[Federal Register: March 19, 2008 (Volume 73, Number 54)]
[Notices]
[Page 14833-14835]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr19mr08-81]
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Final Determination Against Federal Acknowledgment of the
Steilacoom Tribe of Indians
AGENCY: Bureau of Indian Affairs, Interior.
ACTION: Notice of Final Determination.
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SUMMARY: Pursuant to 25 CFR 83.10(l)(2), notice is hereby given that
the Department of the Interior (Department) declines to acknowledge the
group known as the Steilacoom Tribe of Indians (STI) of 1515 Lafayette
Street, P.O. Box 88419, Steilacoom, Washington 98388, c/o Mr. Danny
Marshall, as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law. This
notice is based on a determination that the petitioner does not satisfy
four of the seven mandatory criteria for acknowledgment, specifically
Sec. Sec. 83.7(a), 83.7(b), 83.7(c), and 83.7(e), as defined in 25 CFR
part 83. Consequently, the STI does not meet the requirements for a
government-to-government relationship with the United States.
DATES: This determination is final and will become effective on June
17, 2008, pursuant to Sec. 83.10(l)(4), unless a request for
reconsideration is filed pursuant to Sec. 83.11.
ADDRESSES: Requests for a copy of the Summary Evaluation under the
Criteria should be addressed to the Office of the Assistant Secretary--
Indian Affairs, Attention: Office of Federal Acknowledgment, 1951
Constitution Avenue, NW., MS: 34B-SIB, Washington, DC 20240.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: R. Lee Fleming, Director, Office of
Federal Acknowledgment, (202) 513-7650.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On January 14, 2000, the Department issued a
proposed finding (PF) that the STI was not an Indian tribe within the
meaning of Federal law because the STI did not meet four of the seven
mandatory criteria for Federal acknowledgment as an Indian tribe. The
Department published a notice of the PF in the Federal Register on
February 7, 2000 (65 FR 5880). The Federal Register notice initiated a
180-day comment period during which any individual or organization
wishing to comment on the proposed finding could submit factual or
legal arguments or evidence to support or rebut the PF.
The Department extended the comment period on several occasions. On
March 27, 2007, the Department sent a letter to the STI outlining a
plan to bring the regulatory comment and response periods to a close.
The Department reopened and extended the comment period for 90 days to
allow the STI and other parties to file comments. The Department also
noted that this comment period could be extended further if the
petitioner filed a detailed description of a work plan, a description
of the work it had already completed, and established good cause for
any further extension. To receive consideration for another extension
of the comment period, the STI had to mail its request by June 14,
2007; otherwise, the comment period would close on July 6, 2007.
On June 25, 2007, the Department received a letter from the STI
requesting an extension of the comment period by an additional 180 to
300 days. The letter's June 20, 2007, postmark was six days later than
the June 14, 2007, deadline, and the petitioner's letter contained
neither a work plan nor a description of work completed. The Department
declined to extend the comment period again. The final comment period
closed without the Department having received any additional comments.
After the comment period closed, the regulatory 60-day response period
began. The STI submitted no response materials during this period,
which ended on September 4, 2007.
On November 2, 2007, the Department sent a consultation letter to
the STI and several interested and third parties informing them that in
mid-November the Department planned to begin evaluating the evidence
for the FD on the STI petition. None of the parties raised an objection
or responded in any other way to the Department's intention to begin
preparation of the FD. However, due to workload considerations, the
Department was not able to begin work in November. On January 7, 2008,
the Department sent a letter to the STI and interested parties stating
that it would begin the evaluation for the FD on January 15, 2008, and
complete it by March 15, 2008.
During the comment period and the extended comment periods the STI
commented only on the PF's analysis for 83.7(b) for the period from
after the 1950s. Overall, given the petition's significant deficiencies
in meeting criteria 83.7(a), (b), (c), and (e), the STI's comments were
limited and did not substantively address the PF. Two neighboring
federally recognized Indian tribes--the Puyallup Tribe of the Puyallup
Reservation and the Nisqually Indian Tribe of the Nisqually
Reservation--submitted third-party comments opposing acknowledgment of
the STI. None of the material submitted changed the conclusions of the
PF.
The STI claims to descend as a group from the historical Steilacoom
Indian tribe that occupied the territory north of the Nisqually River
up to Point Defiance in the western part of the state of Washington.
The Hudson's Bay Company founded Fort Nisqually in the 1830s, and the
STI claims that its Steilacoom ancestors worked at the fort for over
two decades. The STI claims its ancestors signed the Medicine Creek
Treaty (10 Stat. 1132) in 1854 and that its ancestors resided briefly
on the reservations created by the treaty. The STI further contends
that some of these Indians left the reservations and settled in
``community pockets'' in their traditional homelands. These Indians,
the STI claims, are the ``ancestors of the modern-day Steilacoom
tribe'' who have formed ``an unbroken line of leadership and a
continuous existence of community pockets within their traditional
territory.''
The PF found that over 90 percent of the 612 STI members documented
that they are Indian descendants, but only three of them documented
descent from persons described in 19th and early 20th century documents
as Steilacoom Indians. The PF found that STI members have Indian
ancestry from other sources. One source of Indian ancestry is marriages
between Indian women from various Indian tribes in the Pacific
Northwest and employees of the Hudson's Bay Company. Just under two-
thirds of the members descend from Indian women who were not Steilacoom
and who, between 1839 and 1870, married employees of the Hudson's Bay
Company who had come to the Pacific Northwest. The descendants of these
marriages could not be classified as a m[eacute]tis, or mixed-blood,
group descended from the historical Steilacoom band because the Indian
wives came from a wide variety of tribal origins, including the
Nisqually, Puyallup, Cowlitz, S'Klallam, Chimacum, Quinault, Duwamish,
Skokomish, Yakima, and Snohomish Indian tribes. Furthermore,
[[Page 14834]]
most of these women, after marrying, resided with their non-Indian
husbands in non-Indian neighborhoods. A second source of Indian
ancestry is descent from Canadian Indian tribes through Red River
m[eacute]tis families from Manitoba, Canada, who settled in Washington
and Oregon between 1844 and 1855. The petition claimed that these
immigrants were adopted, sometimes by intermarriage, into a
continuously existing Steilacoom community during the second half of
the 19th century. However, the evidence in the record shows that the
Red River immigrants married into families of the non-Steilacoom
Indians or married the Hudson's Bay Company people described above, and
the evidence does not show social relationships connecting the STI's
ancestral family lines with one another.
The evidence in the record did not demonstrate that the STI
maintained a community from historical times to the present, or that
there was a group that maintained political influence or authority over
its members. Even after the STI formally organized in 1974, there was
not significant social interaction extending beyond individual family
lines to members of the broader group, and STI political activities did
not show a bilateral relationship between the leadership and the
members.
Criterion 83.7(a) requires that external observers identify the
petitioner as an American Indian entity on a substantially continuous
basis since 1900. The PF found that for the period from 1900 to 1973,
no external observers identified either the STI petitioner or a group
of the petitioner's ancestors as an American Indian entity on a
substantially continuous basis. The PF found sufficient evidence that
external observers identified the STI as an American Indian entity only
since 1974. Therefore, the PF concluded that the STI did not meet
criterion 83.7(a).
The Department received no comments from the STI on the PF's
conclusions that pertain to criterion 83.7(a). The Nisqually and
Puyallup Indian tribes submitted comments regarding criterion 83.7(a).
Their assertion that ``[n]o other entity was proven to have existed''
was not a conclusion that the PF reached under criterion 83.7(a).
Criterion 83.7(a) only evaluates whether external observers had
identified the petitioner as an American Indian entity on a
substantially continuous basis since 1900, not whether any other entity
was proven to have existed. None of the comments submitted during the
comment period supplied new evidence that an external observer
identified the petitioner or an antecedent group before 1974 as an
American Indian entity.
The FD concludes, as the PF did, that external observers identified
the petitioner as an Indian entity only after 1974. Because available
evidence is not sufficient to demonstrate substantially continuous
identification of the petitioner as an American Indian entity from 1900
to the present, the petitioner does not satisfy criterion 83.7(a).
Criterion 83.7(b) requires that a predominant portion of the
petitioning group comprises a distinct community and has existed as a
community from historical times until the present. The PF concluded
that petitioner did not satisfy criterion 83.7(b) at any point in time,
remarking that the ``current STI membership did not, historically,
constitute either a single tribe or group whose history could be traced
through time and place or an amalgamated tribe or group whose history
could be traced through time and place.''
The STI commented on the PF's conclusions directed to criterion
83.7(b) with regard to only one issue--the claimed persistence of a
named, collective Indian identity over a 50-year period as described in
83.7(b)(1)(viii). The STI requested that the Department revisit its
evaluation of the STI under 83.7(b)(1)(viii) from 1951 to the present.
The Department revisited this issue, and noted that the STI based this
request on a misunderstanding of criterion 83.7(b). The Department
clarified this point of misunderstanding to the STI on several
occasions prior to beginning its analysis for the FD, but the STI did
not respond to this clarification and did not submit any additional
evidence or explanation that would have helped satisfy criterion
83.7(b) from 1951 to the present--or during any other point in time.
The comments from the Puyallup and Nisqually Indian tribes support
the PF's conclusion that the petitioner did not satisfy criterion
83.7(b).
Following additional review of the evidence under 83.7(b)(1)(viii),
this FD confirms the conclusion of the PF that the existence of a
formal organization is not itself sufficient to show collective group
identity under 83.7(b)(1)(viii). The record provides substantial
evidence that the STI does not meet criterion 83.7(b) and does not
provide sufficient evidence that it does. Therefore, the FD concludes
that STI does not meet criterion 83.7(b).
Criterion 83.7(c) requires that the petitioner has maintained
political influence or authority over its members as an autonomous
entity from historical times until the present. The PF concluded that
evidence that could satisfy this criterion was either altogether absent
or too limited in nature. Furthermore, some of the limited evidence of
political leadership demonstrated that individuals exercised leadership
only over a small number of members, not over significant portions of
the group, as required by the regulations. Even after the STI
incorporated in 1974, its functions and activities were not of a type
to show a bilateral political relationship between the leadership and
the members. The PF concluded that at no time from first sustained
contact to the present did the evidence in the record show that the
petitioner had maintained political influence or authority over its
members as an autonomous entity. Therefore, it did not satisfy
criterion 83.7(c).
The Department received no comments from the STI on the PF's
conclusions that pertain to criterion 83.7(c). The comments from the
Nisqually and Puyallup Indian tribes supported the PF's conclusions
regarding criterion 83.7(c), stating that ``the lack of a 19th century
organization, and the limited claims purposes of the 20th century group
fail to meet this standard.''
The record provides substantial evidence that the STI does not meet
criterion 83.7(c) and does not provide sufficient evidence that it
does. Therefore, the FD concludes that the STI does not meet criterion
83.7(c).
Criterion 83.7(d) requires that the petitioning group submit a copy
of the group's present governing document that includes its membership
criteria. The PF found that the STI satisfied criterion 83.7(d). The
Department received no comments on the PF's conclusions under criterion
83.7(d). Therefore, based on the available evidence, the FD concludes,
as the PF did, that the petitioner meets criterion 83.7(d).
Criterion 83.7(e) requires that the petitioner's membership consist
of individuals who descend from a historical Indian tribe or from
historical Indian tribes that combined and functioned as a single
autonomous political entity. The PF concluded that the STI did not
document that its membership consists of individuals who descend from a
historical Indian tribe or from historical Indian tribes which combined
and functioned as a single autonomous political entity. Over 90 percent
of the 612 STI members documented that they are Indian descendants, but
only three of them document descent from persons described in 19th and
early 20th century documents as Steilacoom Indians. Most of the STI
members descend from other
[[Page 14835]]
Indians in the Pacific Northwest or from m[eacute]tis people from the
Red River Valley in Manitoba, Canada.
The Department received no comments from the STI on the PF's
conclusions directed to criterion 83.7(e). The Nisqually and Puyallup
Indian tribes stated that the ``petitioner has completely failed to
establish that its members descend from the historical Steilacoom
tribe,'' which supports the PF's conclusion. The Nisqually and Puyallup
Indian tribes further stated that the ``only legitimate successors to
the historical Steilacoom Tribe are the present-day Puyallup and
Nisqually Tribes.'' This FD does not present any conclusions concerning
successorship in interest to a particular treaty or other rights, nor
any conclusions regarding any treaty rights belonging to the federally
recognized Puyallup and Nisqually Indian tribes.
Based on the available record, the FD affirms the PF's conclusions
that only 3 of the petitioner's 612 members (0.5 percent) on its 1995
membership list have been documented as descendants of persons who were
described in 19th and early 20th century documents as Steilacoom
Indians. The record provides substantial evidence that the STI does not
meet criterion 83.7(e) and does not provide sufficient evidence that it
does. Therefore, the FD concludes that the STI does not meet criterion
83.7(e).
Criterion 83.7(f) requires that the membership of the petitioning
group be composed principally of persons who are not members of any
acknowledged North American Indian tribe. The PF concluded that the STI
met criterion 83.7(f). The Department received no comments, from the
petitioner or any other party, on the PF's conclusions under criterion
83.7(f). During its preparation of the FD, the Department compared the
STI membership list with rolls of federally recognized Indian tribes
under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Northwest
Region. They are, based on geographical proximity and the PF's
genealogical findings, the Indian tribes most likely to include STI
members. The review showed that the STI is composed principally of
persons who are not members of any acknowledged North American Indian
tribe. Therefore, the FD affirms the PF and concludes that the STI
meets the requirements of criterion 83.7(f).
Criterion 83.7(g) requires that neither the petitioner nor its
members be the subject of congressional legislation that has expressly
terminated or forbidden the Federal relationship. The Department
received no comments on the PF's conclusions under criterion 83.7(g).
The available documentation for the PF and the FD provided no evidence
that the STI was the subject of congressional legislation to terminate
or prohibit a Federal relationship as an Indian tribe. Therefore, the
petitioner meets the requirements of criterion 83.7(g).
A report summarizing the evidence, reasoning, and analyses that are
the bases for the FD will be provided to the STI and interested
parties, and is available to other parties upon written request.
After the publication of notice of the FD, the petitioner or any
interested party may file a request for reconsideration with the
Interior Board of Indian Appeals (IBIA) under the procedures set forth
in section 83.11 of the regulations. The IBIA must receive this request
no later than the date listed in the DATES section of this notice. The
FD will become effective as provided in the regulations 90 days from
the Federal Register publication, as listed in the DATES section of
this notice, unless a request for reconsideration is received within
that time.
Dated: March 12, 2008.
Carl J. Artman,
Assistant Secretary, Indian Affairs.
[FR Doc. E8-5551 Filed 3-18-08; 8:45 am]
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