Pathways for Survival

  • After the surveyors platted indigenous land in and around the Town of Seattle, non-natives took the land as part of the U.S. Government's agenda to 'settle' the West.

  • Duwamish people faced three basic pathways for survival:
  • 1. move to the government designated tribal reservations, such as Suquamish, Tulalip or Muckleshoot. 2. remain in the ancestral land working for settlers, and for women, intermarrying with them
  • 3. move to rural places away from major urban areas where they maintained their cultural practices and tried to survive in the new economic order.
  • These pathways were, and are, fluid.
Katrina Jagodinsy's book Legal Codes traces the family histories of Duwamish who a continued to live in the Seattle area while working for or marrying non-native settlers. These stories are corroborated by Duwamish oral histories.
Unrecognized is an independent production of Seattle Films: Hidden Histories LLC. The opinions expressed are those of the producer and those interviewed.