Washington

From the cedar longhouses of Puget Sound to the stone meeting houses of Newport, the regions that became the United States were Indigenous homelands long before they were states. Washington, home to the Space Needle, Windows 95, and expensive coffee, sits upon the ancestral territory of the Coast Salish peoples—the Duwamish, Suquamish, Muckleshoot, Puyallup, Tulalip, and many others. Rhode Island, where Roger Williams founded Providence Plantations in 1636 on radical principles of religious freedom, was carved from Narragansett country. And Texas, where the fight for independence in 1836 was bound up with the defense of slavery, was also the homeland of the Caddo, Karankawa, Tonkawa, Wichita, and the formidable Comanche. Understanding these places means understanding the Indigenous nations whose diplomacy, material culture, and land shaped every American founding story.

Washington: The Coast Salish World Beneath the Modern State

Before Washington became the 42nd state on November 11, 1889, it was a densely woven network of Coast Salish villages, fisheries, and trade routes. The region’s Indigenous peoples spoke related languages across the Salish Sea and built economies around salmon, cedar, camas, and shellfish. Women twined cedar bark into watertight baskets and woven hats; men carved ocean-going canoes capable of crossing open water to trade with neighboring nations.

Seattle’s Namesake and the Treaty Era

The city of Seattle takes its name from Chief Si’ahl, a leader of the Suquamish and Duwamish peoples who was known among settlers as an advocate for peaceful relations. In 1852, settlers chose his name for the new town. Three years later, on January 22, 1855, Si’ahl was among the signatories of the Treaty of Point Elliott, one of a series of treaties—including the Treaty of Medicine Creek (1854) and the Treaty of Neah Bay (1855)—in which Coast Salish nations ceded vast territories while reserving fishing rights, hunting rights, and the right to gather in perpetuity.

Those reserved rights were not symbolic. The Boldt Decision of 1974 reaffirmed treaty fishing entitlements, and the Puyallup, Nisqually, and Muckleshoot nations continue to co-manage fisheries today. This is the essential fact of Washington history: the state’s modern identity rests on treaty promises made to sovereign Indigenous nations.

Rhode Island and the Narragansett: Providence Plantations

Roger Williams, banished from Massachusetts Bay, established Providence in 1636 on land secured through a deed from Narragansett sachems Canonicus and Miantonomi. Williams’s Narragansett fluency and his insistence on fair dealing made Providence unusual among colonial settlements—though the arrangement still displaced Indigenous authority over time. For a deeper look at this complicated founding, see Roger Williams and the founding of Providence Plantations.

The Narragansett were among the most powerful nations in southern New England, controlling wampum production and trade. That power was shattered in King Philip’s War (1675–1676), when the Great Swamp Fight of December 19, 1675 devastated a Narragansett stronghold. Survivors were killed, enslaved, or dispersed. Rhode Island officially detribalized the Narragansett in 1880–1881, and the tribe regained federal recognition only in 1983—a cautionary chronicle of colonial dispossession and Indigenous resilience.

Newport, Aquidneck Island, and the Revolutionary War Trail

In 1638, Anne Hutchinson, William Coddington, and John Clarke purchased Aquidneck Island from Canonicus and Miantonomi, founding Portsmouth and, in 1639, Newport. Newport later became a summer playground for the elite—The Breakers, The Elms, and Marble House still testify to Gilded Age wealth. Yet the same streets hold a revolutionary Indigenous story.

The 1st Rhode Island Regiment, raised in 1778, was the first American unit in which Black and Native American soldiers—including Narragansett, Nipmuc, and Wampanoag men—served alongside white troops as a matter of official policy. They fought at the Battle of Rhode Island on August 29, 1778. Walking the Revolutionary War Trail past the White Horse Tavern (built around 1673) and Hunter House (1748) is walking a landscape shaped first by Indigenous nations and later contested by empire.

Texas: Slavery, the Alamo, and the Comanchería

Texas independence cannot be explained without two interlocking histories: slavery and Indigenous sovereignty. Mexico abolished slavery on September 15, 1829, under President Vicente Guerrero, and the Law of April 6, 1830 restricted further American immigration. Anglo settlers in Texas—many of them slaveholders—pushed back, and the resulting Texas Revolution (1835–1836) culminated in the Alamo (February 23–March 6, 1836) and victory at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. As explored in how slavery led to Texas’s independence, the new republic explicitly protected and expanded chattel slavery.

Meanwhile, Texas was Indigenous ground. The Caddo had built mound-centered towns long before Europeans arrived; the Karankawa and Tonkawa lived along the Gulf Coast. The Comanche dominated the southern Plains as a horse-powered military and trading power. In February 1836, the provisional Texas government signed a treaty at Bowles Village with the Cherokee and twelve other nations—a promise of land the republic later repudiated under President Mirabeau Lamar, whose 1839 campaign expelled the Cherokee from East Texas.

Materials, Diplomacy, and the Wampum Record

Indigenous diplomacy did not rely on paper alone. Across the Northeast, wampum—beads cut from quahog clam shell (purple) and whelk shell (white)—served as a mnemonic and ceremonial record of treaties, condolence, and alliance. Narragansett and Pequot communities were central producers. Wampum belts such as the Haudenosaunee Two Row Wampum (Guswenta) of 1613 encoded an entire philosophy of parallel sovereignty. To understand this material legacy, read what wampum is and how it was used.

Historical Context & Key Cultural Takeaways

• Treaties are living law. The Point Elliott, Medicine Creek, and Neah Bay treaties (1854–1855) reserved rights still enforced in Pacific Northwest courts and fisheries today.
• Colonial founding depended on Indigenous land. Providence (1636) and Newport (1639) both rest on deeds negotiated with Narragansett sachems Canonicus and Miantonomi.
• Revolutionary service was multiracial. The 1st Rhode Island Regiment included Black and Native soldiers at the Battle of Rhode Island, August 29, 1778.
• Texas independence was entwined with slavery. Mexico’s 1829 abolition and the 1830 immigration law directly provoked Anglo rebellion by 1835–1836.
• Indigenous nations were sovereign players, not bystanders. Caddo, Karankawa, Tonkawa, Cherokee, and Comanche peoples shaped Texas on their own terms.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Chief Si’ahl, and why does Seattle bear his name? Si’ahl (often spelled Seattle or Sealth) was a Suquamish and Duwamish leader who signed the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855. Settlers named the town after him in 1852, though the Duwamish people remain unrecognized at the federal level—a persistent point of historical contention.

Was wampum ever money? No. Wampum functioned primarily as a ceremonial and diplomatic medium—recording treaties, honoring the dead, and sealing alliances. Its use as currency emerged largely through Dutch and English colonial demand.

Did Native Americans fight in the American Revolution in Rhode Island? Yes. The 1st Rhode Island Regiment, organized in 1778, formally included Black and Native American enlistees, including Narragansett men, and fought at the Battle of Rhode Island.

How did Mexico’s 1829 abolition of slavery affect Texas? It alarmed Anglo slaveholders in Texas, who resisted Mexican antislavery policy alongside the 1830 immigration restrictions. That resistance became a driving cause of the 1835–1836 revolution.

Where are these artifacts and records preserved today? Wampum belts and Coast Salish basketry are held in institutions such as the National Museum of the American Indian, the Peabody Essex Museum, and tribal museums and cultural centers. Repatriation under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990) continues to return materials to descendant nations.

The Indigenous history of the United States is not a prelude—it is the main text. Washington’s treaty fisheries, Rhode Island’s wampum diplomacy, and Texas’s contested homelands all reveal the same truth: American history is Native history, and its preservation is an ongoing act of respect and accountability.