PHOTO COURTESY OF PORT OF TACOMA

The land claims settlement paved the way for much of the development on the Tideflats that followed the agreement, such as the new terminal for shipping line Evergreen that opened several years ago on Blair Waterway.

– An Agreement for the Ages –

a desire to protect future generations

By Clare Jensen

Laura McCloud-Sterud was working as a secretary for Puyallup Tribe during the time the first land claims vote failed.

She, along with many other tribal members, were uninformed on the vote at the time, a reason why it died on its first time around.

The second time the land claim settlement went up for a vote in 1988 it passed by a two-to-one margin, due to the dedication and persistence of tribal members at the time.

McCloud-Sterud joined forces with Tribal Councilmembers Frank Wright Jr. and Bill Sterud to revive the settlement that had previously died. They created a petition to re-open negotiations, and put the settlement up to vote again.

As a single, working mother, McCloud-Sterud had a lot at stake. She thought long and hard before getting involved in the petition effort, largely due to her family’s storied history working with white government.

She worked with others to get the petition signed by at least 100 tribal members (there were currently 300 adult members at the time eligible to sign) and to educate the membership as to why the vote needed to pass that time.

McCloud-Sterud, Deena “Penny” Fryberg and Diane Ward did the brunt of the legwork in getting the petition signed.

“It was very unpopular,” she said. “But we did it.”

“I was driving a broken-down Indian car, Frank filled our tanks with gas,” she said. It took about six weeks to get the required number of signatures on the petition. After she used up all her vacation time, she then took an unpaid leave from her office to get the job done.

“It was hard. I had a young daughter to raise,” she said. “But I loved my family, and I love my children, and I wanted them to have a good future.”

McCloud-Sterud said that at first it was difficult to get signatures.

“I told people, ‘No matter what, they’re (the government) going to take this from us.’

“We needed to negotiate for the best we can get…or it was nothing. They understood that.”

She noted the time between the petition ratification and the vote itself was filled with rumors and turmoil. “It was a dangerous time for us. A lot of people were mad at us…threatening us.”

“But as long as we got the vote passed…that’s all I care about.”

And that is exactly what happened. 

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