In the Feb. 19 edition of The Herald, Les Parks submitted a very well-written and emotional appeal claiming that the Tulalip Tribes own and have jurisdiction over all the tidelands within the historic boundaries of the Tulalip Reservation. Unfortunately, his interpretation of the facts is incorrect and leads the reader to believe that these disputed lands were granted to the Tulalip Tribes in the Point Elliot Treaty and the Executive Order of 1873. The facts do not support this claim.
But before I share with you the actual facts, let me first make one point very clear.
The fee simple owners of the tidelands, non-tribal and tribal, all share the common belief that the tidelands require protection. The waterfront landowners have a vested interest in protecting these shoreline areas. Their homes and property depend on the integrity of the associated tidelands and we rely on our state and county governments to enforce regulations to protect them. Our concerns about protecting the tidelands are exactly the same as the Tulalip Tribes’. We encourage the Tulalip Tribes to adopt polices that are as stringent as those developed by the state of Washington and Snohomish County and to apply these regulations equally to tribal members and tribally owned tidelands.
Now to the historical facts.
The Tulalip Tribes do not have clear ownership or jurisdiction over all the tidelands within the historical reservation boundaries. I suggest that all readers of this column take a few minutes and read the complete text of the Point Elliot Treaty and the Executive Order of 1873. Nowhere in the language of the documents are the tidelands granted to the Tulalip Tribes as claimed by Mr. Parks.
In 1855, the Point Elliot Treaty did establish a temporary reservation and Native Americans from the Puget Sound region were encouraged to move there. In 1873, by executive order, the reservation acreage was expanded and was described to include lands to the “low water” mark. The purpose of the executive order was to clarify the reservation boundaries so that all land, including the tidelands, would be allotted to individual Indians or families. It is also important to note that the Tulalip Tribes did not exist at the time of this expansion and there is no documented evidence that the federal government withheld the tidelands aside from these allotments for the Tulalip Tribes.
The reservation was never intended to be a permanent reservation. The goal of the allotment era and allotment process was to do away with reservations by granting the individual Indian residents ownership of these lands and status equal to any other citizen of the United States. This allotment process was patterned after “homesteading” policies used by the federal government to encourage land ownership across the country. Indian allottees were then required to hold and live on these allotted lands for a specified period of time in order to perfect their ownership. At the end of the proscribed period, many of these allotments were transferred out of “restricted fee status” into “fee simple status.” In other words, these Indians were granted fee simple ownership of their lands free and clear of any further federal restrictions.
The Indian owners were now free to hold them, develop them or to sell them like any other American citizen. Many decided to sell. They were not “converged upon” and taken advantage of “unbeknownst to them,” as Mr. Parks states. The Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs policy for individual Indian land sales required supervision and review to be sure those Indian owners were not taken advantage of and that the lands were sold at or above the “fair market value” of the time. It is quite clear that these sales included the tidelands to the low water mark.
The Tulalip Tribes wrongly perceive they own these tidelands, which were sold with the uplands. For nearly 100 years, many landowners have had possession of valid legal documents that clearly describe their property to the low water mark. These non-tribal owners are understandably upset now that the Tulalip Tribes are claiming ownership and jurisdiction over these tidelands, threatening them with regulations, fees and citations.
The non-tribal fee simple landowners will continue to assert their ownership of their tidelands. The facts and documentation are very clear and in all likelihood, a court will have to step in and reaffirm the fee simple owners’ right to these tidelands and reaffirm jurisdiction to the state of Washington and Snohomish County.
In the end, we all want to protect the tidelands and we all want to enjoy the free ownership of our properties. Both tribal and non-tribal owners have common interests. Let’s just keep it simple. The tribe has jurisdiction over the uplands and associated tidelands it owns and the state of Washington and Snohomish County have jurisdiction over the non-tribally owned uplands and associated tidelands. If both apply similar rules and regulations we can all achieve the same objective: a wonderful place to live, good neighbors, protection of the environment and harmony.
Tom Mitchell is president of the Marysville Tulalip Community Association.
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