The Puget Sound War (1855-56) started as a treaty dispute and ended in the execution of an innocent Chief Leschi (of the Nisqually) and the murder of his brother, Quiemuth. The Puget Sound is a waterway in the southern Salish Sea (pictured above), and was frequently travelled by these Central Coast Salish families and neighbouring nations such as the Haida (who were still executing raids while this war took place).
Native American Netroots describes the war from the Indigenous perspective. Let us never forget that American leaders continuously advocated for extermination and labelled Indigenous peoples as “hostile” to justify the genocide. When two Settlers died in the Battle of Seattle, Governor Stevens’ encouragement led American volunteers to hunt down and slaughter Indigenous women and children.
Honourable mentions:
This entry in Omitted History is good, but I hesitated to include it because in the conclusion Indigenous peoples are referred to as the “previous inhabitants of what many of us call our home.” Without diving too deep into language and how it affects thought, suffice it to say that Indigenous people are the original inhabitants of our lands. We live on what continues to be their traditional territories, often unceded through treaties. To say “previous” suggests that they don’t exist today, which is 100% false.
Thurston Talk published an article examining the white men who may have murdered Quiemuth, but in a light-hearted way that sums up the period as: “There was a lot of violence in these early years.” That’s what we call white-washing history.
Image credit: The paradox of boundaries in Coast Salish territories (Thom 2011)