Point Elliot Treaty Site, Point Elliot, Mukilteo, WAThe purpose of the treaties was to cede Indian lands to the public domain of the United States. Once this was done, settlers acting under the Donation Land Law could select properties of their choice. The Indians were guaranteed their rights to hunt and fish and were to be paid for their lands. The Indians would be removed to reservations where, it was believed, they would be free from the degradation of White society. It affected the territory of 22 tribes west of the Cascades to Puget Sound and north of Tacoma to the Canadian border. Such important leaders as Sealth (After whom the City of Seattle was named), Patkanim, Goliah, and Chow-Its-Hoots signed the treaty. Although handily developed by Stevens, the treaties were not success-ful. Instead of providing for a smooth passage of Indian lands to the federal government while maintaining the rights of the Indian, they were actually a central cause in the outbreak of Indian wars in 1856. Originally, the area was a small beach backed by marshes and a steep bluff, but both man and nature have altered the site greatly since the signing of the treaty. Most of the area is paved with asphalt for use as a parking lot for boat-launching facilities and a Coast Guard light station occupies another portion of the site. The precise location of the treaty signing is not known. Several locations have been named as the proper place but none seem to carry any more authenticity than another. Probably the earliest and most reputable attempt at location was conducted in 1919, by historians Clarence Bagley and Edmund Meany. They verified the site and planned to erect a granite pylon but the project was never accomplished. Apparently they never recorded the location in a published source. In 1930, the Daughters of the American Revolution erected a bronze plaque mounted on a granite slab to memorialize the event but the marker is located on hillside which would have been heavily timbered in 1855. Such a location would be an unlikely meeting place. In 1953, the local Veterans of Foreign Wars erected a memorial to the event in the form of a bench. A fourth location for the treaty signing is adjacent to the Coast Guard property and one hundred feet from the beach. The coordinates included in this nomination mark a location on Point Elliot which is representative only and is not the established site of the treaty signing. Isaac Ingalls Stevens, first territorial Governor of Washington, railroad surveyor and West Point graduate, promoted a series of treaties in the mid-l850's, with a number of Indian tribes. Adapted from the National Register of Historic Places Application on file at the Everett Public Library, Everett, Washington. |