Duwamish Tribe Research Paper

Having been born and bred outside the United States, the city I grew up was more influenced by the people of India rather than Native people. Therefore, I began to search the Internet for Native tribes where I came across the Duwamish tribe. The Duwamish tribe lived in Seattle, Washington from the past 10,000 years, making them one of the oldest Native tribes that we know of in the entire world. Today, the Duwamish tribe are one of the few federally recognised Native tribes. In this research project I intend to gain a better understanding as to how a Native tribe that has existed since the glacier age has escaped being eradicated through both wars and disease.

However, before we move any further it is important to gain an understanding of the history of Seattle before European settlement. Before European settlement, the city of Seattle composed of thirteen prominent villages, all of which were along the different rivers that run through the city. The Duwamish tribe got there name due to their close

This is important as the Europeans often used the divide and conquer strategy where they would make tribal villages fight each other and then conquer both of them at their weakest. This was not the case with the Duwamish people who were incredibly friendly with their neighbouring tribal villages to the point where for religious festivals, often all the nearby villages would collect together and celebrate the festival as a community. This sense of unity between the different tribal villages is a key reason as to why the Duwamish people managed to survive.

However, things changed as soon as the Europeans began to make contact with the Native people of the region. The early European settlers had a shaky relationship with the Duwamish people. The Europeans would often trick the Duwamish people into giving away there land in exchange for little goods that were almost worthless in