Ever since the Spanish traders and Vancouver in the latter part of the
last century, and the Northwest Fur Company and Hudson’s Bay Company in
the early part of the present century, came to Puget Sound, these
Indians have had some intercourse with the whites, and learned some
things about the white man’s ways, his Sabbath, his Bible, and his God.
Fort Nisqually, one of the posts of the Hudson’s Bay Company, was
situated about fifty miles from Skokomish, so that these Indians were
comparatively near to it.
About 1850, Americans began to settle on Puget Sound. In 1853 Washington
was set off from Oregon and organized into a territory, and in 1855 the
treaty was made with these Indians. Governor I. I. Stevens and Colonel
M. C. Simmons represented the government, and the three tribes of the
Twanas, Chemakums, and S’klallams were the parties of the other part.
The Chemakums were a small tribe, lived near where Port Townsend now
is, and are now extinct. The S’klallams, or Clallams (as the name has
since become), lived on the south side of the Straits of Fuca, from Port
Townsend westward almost to Neah Bay, and were by far the largest and
strongest tribe of the three. It was expected that all the tribes would
be removed to the reservation. The government, however, was to furnish
the means for doing so, but it was never done, and as the Clallams and
Twanas were never on very friendly terms, there having been many murders
between them in early days, the Clallams have not come voluntarily to
it, but remain in different places in the region of their old homes. The
reservation, about three miles square, also was too small for all of the
tribes, it having been said that twenty-eight hundred Indians belonged
to them when the treaty was made. There were certainly no more.
The treaty has been known as that of Point-No-Point, it having been made
at that place, a few miles north of the mouth of Hood’s Canal on the
main sound, in 1855. It was, however, four years later when it was
ratified, and another year before the machinery was put in motion, so
that government employees were sent to the reservation to teach the
Indians. In the meantime the Yakama War took place, the most
wide-spread Indian war which ever occurred on this north-west coast, it
having begun almost simultaneously in Southern Oregon, Eastern Oregon,
and Washington, and on Puget Sound. The Indians on the eastern side of
the sound were engaged in it, but the Clallams and Twanas as tribes did
not do so, and never have been engaged in any war with the whites. They
were related by marriage with some of the tribes who were hostile, and a
few individuals from one or both of these tribes went to the eastern
side of the sound and joined the hostiles, but as tribes they remained
peaceable.