The Struggle for the Puyallup Reservation
A legal war unfolds over railroad rights-of-way through the Puyallup Reservation, pitting federal troops against private developers as Indigenous residents face displacement.
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.
Tacoma, May 19.—Copies of the contracts for rights-of-way through the Puyallup reservation have been secured by Agent Eells for use at the hearings in the interference of the troops with the graders. The point to be made in connection with these contracts is that they show that the Indian graders were in fact employed by Ross, and were not of their own volition working on the railroad grade. The Commercial Club has been 'sat upon' by those who have considered it entirely contrary to law and against the best interests of the Indians. A telegram has been received at the war department from Gen. Ruger, repeating a dispatch he received from Capt. Carpenter, who was sent to the Puyallup Indian reservation to prevent Frank C. Ross from unlawfully building a railroad, stating that an injunction had been served upon him by the circuit court, preventing him from interfering with Ross.
“The people of Tacoma are interested from a business standpoint in seeing the Puyallup reservation opened up, and every Christian ought to be interested from a humane standpoint.”
This 1893 legal battle over the Puyallup Reservation highlights the long history of external commercial interests attempting to break up communal Indigenous land. Today, the Puyallup Tribe exercises significant sovereign control over its lands, a testament to the decades of struggle that began with resistance to these very nineteenth-century encroachment schemes.
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