The Puyallup Protest Against Land Commissions
Indigenous leaders unite to condemn fraud, bribery, and intimidation by federal land commissioners.
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.
Senator Squire and Representative Doolittle are in receipt of copies of a series of resolutions passed at a mass meeting of citizens on the Puyallup reservation and signed by over 100 of those who are commonly called Puyallup Indians. In these resolutions, they condemn the actions of the commissioners sent there under the Wilson-Davis bill. They charge that these commissioners have not only made false statements but have used threats, intimidation, bribery, and fraud to procure the signatures of the Indians to papers which the commissioners wanted them to sign. The matter is creating no little talk among the members of congress and there is some talk of a congressional committee this summer to investigate the doings of Hoke Smith's men.
“They charge that these commissioners have not only made false statements but have used threats and intimidation, bribery, fraud and getting the Indians drunk in order to procure their signatures.”
This 1894 report captures a pivotal moment of dispossession on the Puyallup Reservation. The 'Wilson-Davis bill' refers to legislation intended to break up tribal landholdings and sell them off to non-Indigenous settlers, a practice that devastated tribal cohesion and echoes long-standing struggles over land sovereignty that continue in the Pacific Northwest today.
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