Tension Rises on the Puyallup Reservation
A federal commission attempts to settle land disputes while facing intense resistance from the Puyallup people, who reject the government's authority to dismantle their land holdings.
The Puyallup Indian commission will not recognize land contracts offered by Indians for the sale of reservation land; they state that it is the purpose of the government not to permit the contracts to cut any figure in the sale of the same. This will affect upward of $100,000 estimated to be invested in reservation contracts. The commission considers the Doolittle bill for the removal of the restrictions upon the lands of the Indians distinctly in favor of those holding contracts, and that it is the desire of such holders to push forward the Doolittle bill in order that they may 'skin' the Indian and hold him to his contract. The Indian leaders have notified the commission that they would hereafter refuse to meet with them, either individually or as a people. Some of the leaders of the Indians claim that the commission is simply here to have a good time and spend the government's money.
“The Puyallup Indian commission will not recognize land contracts offered by Indians... they may 'skin' the Indian and hold him to his contract.”
This reflects the era of the Dawes Act and the systematic dispossession of Indigenous land. The tension over these contracts marks a pivotal moment in the erosion of the Puyallup Tribe's original reservation boundaries, many of which now sit under the modern city of Tacoma.
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