Type of Culminating Activity
Graduate Student Project
Graduation Date
5-2023
Degree Title
Master of Arts in History
Department
History
Major Advisor
Bob Reinhardt, Ph.D.
Abstract
During the 1960s and 1970s, the waterways of the Pacific Northwest played host to fish-ins held by Indigenous communities as they sought to protect their way of life and ensure the continued recognition of their treaty rights to fish on and off their reservations. The Treaty of Medicine Creek of 1854 and Treaty of Point Elliot of 1855 guaranteed the fishing and hunting rights of Indigenous groups of the Pacific Northwest in “all usual and accustomed grounds and stations.” Due to impacts from hydroelectric dams, a growing lumber industry, sportsmen fishing, and other stresses on the waterways, salmon populations declined drastically. The conservation policies set forth by states restricted Indigenous fishing methods and sites, thus infringing on their rights. In response, Indigenous fishers actively defied the regulations and began to organize in the early 1960s, leading to what were called “fish-ins.” Although some scholars have described the overall Fish Wars as “women-led” demonstrations, historians have given the role of Indigenous women little scholarly attention.
To expand the scholarship on the experience of Indigenous women of the Fish Wars in the 1960s and 1970s, this project seeks to combine public history and decolonial methodology into three main components: an exhibit, which includes content and design; a grant application for a mobile humanities unit; and an article on student-led decolonial public history projects.
The goals of this project are: 1) Recover the stories of the Fish Wars, a series of Indigenous-led demonstrations to protect fishing and treaty rights, and the roles and experiences of Indigenous women, creating a more complete story of the Pacific Northwest’s past; 2) Democratize the modes of knowledge production by increasing their accessibility to ordinary people and communities through a mobile humanities unit; 3) Design a project grounded in decolonial public history methodology, adhering to principles of collaboration, relationality, and shared authority.
Recommended Citation
Klade, Rachel, "Decolonial Public History in Practice: A Collaborative Project on the Role of Indigenous Women in the Fish Wars of Washington State of the 1960s and 1970s" (2023). History Graduate Projects and Theses. 14.
https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/history_gradproj/14