An Indigenous Man Challenges a Broken Contract
A legal dispute over a fishing net reveals the tension between Indigenous property rights and the courts.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
H. E. Levy was unable to tell the jury in Judge Osborn's court that an Indian had stolen Wilson and Leary's net, which he had sold him. The testimony on the Indian side was given in Chinook, which was translated to court by another Indian in a very graphic manner. The defendant’s story, which was the only one in the case other than the one necessary to term it a war of words, was that he bought a net from Levy in 1892 and did not know that any balance was due. Levy claims that there was $4 due for the net, and that he retained a lien on the net until the note was paid. Judge Osborn charged the jury that the burden of proving that the net was not fully paid for was upon the plaintiff. The jury had only been absent about three minutes before agreeing on a verdict for the defendant. Steve and his friends left the court fully satisfied with the workings of the white man's law.
“Steve and his friends left the court fully satisfied with the workings of the white man's law.”
While framed with the casual racism of 1893, this story captures a rare moment where an Indigenous man successfully used the settler court system to defend his property rights against a predatory claim. It highlights the pervasive use of Chinook Jargon as a lingua franca in Seattle’s courts during the late 19th century.
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