trade Product Identification: FOOD
Lummi Indians depend on fishing salmon and trading for economic
subsistence (see also SALMON case).
16. Economic Data
As recently as 1965 annual tribal income did not exceed $9,000. No one
before that year ever had a paying job for work within the tribe.
Unemployment was extremely high, health care was virtually nonexistent,
Lummi culture and tradition were declining rapidly, and there were no
great prospects for improvement.
17. Impact of Measure on Trade Competitiveness: HIGH
The Boldt treaty in 1974 created poverty and economic dependency
when it took the fishing salmon and trading rights from Lummi Indians.
18. Industry Sector: FOOD
19. Exporters and Importers: USA and MANY
E. ENVIRONMENT Clusters
20. Environment Problem Type: Species Loss Sea [SPLS]
The way the resources are exploited is characteristic of the broader
relationship between Indians and the dominant society. It is often the
context of this relationship that Indian reservations are referred to as
"internal colonies".
21. Name, Type, and Diversity of Species
Name: Salmon
Type: Animal/Fish/Bony
Diversity:Ocean
22. Resource Impact and Effect: High and MEDium
23. Urgency and Lifetime: MEDium and about 30 years.
24. Substitutes: LIKE
Besides other kinds of products, other kinds of economic activities
but Lummi are not allowed to practice it, as freely as they would like
because of the legislative and state laws that exist or will exist.
F. OTHER Factors
25. Culture: YES
The traditional Lummi social organization was family and village
oriented. Leaders were recognized by their merit and demonstrable
wisdom. Life in the longhouse communities involved subtle and complex
relationships, a high degree of technology (making house, boats, seines,
etc.), and a sophisticated regionwide political interrelationship.
26. Trans-boundary Issues: NO
27. Human Rights: YES
The Lummis have lost many rights.
28. Relevant Literature
Boxberger, Daniel. To Fish In Common, University of Nebraska,
1989.
Stein, Barry. Lummi Indians: Economic Development and Social
Change, Council on Community Economic Development, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 1975.
United State of America vs. State of Washington, 384 Federal
Supplement, Civ. No. 9213, February 12, 1974.