Nooksack people

Like most Northwest Coast indigenous peoples, the Nooksack long occupied a watershed area where they relied on fishing, hunting, and clamming, as well as gathering root vegetables and berries, and processing these for sustenance. Their territory extended from the mountains to the coast of present-day northwest Washington state in the watershed of the Nooksack River, and into British Columbia, Canada. They set up seasonal camps for hunting or fishing, such as timing when they could harvest salmon runs. European exploration and colonization of the Pacific Northwest resulted in social disruption, high death rates from infectious disease, and their losing access to much of their historic territory. The surviving Nooksack continued to live near the river by which they are known. In 1934 Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed the Wheeler-Howard Act, also known as the Indian Reorganization Act. It was intended to help improve the condition of indigenous peoples by enabling them to revive and restore Indian self-government, which had been largely reduced, especially on Indian reservations. Because the Nooksack had not been granted reservation land by the U.S. government in the 19th century, they were not recognized as a tribe at the time by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In the 1930s the Nooksack tribe voted to accept the Wheeler-Howard Act and began working on a tribal constitution to establish an elected government under its model. They took a census in 1942 of persons considered members of the tribal community. Their constitution also provided for other forms of documentation and identity recognition. During the later decades of the 20th century, the people worked to organize their community and gain federal recognition as a tribe. In this period many Nooksack and other Coastal Salish worked and lived away from Whatcom County, further south in the Puget Sound area where there were more jobs. The Nooksack acquired a one-acre (4,000m2) parcel of land in 1970, as their reservation, and gained full federal recognition in 1973. That land was taken into trust by the US Department of Interior, as has been much of the other lands they have acquired. Their land base has subsequently increased to 3,133.61 acres, which includes fee land, trust land, and individual trust land. Trust land is land held by the federal government in trust for a native tribe or nation. It is the area where the tribe exercises its sovereign authority. Federal court decisions in the 1970s, including what is known as the Boldt decision, have affirmed Native American rights in Washington state to fish and gather food in their traditional ways from their historic territories. ==Government==

The tribe created a constitution conforming to the model of elected government as proposed under the Indian Reorganization Act. Under its constitution, tribal citizens elect representatives to an 8-person council. Half the positions are elected in alternating years. The tribal chairman is elected as one of the eight, as are the vice-chairman, treasurer, and secretary. All terms are for two years. The tribal council approves policy and passes laws affecting members. The tribe also has a judicial branch with a tribal court. Citizenship The tribe set its rules for citizenship as: "recipients of early land allotments, recipients of a 1965 government settlement, or people who appeared on a 1942 tribal census", and their direct descendants. Section H of the Nooksack constitution also allowed the enrollment of “persons who possess at least ¼ Indian blood and who can prove Nooksack ancestry to any degree.” According to Kelly (and current chair Ross Cline Sr.), Annie George's descendants had been mistakenly enrolled in the 1980s under Section H of the constitution. Kelly believed he had to correct the situation. This would result in their losing status as citizens, losing their community and formal identity as Nooksack, and affecting access to federal education and health benefits. Opponents protested the disenrollment, saying that it was an effort by Kelly to gain more power before a competitive tribal election. People opposed to the disenrollment marched in protest in March 2013 in Seattle, the largest city in the state. The families hired Gabriel S. Galanda (Round Valley Indian Tribes) to represent them. Born and raised in Port Angeles, Washington, he became an attorney and set up his own practice in Seattle, specializing in Native American issues. He consulted with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) on behalf of The 306. Opponents of Kelly's position have said the disenrollment decision was political, and that Kelly was trying to get rid of critics before the next council election. Votes were very close among candidates in the primary election in the spring of 2014. Elected as vice chairman was Bob Doucette, who had served on the council in the 1970s; Bernadine Roberts, also a former council member, was elected treasurer. A majority of the council now opposed disenrollment of the 306. These were interim positions, and the tribal council said they wanted the federal government to supervise an election for the four open positions. Chairman Bob Kelly said he would not recognize this General Council election as valid. The tribe lost federal funding in 2017 because the Bureau of Indian Affairs said it had acted improperly by trying to disenroll the 306 and postponing an important election related to this controversy. After a supervised general election was held in December 2017, the federal government reinstated tribal funding in March 2018. In 2018 the newly elected tribal council, with a majority of Kelly supporters, voted to proceed with disenrolling the George descendants. Several families continued to live on tribal land in tribal housing. In 2019 the council passed a new rule requiring a ground sublease with the tribe for underlying Tribal Trust Land. Eligibility for such subleases were limited to enrolled tribal members. The council said that growth in the tribe meant these houses were needed for Nooksack citizens. They notified 61 former citizens (of the 306 disenrolled) that they would have to leave this housing. Twenty-one homes had been federally funded under a program with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Many George descendants had occupied such housing for more than a decade, and some had nearly completed a lease-to-own program, making payments to the tribe. In December 2021, the Nooksack 306 through Galanda appealed to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "seeking to have that organization intervene, review the situation and ask the Biden administration to immediately take steps to halt the evictions." Galanda said this was the first case he knew of in which UN monitors reviewed a dispute within an indigenous tribe. ==Demographics==

As of the 2000 census, the Nooksack Indian Reservation, at in Whatcom County, had a resident population of 547 persons living on of land. Of these residents, 373 persons, or 68.2 percent, identified as being solely of Native American ancestry. ==Language==

The Nooksack language (Lhéchalosem) belongs to the Salishan family of Native American languages, and is most similar to the Halkomelem language of British Columbia, of which it was once considered a dialect. Until the mid-20th century, Halkomelem had become the dominant indigenous language of the Nooksack in the United States. This demonstrated how closely the people were related on each side of the border. As of 2016, the last fluent speaker of Nooksack and its dialects was George Adams, a 70-year-old elder of the tribe. In the late 20th century, observers thought the language had become extinct around 1988. In the 1970s American linguist Brent Galloway had worked closely with another fluent native speaker. He was trying to create a dictionary of the Nooksack language but it is unclear if that work was published before his death. Galloway's book Dictionary of Upriver Halkomelem (2009) covers a language that was in the same region but distinct from that earlier spoken by the Nooksack people. ==References==