In 2001, Gary Johnson celebrated a win that his tribe, the Chinook Indian Nation, had spent decades fighting for: federal recognition.
Then, 18 months later, the government took it away.
“It was just so horrific,” Johnson said, recounting the moment he had to tell his fellow tribal members that they no longer had the rights and recognition that the federal government had just given them.
That year, Johnson had been invited to the White House for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial kickoff along with other tribes. Two days after the event, a government official called Johnson with the dreaded news.
“We had people who were dying at home and in care centers,” Johnson said. No one had the heart to tell them their federal recognition was rescinded. Some elders died believing the tribe was still federally recognized.
“We’ll get it back,” Johnson said. “My generation just won’t be there when it happens.”
The Chinook Indian Nation has been fighting to regain federal recognition from the moment they lost it, continuing a saga that has lasted nearly two centuries. This year marks the 175th anniversary of the Tansy Point treaty negotiations between the U.S. government and the five constituent tribes of the Chinook Indian Nation.
On Aug. 15, a couple hundred members of the tribe united on the land at Tansy Point, which the Chinook Indian Nation purchased in 2018. They shared histories of the 1851 treaty negotiations, honored ancestors who refused removal and gathered over a free community meal to connect and reaffirm their ongoing fight for federal recognition.
“It’s unfathomable that we do not have federal acknowledgement,” said Tony Johnson, current chairman of the tribe and Gary Johnson’s son. “You’re Native enough to have your family taken to boarding school, but somehow, you’re not Native enough for the United States to recognize you. It’s not really how it is, but that’s how it feels.”
The Chinook Indian Nation comprises several bands of Chinookan peoples, a broader community that has inhabited the lower Columbia River for thousands of years. The tribe is made up of the five westernmost Chinookan bands whose ancestral homelands are found at the mouth of the Columbia River.
Before European settlers arrived, Chinookan peoples lived in a network of trading communities along the lower Columbia River. Though they shared a culture and trade language, individual communities had their own regional dialects and distinct identities.
Waves of disease devastated Chinookan communities in the early 19th century, and many survivors were later forced or pressured onto reservations in Oregon and Washington. The Chinook Indian Nation today represents Chinookan people from the Columbia River’s mouth who remained in their ancestral homelands rather than being removed to those reservations.
Chinookan leaders negotiated a series of treaties 175 years ago that ceded much of the lower Columbia region in exchange for the right to remain in their homelands. Those treaties were never ratified, and the tribe remained a non‑treaty tribe until 2001, when it went through the formal federal recognition process.
“It was the first real effort of our community to expressively say we want to stay in our homelands with the bones of our ancestors,” Rachel Cushman, secretary and treasurer for the Chinook Indian Nation, said. “We have no interest in being removed. We have no interest in becoming somebody else. This is our place.”
In 2001, the Bureau of Indian Affairs formally recognized the Chinook Indian Nation, but the decision was challenged by Washington’s Quinault Indian Nation. The Quinault have never publicly clarified why they oppose Chinook recognition, but concern over allotments owned by Chinook citizens on the Quinault Reservation, and potential loss of membership have been raised by observers.
“We are the only tribe in the history of that process that was ever recognized and then had it taken away like that,” Tony Johnson said.
For years, the Chinook people were unable to re‑petition for federal recognition. The tribe challenged that restriction in court, ultimately winning the right to apply again under updated federal acknowledgment rules.
The tribe’s most recent legal effort took a different question all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court: whether a court could order the federal government to recognize a tribe. In June, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, leaving a Ninth Circuit ruling in place that said federal recognition is a decision for Congress and the executive branch, not the courts.
The ruling did not determine that the Chinook Indian Nation should not be recognized. Rather, it established that the courts cannot grant that recognition. With the judicial path exhausted, Chinook leaders are now turning their focus to Congress, seeking federal recognition through an act of legislation.
Chinook leadership has continued to organize and fight for recognition, which remains essential to securing the tribe’s sovereignty and access to federal resources and protections.
“We are currently in the process of drafting a bill and socializing and doing the work to ensure that when the bill is introduced, everybody’s concerns are addressed, and that ultimately there’s no opposition,” Tony Johnson said.
Gatherings like the Aug. 15 treaty commemoration help to rally supporters and build the political pressure Chinook leaders say they need in order to move a restoration bill through Congress.
“They build visibility with our partners and friends who are here,” Cushman said. “The cultural aspect and our tribal citizens who are here find strength in when we’re together, when we’re singing our songs and dancing our dances. It’s empowering.”
For the Chinook people, the fight for federal recognition has been long and difficult, but they remain committed to seeing it through.
“Today we are just so much stronger,” Gary Johnson said, “And with the leadership that we have, we will get it done.”
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