The History of the Coast Salish, a group of Native American ethnicities on the Pacific coast of North America bound by a common culture, kinship, and languages, dates back several millennia. Their artifacts show great uniformity early on, with a discernible continuity that in some places stretches back more than seven millennia.
In the area of today's Coastal Salish, for example in the broad coastal border of the Canadian province of British Columbia and the US states of Washington and Oregon, traces of human presence go back over ten thousand years.
The livelihood was provided by fishing, especially salmon, as well as hunting and gathering activities. Recent research shows that some groups lived as early as the 2nd millennium BC. to a rural way of life with seasonally inhabited villages.
Already the first contacts with Europeans around 1775 decimated numerous groups to a great extent by imported diseases, above all by smallpox. Since the colonial powers Great Britain and Spain agreed in 1790 not to have trading posts, the construction of forts did not begin on the Pacific coast accessible by ship, but first on the Columbia and further inland and only reached Vancouver Island more than 50 years later. Thus, the canoe as a means of transport and the trade routes laid out by the coastal inhabitants, such as the Grease trails, gained great importance for the initially most important trade in otter and beaver pelts. In return, the Indians received metal goods and weapons, which greatly changed the local hierarchies and the balance of power between the tribes.
While the northern portion of the Salish-inhabited territory fell to the British Hudson's Bay Company, the southern portion fell to the USA in 1846. These displaced the Indigenous Peoples to a much greater extent through settlement and forced them into reservations by military force. While in British Columbia each group that was considered a "tribe" received its own, albeit mostly very small, Indian reserve, the USA set up larger "reservations" in which several tribes lived. Both states attempted to forcibly assimilate the Indigenous Peoples, with the US relying far more heavily on interbreeding, land privatization, and economic pressure. What they had in common was the attempt to wipe out the Indigenous cultures through bans and a corresponding school system. In the meantime, many Indigenous communities have succeeded in reviving their cultural heritage and enforcing self-government.
Introductory Overview
The early history of the Coast Salish people primarily relies on archaeological evidence, as written sources emerge only with the European exploration and subsequent claims in the late 18th century. In addition to these sources, the Coast Salish history is enriched by oral traditions and research on culturally modified trees, which provide valuable insights into their ancestral practices and methods of processing resources. These trees bear traces of human modification, signifying their cultural significance within the Coast Salish communities.
The semi-nomadic Salish on the coast lived mainly from salmon. At the latest from 1600 BC A rural way of life developed with a corresponding transformation of the landscape. There were also large villages that were sometimes inhabited in winter for centuries. Societies differentiated into a dominant nobility, the general population, and enslaved people, who were mostly prisoners of war and their descendants. In addition, there were enslaved people as objects of trade and the exchange in the form of ritual gifts within the leading groups.On the meaning of slavery see Leland Donald: Aboriginal slavery on the Northwest Coast of North America, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Similar to membership in the nobility, the rank of chief was mostly hereditary in certain families, but could be revoked.
The extremely rainy region produced temperate rainforests, which not only provided the material for the totem poles, which could reach over 50 m high, but also for the houses (early plank houses), but also for food, clothing and blankets. Metal, on the other hand, was extremely rare.
The seaworthy canoes permitted warfare along the coasts, but also extensive trade. The fur merchants and explorers coming from Europe also used the trade routes and well-known waterways. However, they also brought in unknown diseases that wiped out numerous tribes, for the Salish were decimated by smallpox as early as 1775 onwards. In addition, there was a particularly warlike phase, characterized by plundering raids by the northern coastal peoples, which were intensified by European weapons technology.
In 1846, the USA and Great Britain divided the vast Oregon Country along the 49th parallel, severing traditional territories, kinship and trade ties. The onset of settlement led to battles, especially in Washington, such as the Puget Sound Wars. The establishment of Indian reserves in Canada resulted in extreme dispersal of settlements, while in the United States, several tribes were often grouped together, creating new associations known as "tribes".
While the Salish were initially able to play an important economic role in British Columbia before they were pushed out of most industries by legislation, in the USA they were often relegated to comparatively inhospitable regions. The two states also pursued different strategies of forced assimilation. These began in both states with proselytizing - against which their own spiritual forms developed as a reaction - led to bans on the most important cultural expressions, excluded all native inhabitants from the right to vote and escalated to the point of the forced removal of Indigenous children to residential schools for which the Canadian government apologized in 2008. During this phase the population collapsed, most languages were lost and migration to the cities increased so much that the vast majority of the Coast Salish now live there.
The situation only changed with the changed legal situation, which the tribal representatives were able to enforce before the highest courts. Thanks to more open borders and the increasing prosperity of some tribes, but above all the growing awareness of the common cultural values, there was a partial revival of the community of the Salish groups. Many groups are still fighting for tribal recognition as a prerequisite to even entering into negotiations for their sovereignty and land. Tribal associations are pooling their efforts, borders are being marked and sovereignty rights are being successively granted.
While attempts were made in the USA for several decades to break up tribal lands into parcels and privatize them, the majority of Canadian reserves remained tribal property. British Columbia has been trying to implement this privatization in exchange for enlarged reserves since 1993 (BC Treaty Process), but only a few contracts have been concluded so far. Since 2007 it has been unclear whether this so-called BC Treaty Process can and should be continued.
Early history
The early history of the Coastal Salish and their predecessor cultures can only be grasped archaeologically and later by oral tradition. Approximately 400 construction permits are issued annually for around 23,000 archaeological sites in British Columbia. This often leads to conflicts, because the majority of the sources on Salish history are - often not easily recognizable - underground or in shell mounds (shell middens), some of which are several meters high. It was not until 1995 that a First Nation in British Columbia, the Nanoose, was able to gain a say in the management of archaeological sites. Despite research that was initially hardly funded, the results of the last few decades are remarkable. The situation is similar in Washington. In 2003, an archaeological report stated that there were 14,000 archaeological sites ranging from entire villages to trees that have been modified for cultural reasons (Culturally Modified Trees).M. Leland Stilson, Dan Meatte and Robert G. Whitlam: A Field Guide to Washington State Archaeology, 2003, p. 14.
In the early phase of human settlement, the landscape was still undergoing major changes. Glaciers, meltwater, swaying coastlines, a significantly lower sea level, tsunamis shaped this phase, and there were also uplifts and lowerings of the coastlines, which were triggered by the melting of the huge ice masses. With that, many artifacts should be gone for good. This probably explains, at least in part, why there are hardly any artifacts from before about 8000 BC,Cf. Mitochondrial Population Genomics Supports a Single Pre-Clovis Origin with a Coastal Route for the People of the Americas, in: The American Journal of Human Genetics 82/3 (March 3, 2008) 583-592 and Renée Hetherington, Andrew J. Weaver, Álvaro Montenegro: Climate and the migration of early peoples into the Americas, Geological Society of America Special Papers 2007, 113-132. except in places that have never been flooded. Artifacts dating back to the 9th millennium BC were found on Dundas Island, at Far West Point. One of the oldest sites in British Columbia was found near Namu. The region was settled between 8000 and 3000 BC. It was inhabited by semi-sedentary and sedentary groups who processed coarse-grained effusion rock into tools. Recent studies suggest the use of watercraft.Farid Rahemtulla: Design of Stone Tool Technology during the Early Period (ca. 10,000–5,000 BP) at Namu, Central Coast of British Columbia, Diss. Simon Fraser University, Vancouver 2006.
Traditionally, the Coast Salish have asserted that they have always lived where they live today. Creation stories are widespread, often of animals in human form, of creators or ancestors of today's tribes or Nations. In addition, there is the idea of a (transformer) who created the landscapes, the animal and plant inhabitants, the foundations of the social order. Often they contain memories of the immigration period and of a great flood.Brian Thom: Coast Salish Transformation Stories: Kinship, Place and Aborigingal Rights and Title in Canada, Discussion Paper for the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Anthropology Society, Toronto 1998
From the Milliken phase (ca. 7500 BC) The Stó:lō also assert that they have always lived where they are today.This and the following according to Ryan Spady: Archaeological Impact Assessment. Sonora Enterprises and Woodbrook Aggregates' Proposed Gravel Pit Expansion Near Deroche, BC, February 2007.
In addition, from about 500 B.C. post houses became characteristic of the west coast culture. Presumably the rainforest, which had been favored for a long time, now produced sufficiently large trees, and woodworking had advanced enough to work the giant trees. From 1000 AD at the latest, care was often taken not to kill the giant trees if possible. The processing of stone sculptures can also be proven for the first time from this time; fifty of these cultural belongings alone are now in the Royal British Columbia Museum.
On the south coast there is evidence of lip piercings from circa 500 AD, but then disappeared. In contrast, the northern coastal areas still have piercings as part of their traditions today. A type of ear coil from about 500 BC also survived. Soapstone objects of unclear use (sometimes called "whatzits") can possibly also be classified within this phase. Strings of beads and rings made during this period with copper from Alaska have been found. Such finds point to a far-reaching system of trade contacts, whose goods may have served to satisfy special representational needs, which are probably connected with the emergence of a class of nobility.
The Skarnel Phase (350 BC to 250 AD) is notable for the disappearance of the microliths. Sites from this period include Esilao, Katz, Pipeline and Silverhope Creek.