Duwamish Tribe Deserve Recognition
House of Representatives - September 21, 2004

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to talk on this resolution because I think it is a long time in coming. Our treatment of the first people in this country has been abysmal. We are largely ignorant of what their culture was or that there was a culture, and this is now an opportunity to redress what I think has been a serious error that has been made by the United States.

What is amazing about this is that it is not over. At the time of the last 8 years under President Clinton, a number of tribes tried to get their recognition. The Duwamish and Chinook tribes in the State of Washington went through the entire process in the Department of the Interior. They were given their status as recognized tribes in this process. The President signed the order creating this relationship with the Chinooks and the Duwamish, and when the new administration came in, one of the very first things they did was reach back into the desk drawer and wipe out the Duwamish tribe. They do not exist any more, to this administration.

Now, I come from a city called Seattle, that is a corruption of the name of the Chief of the Duwamish tribe, Sealth. Chief Sealth was a Duwamish. He lived in this country when everybody arrived. He helped those people who came into Pugent Sound all by themselves. And, in fact, he gave his name to the city. He made a speech once where he said, "When I met the great white father, I didn't know the land was his. I thought that God gave us, the great spirit gave us the land to live in and to share and to leave it in better condition than when we found it." That kind of wisdom is in that museum, and you will see it.

However, the fact is there are still wrongs that need to be righted. This Congress needs to advance a bill, which we put in a couple of years ago and no one ever wants to even have a hearing on. We want to be out here glorify the opening of a museum. And it is a good thing the museum was started before this administration got in place, or it never would have happened. I believe that there are these kind of grievances that people need to go and find out about.

We took their land. We created treaties with people who did not really understand how skillful we were with words, but they took us at our words and they have tried to live with us. But the fact is that we still continue to leave the Duwamish without their recognition and Chief Sealth is a man without a tribe.

That is wrong. We should fix that, too.