The Duwamish Tribe, a group of Indigenous people that has sought federal recognition as a sovereign Indian nation for nearly 50 years, will get another chance to make its case, a judge ruled last week.

U.S. District Court Judge Jamal N. Whitehead for the Western District in Seattle on Thursday ruled the tribe's quest for recognition should be considered again under a new set of rules that may be more favorable to the tribe.

Cecile Hansen, chairwoman of the Duwamish since 1975, celebrated the news.

"It opens the door," said Hansen. "It is a wonderful thing."

The tribe most recently filed for federal recognition in May 2022. They have been on a roller coaster since the federal government granted recognition in 2001 then abruptly took it away after a change of administrations. This newest ruling reopens an examination of the proposal at the U.S. Department of Interior.

Under it, the tribe will now be able to bring in new evidence under rules adopted in 2015 that will allow it "to rely on evidence of self-identification as an Indian tribe," the judge wrote, including through women in the tribe who had married white settlers. The women's connections to the tribe were not considered in prior evaluations.

That, the Duwamish had argued, was a sexist dismissal of the female lineage of its leaders in a matriarchal tribe.

The fight by the Duwamish has been bitterly opposed by the Muckleshoot, Suquamish and Tulalip tribes, which are federally recognized. Those Puget Sound tribes have noted an earlier federal court decision that denied the Duwamish treaty rights on the basis that they are not descended from the same community that signed the treaty.

U.S. District Court Judge George Boldt denied the Duwamish treaty rights and stated its relations with the U.S. government were more like a social or business group. Boldt also stated his use of the word "tribe" in the ruling did not indicate a finding or conclusion that the Duwamish Tribe actually was an Indian tribe, as the federal government defines it, at all.

His decision was upheld by the Court of Appeals in 1981. The U.S. Supreme Court declined review.

But the denial of treaty rights, Judge Whitehead found, is not relevant in this case for remand. He declared treaty fishing rights a different matter from federal recognition.

Recognition is an important federal procedure because recognized tribes gain unique benefits, including powers of self-governance, the right to control lands held in trust for them by the federal government and the right to apply for federal government services.

Tribal communities may apply for federal recognition, to be considered by the Department of Interior. They may also apply directly to Congress. Interior requires tribes meet seven criteria, including identification as an American Indian entity on a "substantially continuous basis" from historical times to the present.

Rules adopted in 2015 changed just what that means in ways that could be favorable to the Duwamish, the judge found, both in moving up the period that must be accounted for from "historic times" to 1900, and allowing the tribe to define community continuity through relationships not considered before — such as Duwamish women who married settlers.

Interior sought the remand not because it admitted fault but because it argued the case deserved a fresh evaluation under the 2015 rules.

There is no dispute that the historic Duwamish Tribe lived on the lands that make up present-day Seattle and the surrounding areas along the Black, Cedar and Duwamish rivers. In the mid-19th century, the U.S. negotiated a series of treaties with the tribes of the Puget Sound region. In 1855, Chief Seattle signed the Treaty of Point Elliott on behalf of his mother's and father's tribes, the historic Duwamish Tribe and the Suquamish Tribe. The Point Elliott treaty tribes ceded to the United States nearly all of their territory in Western Washington.

These treaties established reservations in the Puget Sound region, including those that are known as the Lummi Reservation, the Tulalip Reservation, the Port Madison Reservation and the Puyallup Reservation. The Muckleshoot Indian Reservation was established by executive orders issued in 1857 and 1874, under the authority of the Treaties of Medicine Creek and Point Elliott. The Duwamish did not get a reservation; many community members with Duwamish lineage today are members of Puget Sound treaty tribes.

Through it all, Hansen says she has only ever had one goal: "To gain recognition for this tribe, the signers of the treaty of Point Elliott.

"We are the Duwamish. The People of the Inside. And we are still here."

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