Page 18 - Pierce County Lawyer - September October 2025

In 1945, a significant event happened related to the treaty guaranteed fishing
rights. Billy Frank Jr., a 14-year old Nisqually Tribal member, was arrested
for legally fishing on his family's land. His arrest increased tensions which
had been building between Treaty fishers and state law enforcement for
decades and also served as a catalyst for Billy himself to become a treaty
rights activist.
Twenty-eight years earlier, Pierce County had illegally condemned Nisqually
reservation land alond the Nisqually River to build Fort Lewis without
Congressional approval, an act which forcibly displaced the Native people
who lived there. In response, Billy's father, William, purchased six acres
along the Nisqually River, later dubbed "Frank's Landing." This provided
access to a small portion of ancestral waters and land for family, friends, and
other Native fishers. It was on this parcel of land that Billy was arrested. By
the 1960's, Frank's Landing had become a center for Indian fishing activists
and a focal point for the assertion of Tribal treaty rights in Washington State.
Treaty of Medicine Creek: February 10 - July 8, 2024
The History Museum will display the original, hand-written Article III of the
1854 Medicine Creek Treaty that guaranteed fishing rights to Tribal Treaty
signers. This document, on loan from the National Archives and Records
Administration, remains a powerful reminder of the complexity of the Native
American experience.
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the Indians by an interpreter in the service of the
United States using Chinook Jargon, which was also
unknown to some tribal representatives. Having only
about 300 words in its vocabulary, the Jargon was
capable of conveying only rudimentary concepts, but
not the sophisticated or implied meaning of Treaty
provisions about which highly learned jurists and
scholars differ.”
In continuing, the court held that “the Treaty must
therefore be construed not according to the technical
meaning of its words of learned lawyers, but in the sense
in which they would naturally be understood by the
Indians.”
The Chinook Jargon would be similar to the Swahili
language used as a trade language over a large portion of
Africa.
Judge Boldt then reviewed all of the United States
Supreme Court decisions which appeared to interpret
similar language and several other Indian Treaties
granting the right to Indians to fish and hunt on off-
reservation rivers and lands. He concluded there were no
decisions holding that a state could pass laws restricting
or making it illegal for Indians to fish and hunt on
reservation areas reserved to them for such activities by
the Treaties.
His decision does recognize the power of Congress to
qualify or revoke any Treaty or provision thereof, and
it then reviewed the most current U.S. Supreme Court
decisions on these fishing rights in Puyallup-I and
Puyallup-II. Judge Boldt then concluded that portions
of the decision in Puyallup-I recognized the authority
of states to pass regulations that enable state agencies to
regulate off-reservation fishing rights of Treaty Indians
but only if they are necessary for the conservation of
a particular species of fish. The United States Supreme
Court in the Puyallup decision used the language:
“We do not imply that these fishing rights persist
down to the very last steelhead in the river. Rights
can be controlled by the need to conserve a species.”