Messages from Frank's Landing: A Story of Salmon, Treaties, and the Indian Way

Indian law professor and scholar Charles Wilkinson has written an accessible and poignant book about a noteworthy Native American that all Americans should get to know. Billy Frank Jr. (Nisqually) has dedicated his life to protecting of the habitat, natural resources, and way of life for Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest. At age fourteen, he was arrested by Washington state wildlife wardens for fishing in the Nisqually watershed. During the 1960s, African American civil rights "sit-ins" inspired Native American "fish-ins." This focused national attention on Frank's Landing as a key battleground for Indian demands that the federal government uphold treaty rights to end a century of Washington state interference that jeopardized tribal survival and sovereignty. This struggle created a new level of awareness about Indian fishing rights in the United States. Billy Frank's forebearer Chief Leschi insisted that the 1854 Medicine Creek Treaty secure the reserved "right of taking fish, at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations ... in common with all citizens of the Territory." This treaty provision was violated by the state of Washington until in 1974 federal judge George Boldt ruled that "in common" meant that Indian fishers were entitled to half the harvestable catch of salmon. Despite the resistance to this decision by state officials and commercial fishing interests, the end result has been cooperation between federal, state, and tribal governments over fisheries co-management since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Boldt decision in 1979. Billy Frank, Jr. galvanized and sustained Native American efforts that produced the most significant Indian rights case of the twentieth century. He is now the chairman of the North¬west Indian Fisheries Commission fighting to restore the environment and natural resources of the western Washington treaty tribes. In 2004, Indian Country Today newspaper presented him with its Inaugural American Indian Visionary Award. Wilkinson tells Billy's story in a circular Native American style that is a welcome respite from textbooks or linear accounts of American Indian history. This book is suitable for high school students, the general reading public, and college under-graduates, and a "must read" if you live in the Pacific Northwest.

Messages from Frank's Landing is a unique examination of a turning point in Indian sovereignty in the Pacific Northwest. For nearly 12,000 years the Nisqually and Payullup Rivers have provided food, a way of life, and a spiritual force to the Indians of the Puget Sound region. Encroachments on their land and their fishing areas began in 1833 when the Hudson's Bay Company founded Fort Nisqually to enhance the fur trade. Their reservation was decreased significantly in 1854 through a perfidious treaty agreement, triggering the Leschi War, named for the Tribal leader who lost his life for the cause. During World War I, the U.S. government broke part of the treaty, and transferred a section of the reservation along the river to the army as part of Fort Lewis. Three years later, Billy Frank bought six acres along the river which became known as Frank's Landing. In the 1930s, the salmon count fell victim to unregulated offshore commercial boats and to hydroelectric development. The end of World War II signaled a massive population increase, and many non-Indians took jobs as offshore commercial fisherman. This population boom proved disastrous as hydroelectric dams, timber harvests, road and highway development, and pesticides used in forestry and agriculture combined to endanger the rivers. By the 1960s, Indians without fishing permits were the victims of constant raids and sting operations. In this context, Frank's Landing became the focal point for the tribal assertion of treaty rights in the Northwest. In 1962, the state mounted a major raid on Nisqually fisherman during the winter salmon run. The Nisqually's passive resistance was caught on film and ended up in front-page photographs. Frank's Landing gradually became to be recognized in the 1960s as a place to go and honor a noble cause. In 1970, the United States filed United States v. Washington, on behalf of the tribes in the Puget Sound and Olympic Peninsula areas that had been included in the 1854 treaties. On February 12, 1974, the Boldt Decision, as it came to be known, reaffirmed the treaties, and allocated 50% of all salmon harvested to the Indians. Indians made up less than one percent of the population, and had previously been taking only about five percent of the total salmon harvest. This was a drastic blow to the commercial and sport fisherman, and an extraordinary victory for the Indians. More significantly, the opinion recognized the tribes' sovereignty and ruled that tribal governments had the authority to regulate their members. Led by Billy Frank, Jr., the Tribe announced an ambitious program to restore the Tribe's fisheries, which had been devastated by years of pollution and misuse. To save the watershed, Frank, Jr. cooperated with two Washington state fish and wildlife agencies to find a way to operate the river for both salmon and power-production. Several projects over the next few years would ensure the livelihood of the salmon and their habitat for gen

As a member of a Pacific Northwest tribe and fishing family, I found this book to be resourceful, interesting, eye-opening, and yet hopeful. It summarized rather clearly many important points of the "fish wars," tribal treaties, government-to-government relations and tribal sovereignty, family and tribal traditions, timber and dam effects on river/fish sustainability, and much more. It is clear that the author put a tremendous amount of time and energy into the research and ideas behind this book. And it is not just a "history rewritten" book or an attempt by one cultural group to get their two cents in on the events of 30 to 150 years passed. It's about an Indian world view, and how saving the salmon and the rivers they run through is part of the Indian way.Another aspect that I liked about this book was the lack of white bashing, and also the tremendous respect for the law of the land. This book provides many examples of the patience required to work through the American judicial system, and how the positive results of that patience can be cultural, environmental, and social... things that are impossible to measure in terms of dollars.A hint of hope is intertwined through the chapters as various governments and cultures -- people with sometimes conflicting goals and values -- are able to successfully work together as "good neighbors."Inspiring and even humorous at times, I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of the Pacific Northwest, the environment, Indian culture, and/or the law. It would be great if this book ends up in classrooms at the junior high level on up. It also includes many excellent, crisp photos.