Treaty of Medicine Creek

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The Treaty of Medicine Creek was a treaty between the Washington Territory, the United States, and the Nisqually, Puyallup, Squaxin Island Tribe, and six other smaller tribes in 1854.

The site of the treaty was near the Nisqually delta along a creek then known as She-nah-num by the natives, or Medicine Creek by white settlers. The creek is now known as McAllister Creek.

The treaty granted 2.24 million acres of land to the territorial government in exchange for establishment of three reservations, cash payments over a period of twenty years, and recognition of traditional native fishing and hunting rights. Those rights were ignored by the territorial and later state government, until the Boldt Decision in 1974. Since that decision, the tribes named in the treaty have had a recognized right to half of the fish caught on traditional lands throughout south Puget Sound.