Seattle’s Late-Night Policing of Indigenous Women
A 1873 ordinance allowed police to criminalize Indigenous women as 'vagrants' for simply being out after dark.
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.
A few days ago Chief of Police Woolery called the attention of the night police to ordinance No. 32 of the City of Seattle, approved August 14th, 1873, and instructed them to arrest all offenders of its provisions. The ordinance reads: 'The City of Seattle does ordain as follows—Section 1—That all dissolute Indian women or other disreputable persons found loitering or strolling about any street, wharf, alley or common or any public or private place within the city, except actually leaving the city by steamer or other conveyance, or arriving by such conveyance, shall, if found after 9 p.m. during the months of May, June, July, August and September, and after 8 p.m. of October, November, December, January, February, March and April of each year, be deemed vagrants and punished as such in accordance with ordinance No. 32, of the ordinances of the City of Seattle.'
“That all dissolute Indian women or other disreputable persons found loitering or strolling about any street... shall, if found after 9 p.m.... be deemed vagrants.”
This ordinance reflects the legalized structural racism of 19th-century Seattle, where city statutes were explicitly weaponized against Indigenous women to enforce segregation and social control. Today, the city reflects on this history as it navigates ongoing disparities in how policing and public space laws are applied to marginalized communities.
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