Samish Nation

History
The Samish Nation doesn't appear in the final draft of the Point Elliott Treaty of January 22, 1855. The Nuwaha chief Pateus was said to have signed the treaty for the Samishes. Other sources claimed that the Lummi chief Chowitsoot signed it for them. After the treaty was ratified the Samishes were sent to the Lummi and the Swinomish Reservations. The Samishes who chose to stay, were pushed by American soldiers to the reservations and the ones who refused were put to death. Some upper class Samish women married white men to escape cruelties. The ones who moved to the Lummi Reservation faced conflict with Lummi and Nooksack Indians. Most of the Samishes returned to their tribe, which remained on Samish Island during the 1870s. Under the treaty an area was suppose to be set aside for them on the Swinomish Reservation. Only six of 97 allotments were for Samishes though. The people found themselves outside the protection of the United States government and they were forced to move to Guemes Island. There they built a longhouse 60 by 480 feet where over 100 people lived. In 1883 they received trust patents to lands. This protected the land for 20 years ending in 1903. Many of the non-Indians wanted the land because of the fresh water spring. The Samishes were forced off their land by 1912. Some remained as squatters and others removed to various communities in Samish county. Others occupied fishing villages on Lopex and Cypress islands in San Juans. Many took allotments on Swinomish Reservation in 1885. Some moved on to the reservation after the 1900s.

Government
In 1907 the Samish people developed a political organization who met in the longhouse on Guemes Island and later in Anacortes. Then they held meetings on the Swinomish Reservation as their own tribe. In 1918 the Lower Nuwahas merged with the Samishes. In 1926 the Samishes organized under a formal constitution and bylaws. They replaced new ones in 1951, 1965 and 1974. The Samishes were a landless tribe and the federal government wouldn't recognize them as a tribe. They filed a land claim before the Indian Claims Commission in 1951. They were awarded a settlement on October 6, 1971, $5,754.96. Then in 1979 the Bureau of Indian Affairs declared the tribe extinct. A federal judge declared the tribe a viable entity. This left the door open to getting federal recognition.