South Puget Sound Indians Timeline

Coastal Salish people live in the South Puget Sound area.  There is a village near Tumwater Falls.

Captain George Vancouver sends Peter Puget and Joseph Whidbey to chart the shoreline of Puget Sound. 

The British Hudson’s Bay Company establishes Fort Nisqually near the Nisqually River on Segualitchew Creek, near the present day town of DuPont.

The first American settlers, the Simmons-Bush party, arrive at the Deschutes River and Tumwater Falls.  They name this settlement New Market.

A treaty establishes the boundary of Oregon Country at the 49^th parallel.  The land north of the parallel goes to the British; the land to the south goes to the United States.

Washington Territory is established.  Isaac Stevens is appointed Governor.

Dec. 26, 1854.  The Medicine Creek Treaty is signed.  Indians lose almost 2.5 million acres of homeland, an area five times the size of Thurston County.

War between Governor Stevens’ volunteers and Indians who want better reservations.  Most of the fighting is done in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.  War lasts about ten months. 

August 4^th and 5^th.  Governor Stevens calls for a peace council on Fox Island, officially ending the war.  He changes the locations of the reservations. 

November 18^th.  Quiemuth is murdered.

Chief Leschi is hanged for alleged war crimes, wrongly so in the opinion of many even at the time.