Pre-Contact , in engraving made in 1792 by John Sykes Before the arrival of Europeans to the
Pacific Northwest the territory inhabited by the Klallam stretched across the north coast of the
Olympic Peninsula from the mouth of the
Hoko River on the west to
Port Discovery Bay on the east. There were also some Klallam living across the
Strait of Juan de Fuca on
Vancouver Island, in or near today's
Saanich,
Sooke, and
Beecher Bay. Klallam villages were mostly located along the coast, while some villages were inland along rivers, inlets or large lakes. Based on early interviews of tribal elders by early ethnologists and anthropologists, the estimated number of Klallam villages has ranged from ten to over thirty, with some ambiguity in distinguishing permanent from seasonal settlements, and some villages with mixed or disputed tribal identity. While language and tradition united the Klallam people, there were extensive trade, inter-marriage, and other forms of cooperation between the Klallam and surrounding tribes. Like many other indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest coast, the Klallam held
potlatches, which played a large role in determining social status. The first white settler of
Port Townsend arrived in 1850. That same year the Klallam chief
Chetzemoka, known as the Duke of York—many Klallam were given royal names by whites who had difficulty pronouncing Klallam names—was taken by a ship captain on a visit to
San Francisco, returning very impressed. In the early 1850s many settlers came to Port Townsend and elsewhere in the region. By 1853 there were sawmills operating at Port Townsend,
Port Gamble, and
Port Ludlow. A small settlement was established in Klallam territory near Dungeness Spit and present-day
Sequim. These early settlers, who lived in conditions little better, or worse than the Klallam, began selling large amounts of liquor to the Klallam, which quickly had deleterious effects. The
ethnologist George Gibbs visited the Klallam in 1855. He reported their population as 926 and blamed alcohol and disease for their population decline. Although his count was probably too low, the Klallam population was significantly reduced from earlier times, mostly due to alcohol and disease. According to Gibbs, the Klallam regularly raided their neighbors but had almost completely stopped using clubs and bows. The Klallam had many tools and utensils of European manufacture. They were growing potatoes in cultivated fields. The fur trade, formerly vital, was almost extinct. Slavery and potlatching were still practiced. In 1855 the Klallam, along with the
Skokomish and the surviving Chimakum, signed the
Point No Point Treaty. Under the treaty the Klallam were supposed to give up their land and move to the Skokomish Reservation, near today's
Skokomish, Washington, in exchange for government aid in the form of rations and instruction. However the Klallam never made this move and remained in their territory along the northern coast of the Olympic Peninsula.
Clallam County was established in 1854, but its population and infrastructure remained minimal for decades. Around 1860 there was smallpox among the Klallam, but it is not known how serious it was. The last act of intertribal warfare involving the Klallam occurred in 1869. A band of over thirty
Tsimshian, men, women, and children, were killed on Dungeness Spit by a group of about twenty Klallam men. One Tsimshian woman survived by pretending to be dead. The attack was in retaliation for the abduction of some Klallam women by the Tsimshian a few years earlier. Before the attack the Klallam debated over how the white settlers would react, but after some hesitation the attack was carried out in the traditional manner. One Klallam man was killed, which led to arguments among the Klallam who in the end threw away their trophies and went home dejected. A few were arrested by white settlers and sentenced to hard labor at the Skokomish Reservation, but they were not held for long and the punishment was generally considered to have been mild. After Gibbs's questionable census of 1855, which counted 926 Klallam, somewhat better censuses were conducted in the 1860s and 1870s. It appears that from initial contact to about 1862 the Klallam population declined but not too severely. Between 1862 and 1878 a more rapid decline occurred—from about 1,300 to 597. By 1870 most Klallam lived near Dungeness Spit and what is now Sequim. The period around 1870 marked what appears to be the lowest point in Klallam history. Due to rampant alcoholism, petty bickering and fighting, and thievery, the white residents of
Dungeness forced them to relocate to other nearby areas twice, and then threatened to have them moved to the Skokomish Reservation. This led to Chief James Balch, who had been a heavy drinker until his reform in 1873, to lead the Klallam in purchasing their own land and create their own community. He and other leading Klallam collected enough money to purchase a parcel of 250 acres, in 1874, and found a town they named Jamestown, after James Balch. This was very unusual for the time, not least because Native people were legally barred from buying land at the time. By doing this and not moving to the Skokomish Reservation they gave up the possibility of federal assistance of any kind. For many decades Jamestown was one of the few examples of a Native settlement fully owned and managed by the native people themselves, with no governmental assistance or oversight. In 1981, over a century later, and after six years of effort to gain official recognition as a tribe, the federal government agreed, resulting in the federally recognized
Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe of Washington. Some Klallam never joined the Jamestown project. Today there are several other Klallam groups, such as the
Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the
Port Gamble Band of S'Klallam Indians, and, in Canada, the
Scia'new First Nation. ==Culture==