Land Dispossession

Legal framework in which UW arises

Set against the backdrop of a tumultuous legal history, the origins of the University of Washington campus lands can be traced back far before the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855. Prior to the Treaty, the Nonintercourse Act of 1834 prevented the encroachment of Native land by European-American settlers. However, the Oregon Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 allowed and encouraged white settlement as the Act gave each male settler willing to homestead, 320 acres of land for free with an additional 320 acres given to the wives of those who were married. As Washington was included in the Oregon Territory at the time, a number of European-Americans who settled in the Seattle area obtained land through this Act. The Land Donation Act, however, sunset in December of 1855, after which the United States established prices and significantly reduced each allotment of land. This created a strong incentive for settlers who were already living in Washington at the time to establish treaties with Indigenous tribes in order to obtain land for free before the 1855 cutoff as the Land Donation Act only applied to federally owned property.

The Treaty of Point Elliott guaranteed all signatory tribes hunting and fishing rights, reservations, and annuities, often in the form of goods rather than money. The Duwamish Tribe exchanged over 54,000 acres of land which spanned across Seattle, Bellevue, Mercer Island, and much more. Governor Isaac Stevens stated the reasoning for the retention of fishing rights by the Duwamish: “As the change from savage to civilized habits must necessarily be gradual, we were to retain the right of fishing at our accustomed fishing-places, and of hunting, gathering berries and roots, and pasturing stock on unoccupied land as long as it remained vacant.” Stevens' original proposal included the removal of all Indians east of the Puget Sound and to admit "as few reservations as possible'' with the ultimate goal of concentrating them into one. However, in the four years it took for the Treaty to get ratified by Congress, rising tensions between Natives and settlers had caused a number of conflicts including the Puget Sound War (1855-56) and the Yakima War (1855-58). Governor Stevens failed to enforce the treaty and protect the few rights left to Indigenous tribes, as only few received reservations and federal recognition. No reservation was created for the Duwamish.

The University of Washington is currently located in Section 16 of Township 25N-Range 4E. Although Washington did not become a state until 1889, previous land records from earlier decades show that Section 16 of Township 25 remained undeveloped, most likely due to the Land Ordinance of 1785. U.S. Bureau of Land Management Records show 1,518,676 acres of land was set aside for public education by Washington State in 1889.

A Landscape in the Making

Following the Treaty of Point Elliott, some Native communities moved to reservation lands while others stayed. In 1865, the first incorporation of Seattle passed Ordinance No. 5, also known as the “ordinance for the removal of Indians.” This act banned all Native Americans from living in the town of Seattle unless they were employed by a settler or resided on their employer’s property. While the Ordinance was unsuccessful and ultimately voided in the following years, many Indigenous families moved to the outer limits of Seattle such as Ballast Island or to the Port Madison reservation, which was established in the Treaty of Point Elliott. Those that refused to leave their homes, however, were further subjugated through intense legal discrimination, becoming first-hand witnesses to the exploitation of their homeland and environmental resources by settlers. 

University Neighborhoods: The Town of Yesler

A change in the economic landscape can be attributed to increasing industrialization, especially in Seattle’s early years. In 1853, Henry Yesler established the first sawmill in Seattle, located on Elliott Bay. Records indicate the employment of Native Americans at his mill which most likely represent the families and communities that chose to stay in the Seattle area as settlement grew. Following commercial success, Yesler built his second mill on Union Bay three decades later along with the Town of Yesler which was platted in 1888. Although the Union Bay mill burned down in 1895, during its operation Yesler continued to employ both settlers and Duwamish natives who lived along the waterways. Furthermore, cross-references between maps of Union Bay and historic Duwamish villages show evidence of a longhouse that existed in the same location as the second mill. Historic records show five longhouses along the former shoreline of Union Bay where several villages resided prior to European settlement. In addition to the development of residential neighborhoods, more direct changes to the physical landscape also had serious repercussions for the environment and Native populations. 

In the late 1880s, the U.S. government began reinvestigating the possibility of a larger ship canal in the Seattle area with the hopes of transforming the city into an economic hub. With the development of railroads and use of steam-powered engines, mining and logging industries were expanding, bringing in more settlers from surrounding states. In 1911, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction on the Lake Washington Ship Canal, based on the canal Pike had outlined almost 50 years ago. Five years later, the temporary dam created along Lake Union during construction was breached, creating the Montlake Cut. Following the opening of the canal, the level of Lake Washington dropped 9 ft., drying out the Black River and drastically altering the Green-Duwamish River watershed.

UW Campus Purchase

As Seattle became more urbanized, the University began to look for a larger campus to accommodate the growing student population. In 1891, the Joint Special University Committee, chaired by Edmond S. Meany, was appointed to select a new campus. The committee considered three potential sites, all of which were located in Section 16 of their respective Townships - Discovery Park, T24N R03E Section 16; Jefferson Park, T24N R04E Section 16; and Interlaken, T25N R04E Section 16. UW President Thomas Gatch (1887-95) favored the third option and advised Meany to purchase the Interlaken parcel, which was approved in 1893. The property was purchased for $28,313.75 as part of a territorial land grant for public education, though construction work on the new campus had already begun in August of 1892. The University employed a total of 93 men to clear and grade the 536-acre site. In total, “[76] acres were ‘underbrushed and cleaned up’, 56 acres were ‘cleared and burned’, and 12 acres ‘stumped and grubbed’ before work was suspended…” Stumps still visibly scattered across the property, the University opened the doors to its new campus in 1895.

The destruction of land as destruction of livelihood

Traditional landscaping practices, founded on principles of settler colonialism and Manifest Destiny, often require the destruction of habitats and ecosystems, creating harsh consequences for the environment and Native populations. In the case of Seattle and the larger King County area, changes in the landscape occurred at every level, often incentivised and justified by economic growth. Forests were cleared for logging while waterways were completely reshaped and watershed ecosystems radically altered. In the 1920s, the Seattle Parks Department cut down many of the large conifers located in Ravenna Park, citing them as “threat[s] to public safety” (Williams, 2010). One tree was reported as being the largest conifer in Washington state measuring 44 ft. in circumference before disappearing in 1925, leaving no records of its removal and disposal. Salmon spawning habitats in the Green River were destroyed from overharvesting by commercial fishermen, leading to the development of Soos Creek Hatchery in 1901. The expanding network of railroads also opened the Duwamish valley to development with the expansion of agriculture across the region.

In 1850, Colonel Issac Ebey, one of the first settlers to arrive on Duwamish land, described the landscape: “The river meanders through rich bottom land, not heavily timbered, with here and there a beautiful plain of unrivaled fertility.” By the 1890s, most of the Native population had disappeared from historical records. Some settlers in the early 20th century described people fishing in canoes or harvesting Wapato at camps along the shoreline; however, very few records of Native settlement in the area exist after 1916 – the year Lake Washington was lowered. The Duwamish watershed had an extensive network of waterways of which only the Duwamish River remains due to the construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal. Populations of waterfowl, muskrat, and sockeye were drastically reduced alongside water plants such as lilies, cattails, and wapato in the Union Bay area. Duwamish tide flats were also filled in order to create more property, which eventually culminated in the 300-acre Harbor Island by 1909. The development of a flouring mill and shipyard on the island inspired more designs for new waterway landscapes that could fuel economic growth. This paradigm is perfectly demonstrated in the construction of the Duwamish Waterway in order to create the Industrial District of Seattle; 20 million cubic yards of mud and sand were moved to straighten the Duwamish River for the project. 

Relationship with the land is a founding principle in Indigenous ways of knowing, playing an integral part in Indigenous identity. To properly contextualize Indigenous displacement requires an understanding of dispossession not only as the loss of land, but the loss of livelihood. With the migration of European settlers and rapid spread of industrialization that followed, Indigenous communities experienced loss in every aspect of life. However, recognizing the erasure of Indigenous histories is one step towards resisting the colonial structures that we operate in.  

References

Arnold, W. (1972). “The Great Mystery of Ravenna Park.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Buerge, D. (1984). “Indian Lake Washington.” The Weekly.

Bureau of Land Management. (1856). “Township 25 North Range 4 East Willamette Meridian.” General Land Office Records. https://glorecords.blm.gov/details/survey/default.aspx?dm_id=398134&sid=q1rzychb.su2#surveyDetailsTabIndex=0 

Collins, G.C. (1992). “Indian policy, government treaties and the Chehalis Treaty Council.” Pacific Northwest Forum 5. Second Series.

Cummings, B. J. (2022). The River That Made Seattle: A Human and Natural History of the Duwamish. University of Washington Press.

Griffin, T. (1995). “100 years on Montlake.” University of Washington Magazine. https://magazine.washington.edu/feature/ 100-years-on-montlake-how-the-uw-campus-has-evolved/

Treaty of Point Elliott, 1855, Governor's Office of Indian Affairs. https://goia.wa.gov/tribal-government/treaty-point-elliott-1855 

Washington State Department of Natural Resources. (2014). “State Trust Lands: 125 Years of Building Public Schools for You.” Ear to the Ground with DNR & Commissioner Franz. https://washingtondnr.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/state-trust-lands-build-public-schools-for-you/   

Stevens, H. (1900). The Life of Isaac Ingalls Stevens. Houghton, Mifflin and Company.