Treaty Rights & Co-Management

The 1855 Treaties

In the mid-1850s, the United States government negotiated a series of treaties with the Native Nations of the Pacific Northwest. At councils in Medicine Creek (1854), Point Elliott, Point No Point, and Neah Bay (all 1855), tribal leaders ceded millions of acres of land to the United States. In return, they reserved specific rights — including the right to fish at their usual and accustomed grounds and stations.

For the tribes, these were not concessions — they were explicit protections for a way of life built around salmon over thousands of years. The treaty language, negotiated partly in Chinook Jargon with U.S. government interpreters, stated that tribes would have the right to fish "in common with all citizens of the Territory." Tribal leaders understood this to guarantee their fishing rights in perpetuity.

A Century of Broken Promises

Despite the treaty guarantees, the state of Washington spent much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries restricting and criminalizing tribal fishing. State fish and wildlife officers arrested tribal fishers for practicing rights their ancestors had explicitly reserved. Courts sometimes sided with tribes, sometimes with the state — with no consistent interpretation of what "in common with" actually meant.

By the 1960s, tribal frustration had reached a breaking point. Inspired by the civil rights movement, tribes on the Nisqually, Puyallup, and other rivers began staging fish-ins — deliberately fishing in defiance of state regulations to assert their treaty rights. Leaders like Billy Frank Jr. of the Nisqually Tribe were repeatedly arrested. Their arrests drew national attention and eventually forced the issue into federal court.

United States v. Washington (1974) — The Boldt Decision

In 1970, the United States government — acting on behalf of the tribes — filed suit against the State of Washington in federal district court. Four years of proceedings followed. On February 12, 1974, Judge George Boldt issued his ruling in United States v. Washington.

Judge Boldt's decision was sweeping. He ruled that the treaties did guarantee tribes the right to fish at their usual and accustomed grounds, and that "in common with" meant a 50/50 split of the harvestable salmon between tribal and non-tribal fishers. He also ruled that tribes had the right to participate in managing the fisheries that the treaties protected — establishing tribes as co-managers, not just users.

The State of Washington appealed immediately and vigorously. State fish and wildlife officers openly defied the ruling. The conflict went to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld Judge Boldt's decision in 1979.

Co-Management in Practice

Today, tribal fisheries managers and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) engage in an ongoing co-management process that governs how Puget Sound salmon are harvested and protected. This process includes:

• Annual pre-season negotiations: Each spring, tribal and state biologists meet to review spawner survey data, set escapement goals (how many salmon must return to spawn), and agree on harvest limits for the coming season.
• Hatchery co-management: Many tribes operate their own hatcheries and contribute to jointly-managed hatchery programs. Tribes like Tulalip, Muckleshoot, and Nisqually run hatcheries on their watersheds, integrating traditional ecological knowledge with modern fisheries science.
• Spawner surveys: Tribal biologists conduct spawner surveys alongside state staff — wading streams to count returning salmon. This data feeds directly into harvest decisions and habitat prioritization.
• Habitat advocacy: Tribal nations use their co-manager status to formally comment on land-use decisions, water rights, and infrastructure projects that affect salmon habitat — from logging permits to highway culverts.

The Living Agreement: Treaty Rights Today

Treaty rights are not museum pieces. They are active, living legal protections that continue to shape policy today. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld — in an equally divided decision — a Ninth Circuit ruling that the State of Washington must repair thousands of culverts under state roads that block salmon migration. The Washington v. United States (Culverts Case) decision is a direct extension of the treaty right to fish: if the state's own infrastructure blocks the salmon from reaching their spawning grounds, the treaty right is violated.

The case has resulted in a multi-billion-dollar commitment to replace fish-blocking culverts across Washington State — one of the largest salmon habitat restoration efforts in the region's history, driven entirely by treaty law.

The data you see on this dashboard — salmon return numbers, stream temperatures, habitat quality — exists partly because tribal co-managers pushed for the monitoring infrastructure to track it. The legal framework and the ecological science are inseparable.