"We Got The Mountain Back!"
166 years to the full recognition of the lands given to the Yakama Nation in the Treaty of 1855
I took this photo last week on my way to work at sunrise. Mount Adams looked spectacular looming out of the chilly haze. At 12,281 feet, Mount Adams is the second highest peak in Washington after Mount Rainier. In terms of volume, it is the largest of the Cascade volcanoes. Nicknamed the "Forgotten Giant of the Cascades", it is also one of the least accessible of the Cascade volcanoes, surrounded by protected wilderness on the western side and the Yakama Reservation on the eastern side.
Called "Pahto" by the Yakama Nation, Mount Adams is one of five sacred mountains to the Yakama but the most important to them historically, culturally and spiritually. The others are Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, the Goat Rocks, and Simcoe Mountain.
When the federal government negotiated with the Yakama Nation on the ceding of lands in Central Washington and the creation of the Yakama Reservation in accordance with the Treaty of 1855, the boundaries of the reservation were negotiated to follow natural landmarks and included Mount Adams. The map that accompanied the Treaty of 1855 was then misfiled by the federal government- and it set of a long running dispute on whether Mount Adams was included or not. The Yakama understood that it was, but two subsequent surveys by the federal government in 1890 and 1926 erroneously laid down the Yakama Reservation boundaries too far to the east, much to the outrage of the tribe.
In 1930, the original treaty map was found and a third survey indicated that Mount Adams and an area to the southwest called "Tract D" were in fact, part of the Reservation. In 1939, the Department of the Interior notified Congress that the Yakama's claims to Mount Adams and Tract D were with merit, but US Attorney General Homer Cummings rejected the Yakama's claims. By 1949, the federal government had established a mechanism for adjudicating land claims made by Native Americans, the Indian Claims Commission, and the Yakama submitted their claim for Mount Adams and Tract D. Seventeen years of court battles then ensued, decided in the 1966 case Yakima Tribe v. United States that the Treaty of 1855 did in fact include the lands that were denied to the Yakama.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon signed the law restoring Mount Adams to the Yakama Nation.
"We got the mountain back! We got the mountain back!" echoed across the Reservation in celebration.
However, Tract D was not included. Another survey was done in 1982 that showed Tract D was part of the Treaty of 1855 lands. It was not until a decision was handed down by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in June 2021 that Tract D was acknowledged to be part of the Yakama Reservation. While no non-Natives living in Tract D will lose their property, for the purposes of law enforcement and criminal jurisdiction as well as fishing/hunting rights, it was a long time in coming- it took 166 years for the recognition of the full lands ceded to the Yakama by the federal government.