This overhead view depicts the shipping terminals that will be created through the partnership between Puyallup Tribe and Stevedoring Services of America, a $300 million, privately funded port development that will create hundreds of new jobs and have a substantial economic impact on the region.

An agreement for the ages

Land Claims settlement forever changed the tribe and its neighbors

By John Larson

The Puyallup Tribe’s quest to have access and control of its traditional lands is a long and complex ordeal.

The Medicine Creek Treaty of 1854, an agreement between the territorial government of Washington and the tribe, was the first effort by the government to set aside lands for the Puyallups. The tribe obtained a reservation of 1,280 acres along Commencement Bay.

In 1857 the reservation was expanded by a presidential executive order to 18,000 acres, the size it remains today.

In 1890 Congress created a three-member Puyallup Commission to determine the Puyallups’ interests in the land, such as whether restrictions on selling land should be removed.

By 1897 the commission was reduced to one person, a Tacoma businessman. By the first decade of the 20th century a good deal of the original reservation land was in private ownership, and more of it became so in the next several decades.

In later years, many Puyallups firmly believed their ancestors had been swindled out of their rightful lands due to factors such as limited knowledge of English and unfamiliarity with the business practices of the white man.

Frank Wright, Jr., served on Puyallup Tribal Council in the early 1980s and is now general manager of the Emerald Queen Casino locations in Fife and Tacoma.

The settlement was built upon decades of research done by his father, Frank Wright, Sr., and Silas Cross. They spent countless hours searching for documents that would support the Puyallups’ claim to their land.

Later Wright, Jr., and fellow tribal members Judy Wright and Bill Sterud followed up on this research with Bob Waller, a non-Indian historian. One day Waller read something in a history book about a lawsuit involving James Ashton. The judge in the case was supposedly a close friend of Ashton. Wright, Jr., said the judge was impeached for doing illegal favors for his cronies, some of which dealt with transactions on Puyallup land.

“It was the smoking gun,” he said. “It tied together the information from my dad and Silas Cross and what we had gathered.”

Sterud, who is on Puyallup Tribal Council and has been for most of the past 30 years, feels the land claims started with the decision in the Ashton case in 1904. He also credits the work of Wright, Sr., and Cross in setting the foundation for the tribe’s legal arguments. In the late 1940s the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers relocated the Puyallup River from its channel. This left the former riverbed as uplands, which Port of Tacoma claimed.

In 1980 the tribe filed an action against the port to quiet title on approximately 12.5 acres of former riverbed land. In July 1981, U.S. District Court Judge Jack Tanner ruled the Tribe had title to this land. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Tanner’s decision. The port appealed this, but in February 1984 the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.

Negotiations Begin

The riverbed case caused title insurance companies to stop issuing titles anywhere within the traditional reservation boundaries. “That threw the real estate world into chaos,” said John Bell, now the tribe’s law offices director. He represented the tribe during much of the settlement process.

Wright, Jr., sent a letter to U.S. Representative Norm Dicks, Tacoma Mayor Doug Sutherland and other political leaders proposing negotiations over other parcels.

Dicks said the alternative was to go to court. “We thought that was too risky,” he said, because so much future development in downtown Tacoma, Fife and on the Tideflats depended on settling who had rightful title to the land.

What became the non-Indian negotiating team was assembled. Members included Dicks, Sutherland, John Ladenburg (a member of Tacoma City Council at the time), and Ray Corpuz, who became city manager of Tacoma in 1990.

Jim Waldo, an attorney with the law firm of Gordon, Thomas, Honeywell, Malanca, Peterson & Daheim, was hired by the port to lead the legal team for the non-Indian side.

After the riverbed decision, the tribe made a claim to land in section 34, where the port’s headquarters sits. This is where shipping giant Sea-Land wanted a terminal so it could relocate from Seattle to Tacoma.

Waldo noted that the issue was so complicated because long before the settlement, the boundaries of the reservation were changed from what was first spelled out at Medicine Creek. Later Congress split the reservation into allotments, which were granted to tribal members. Early in the century, most of the titles had passed from tribal members to non-Indians.

Land claims and jurisdictional issues were involved in the discussions. “The settlement was designed to get clarity around both of those sets of issues,” he remarked.

In September 1985 an agreement in principle was reached between the non-Indian negotiators and Puyallup Tribal Council. It was valued at $112 million, with $27 million of this set aside for removal of the bridge over Blair Waterway. The remaining money was allocated for trust funds and loan funds for the tribe, and for a range of social and economic development programs.

On Feb. 8, 1986, the tribal membership rejected it by a vote of 236 to 158.

Ramona Bennett, who had been a tribal council chair during the tumultuous 1970s, was off the council by this time. She said the first offer was rejected because it contained nothing specifically for individual members.

She said she sent a letter to the membership prior to the vote, at her own expense, that claimed the value of the tribe’s land on the Tideflats was $11 billion. By her calculation, each member deserved a check for $1,733 per month for life as “rent” from the port and private sector users of the reservation.

Frank Wright, Jr., said that prior to the first vote, many members stated they did not want to receive money in the settlement as they viewed that as selling out.

After the vote, the Bureau of Indian Affairs provided the tribe with $100,000 for voter outreach efforts related to the issue. Members were paid stipends to attend meetings. He said he paid for a referendum, which helped put the tribe back at the bargaining table.

After working so hard on the deal, many on the non-Indian side were dejected. “We had a long way to recover from that,” Waldo said.

The state wanted to drop out of the negotiations altogether. Dicks and U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, chair of Indian Affairs Committee, convinced Governor Booth Gardner to get the state back in the game.

More negotiations ensued, with people on both sides hoping to avoid litigation. In July 1988 several days of talks at Alderbrook Inn led to a tentative accord.

A proposal that would provide the tribe $162 million was voted on by the membership on Aug. 27, 1988, and passed 319-162.

“There was more for the individual,” Bennett said of the second offer. Each member was offered a payout of $20,000. “There was more property, guarantees that more things would go into trust,” she said.

She clearly feels the tribe did not get what it deserved, but feels it passed because Native people did not trust their chances at going to court. “The reason for accepting the pittance we got is our lack of faith in the judicial system, not a lack of belief in the validity of our holdings.”

“When you go to court, you are just throwing the dice on the table,” Sterud said.

The settlement became official when President George H.W. Bush signed federal legislation enacting it on June 21, 1989.

The Impact of the Gabriel Landry now works in human resources for Puyallup Tribal Health Authority. The settlement provided funds for certain services for tribal members such job training. Before the settlement, members would have to go to county or state agencies for many social services. Many were denied access for cultural reasons, he noted. The settlement paved the way for the tribe to offer more in the way of health care and education.

“We went from a tribe that was near extinction to one of the richest and most politically powerful tribes in the state,” he remarked.

The settlement led to new opportunities for the tribe, such as its recent agreement with Stevedoring Services of America (SSA) to build shipping terminals on tribal land along Blair Waterway.

As executive director of Marine View Ventures, the tribe’s economic development arm, Chad Wright is closely involved in making sure the tribe makes the most of the opportunities the settlement presented.

One of the early projects was Chinook Landing Marina, which the tribe operates along Hylebos Waterway.

“The lands we acquired were ripe for development.” Other parcels the tribe got included one on the Hylebos that has yet to be developed, and one in Fife that could be used for warehouses.

“It freed up the port to become what it became today,” Chad Wright said. “All Marine View Ventures had to do was take what they gave us and put it to work.”

Improved Relations

Many local leaders point to improved relations between the tribe and its neighboring governments since the settlement. Tim Thompson was on Dicks’ staff during the negotiations and now is a consultant who specializes in public affairs. He points to the new terminal for the Evergreen shipping line, which required closing part of Alexander Avenue and led to the tribe shifting gaming operations to Fife and Tacoma’s East Side.

“That whole deal, and the related environmental efforts, required the signature of all the parties in the land claims settlement,” he said. “The spirit of the settlement is seen in all of the recent development.”

Frank Wright, Jr., noted that people like himself, Ladenburg and Corpuz were young men during the negotiations. Their interaction led to positive relationships ever since. “We became friends. Communication barriers broke down.”     

Many who were involved in the negotiations gathered at Hotel Murano in Tacoma Sept. 22 to look back at the settlement and celebrate what it accomplished.

“It has been a long trail,” said Tribal Council Chairman Herman Dillon, Sr. “It has been a success, I think, and will continue to be a success.”

Fife and the Land Claims Settlement

Fife played a unique role in the Land Claims Settle-ment, as it was the only jurisdiction totally contained within reservation boundaries. The main concern of the city during negotiations with the Puyallup Tribe was to maintain primary jurisdiction over its land.
After withdrawing from the negotiations in the beginning, Fife re-entered the discussions.
“The city reengaged and worked diligently with the tribe and non-tribal members to protect the Fife property owners and the financial base, and still provide proper honor and respect to the tribe,” said City Attorney Loren Combs, who has represented the city for 21 years.
Since then the relationship between Fife and the tribe has flourished.
“The agreement was the start of a new era,” Combs said. “The city and the tribe recognized that each of them were going to coexist, so let’s make it work…Both sides have remained committed to that respect for each other’s authority.”

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