Tulalip, From My Heart: An Autobiographical Account of a Reservation Community

9 / Political and Social Conditions

199 9 / Political and Social Conditions W hen the decision came down from the Supreme Court in 1928, that was when my older boy was born, so the decision was kind of secondary to my new baby.1 I listened to my brother discuss the case because then some of the other Indian tribes started to be aware of and talk about the promises that were in the treaties that were never kept. Through the years things just got worse. About this time my brother Robert had a radio show. The city of Snohomish , Washington State, and the Snohomish Pioneers helped him. He was a member of the Snohomish Pioneers. They put on an hour radio program on KFBL in Everett. Wayne was just a baby then, so I never got to go. I went once. They did a drama about a tugboat that exploded and sank around here. All of the pioneers were screaming. I listened to them, and that is all I remember. My brother wrote the dialogue for another radio play about the first courthouse trial. He took it from the history of Snohomish County. It was on every week for several months, and it was a big thing for the county people, since so many of the early settlers from Everett, Stanwood, and Seattle were still living. My father played the fiddle on the program. You could hear people dancing. It was recreation for the settlers. Robert had a program on the Treaty of Point Elliott. Some of the employees from the boarding school and some of the chiefs had speaking parts. They talked about how much the Indians discussed the treaty before they met with Governor Stevens. I used to hear about the treaty so much when I was little. The Indians were not together on the treaty. It always seemed as though the Indians were clapping their hands and so happy over the whole thing. Actually, they talked about it for several days and nights. 1 The case is known as Duwamish et al. v. United States. F275. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Court of Claims, 1927. 200 / Political and Social Conditions My brother was the secretary of the Snohomish Tribe, and all the Tulalip soldiers were in that group—something like six or eight. They were all anxious to see if they could get land. So, as I said, the Snohomish organization grew. My brother died suddenly in April 1930.2 When he died, the group that was together at that time included reservation and nonreservation Indians. After two meetings, they voted me into my brother’s place. My father was the president. Later, when they were more established, the bigger group voted to make Thomas G. Bishop their president, and the name of the organization was changed to the Northwest Federation of American Indians. Thomas Bishop never lived on the Tulalip Reservation. He lived near Port Townsend, on a farm he inherited from his father. He was quite well known, and that is why the Tribe elected him. He was half-Indian. His father was white, which is why he had farmland. He was a senator in the Washington State legislature for a while. The older Indians had more patience with many of the issues they discussed , but some of them were troubled and they talked about how very blonde and blue-eyed some of the members of the Tribe were. They had very little Snohomish Tribe Indian blood, and there was no requirement on the amount of Snohomish tribal blood they had to have to be a member. The Northwest Federation of Indians became a large organization. Supposedly, there were Indians in the organization from the reservation, but they couldn’t tell if they were Indians. None of the off-reservation people were enrolled in the agency here or are on the census roll. They didn’t live here. Dozens of people were saying they were Indians. My father usually knew them, but he didn’t know all of them personally. I heard my father and the older ones, such as Ty Stockton, who was my brother, talking about this problem. We had people coming to meetings who were very little Indian. My brother Robert said, “I don’t think if it comes to that, the U.S. government Indian office will decide on their roll, and they will only accept the names that are on the agency roll.” Then my brother had died and my father was grieving. They felt...