Predatory Saloon Keeper Targets Puyallup Landholder
An Indian man faces the potential loss of his property after signing a document he believed was a loan mortgage, but which turned out to be a deed.
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 case has been started in the Pierce county superior court which illustrates the manner in which the Indians are deprived of their lands. Jack Smokalem has brought the suit against W. P. Sundberg, who runs a saloon near the corner of Eleventh and Commerce streets, and who is claimed to have been in the habit of selling liquor to Indians and supplying money when their funds ran short. Last July, Smokalem asked Sundberg to loan him $100, which he did, and for which, it is alleged, the Indian was to pay $20 interest for the six months that he was to keep it. Not satisfied with Smokalem's promise to pay interest on the money at the rate of 40 percent a year, Sundberg induced the Indian to sign what the latter supposed was a mortgage to secure the loan, but which turns out to have been a deed to ten acres of land. The saloon keeper states that Smokalem agreed, when he signed the instrument, that if the principal and interest were not paid within six months the deed was to become binding. Notwithstanding the fact that Sundberg knew the ten acres of land for which the deed was given were worth at least $750, he did everything in his power to take the property on the $120 loan. Williamson & Williamson, attorneys for Smokalem, proffered the $120 which Sundberg claimed was due him, but it was refused, and suit has been instituted to have the deed declared void as such, and only binding as a mortgage. The case will come up for trial in the superior court in the near future. Similar transactions have been going on for years, as court records will show, but this is the first instance of suit being brought in this county in a matter of this kind.
“Not satisfied with Smokalem's promise to pay interest... Sundberg, by some means, induced the Indian to sign what the latter supposed was a mortgage.”
This case highlights the historical pattern of land dispossession through predatory financial exploitation, a strategy often directed at Indigenous people throughout the Pacific Northwest. Today, legal safeguards have evolved, but the underlying power dynamic of utilizing debt to seize real estate remains a significant point of civic and housing contention.
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