SQUAXIN ISLAND TRIBE Squaxin Island web site
The Squaxin Island Tribe consists of descendents of the original inhabitants of the seven inlets of South Puget Sound which includes the Noo-Seh-Chatl of Henderson Inlet, Steh Chass of Budd Inlet, Squi-Aitl of Eld Inlet, Sawamish/T'Peeksin of Totten Inlet, Sa-Heh-Wa-Mish of Hammersley Inlet, Squawksin of Case Inlet and S'Hotle-Ma-Mish of Carr Inlet. We also belong to the surrounding watersheds.

On Christmas Day, 1854 the Treaty of Medicine Creek was negotiated in Chinook Jargon, a trade language inadequate to convey the complex issues of treaty making. This treaty, signed on December 26, was the first in Washington Territory. Approximately 660 people attended the negotiations, although it was raining and miserably cold. More could not attend because of the severity of the weather. The ancestral lands ceded to the United States government (by the Squaxin Island, Nisqually and Puyallup Tribes) in the 1854 Treaty of Medicine Creek included 4,000 square miles, or 2,560,000 acres, extending from the Cascades on the east to the Black Hills on the west, and from Mt. St. Helens to the Skookumchuck and Chehalis Rivers on the south and Wilke's Portage Vashon Island and the divide between the Puyallup and White Rivers on the North.

Tribal headquarters are now located in Kamilche, between Little Skookum and Totten Inlets, where hundreds of acres of land have been purchased and a thriving community has been established. The General Council of all members elects a seven-member council that oversees all branches of Tribal government and enterprise. Squaxin Island was one of the first 30 tribes in the nation to enter into the Self Governance Demonstration Project with the federal government. Now the Tribe establishes its own priorities and budgets for funds previously administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.