The Muckleshoot Reservation Is Carved Into 40-Acre Allotments
Federal agents move to survey and divide the Muckleshoot reservation near Auburn into individual tracts, a policy that will reshape Indigenous land tenure.
The Muckleshoot Indian reservation will probably soon be divided into allotments of forty acres each. The information comes from a letter Receiver Terry received yesterday afternoon from B. E. Axe, farmer at the reservation. The letter informed him that, under orders from Gen. Govan, Indian agent at Tulalip, he would receive bids for the subdivision of the Muckleshoot reservation into forty-acre tracts.
Surveyors will be required to furnish maps and field notes showing improvements, with the names of all occupants. The reservation is mostly open land, containing 3,367 acres located in sections 1, 2, 12, 20, 28 and 34, township 21 north, range 5 east. The general location is described as being near Auburn. Axe says he will furnish axmen.
“The Muckleshoot Indian reservation will probably soon be divided into allotments of forty acres each.”
The 1887 Dawes Act and later allotment policies broke communal Indigenous lands into individual parcels, opening 'surplus' acres to outsiders and undermining tribal sovereignty. The Muckleshoot Reservation near Auburn survived this process, but its land base was radically reduced. Today the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe is a major economic and cultural force in King County, and the allotment era remains a central chapter in its history.
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