Thirty-five years ago, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde signed a deal that limited their ability to hunt and fish within their ancestral homelands. They made the decision — called a consent decree — as part of a larger negotiation to reclaim tribal land. Now tribal leaders and members of Oregon’s congressional delegation are working to overturn those decades-old restrictions on hunting and fishing.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Almost 40 years ago, the Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde signed a deal that limited their ability to hunt and fish within their ancestral homelands. They made that agreement, called a consent decree, as part of a much larger negotiation to reclaim Tribal land. Now, Tribal leaders and members of Oregon’s congressional delegation are working to overturn those decades-old restrictions on hunting and fishing. For more on this. I’m joined by two Tribal members. Sara Thompson is a Ceremonial Fisher. Bobby Mercer is a cultural advisor for the Tribe. Welcome to Think Out Loud to both of you.
Sara Thompson / Bobby Mercer: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having us
Miller: Sara Thompson. I wanna start with what’s hopefully not an unfairly large question. There is so much history here and it’s all intertwined because we’re talking about a consent decree that was signed almost 40 years ago, which only happened because of the restoration of Tribal recognition, which itself followed federal termination, and then you can go back and back and back. So it’s hard to know where to begin. What do you think listeners need to understand to have a grounding for this current conversation?
Thompson: You know, I think the listeners need to understand the history. They need to understand that it does go back that far and it’s a series of events through treaties, through removal to the reservations to termination under the Western Oregon Termination Act. The fight for restoration, and then this consent decree, that was basically an ultimatum with the government on, ‘sign, the consent decree or forgo having any sort of reservation land.’ I mean, the choice was the consent decree or remain a landless people.
Miller: So Bobby Mercer, after the federal recognition of the Grande Ronde Tribes was Restored in 1983, was there any Tribal land that was recognized by the state or federal governments?
Bobby Mercer: We had a small portion of land here, which was mainly just our cemetery. And after final negotiations with the government, we received like 9,800 acres of forest timber. And so yeah, we were down to about five acres and that was pretty much only our cemetery.
Miller: What did it mean to be a federally recognized Tribe once again, but to not have land in the eyes of the federal government?
Mercer: Oh, that’s a tough one. I don’t know. It was a start, I guess, but we went from being a reservation of like 66,000 Acres all the way down to 30, after the Land Act had passed. And then to be terminated and not have any except for the last few allotments that people had and they sold off or had moved away or made deals with the government to be shipped off. From going from pretty much all of Western Oregon to just this little tiny square out here and then to have nothing. So, to have 9,000 acres given back to us, some people call it a start, I don’t call it much.
Miller: Sara Thompson, what were the negotiations like then, after restoration in Federal eyes in the early 1980s, what kinds of negotiations were taking place to actually get land back?
Thompson: That’s a great question. And I feel like that’d be a question for people that were in the negotiations. I was born during the time of termination. So it was our leaders who fought for restoration and were involved in those negotiations, and fought for basically my ability to be recognized as a Tribal Member.
Miller: Bobby Mercer, how did what became known as the Consent Decree come to be?
Mercer: Oh man. [Laughs] You know, that was something that people talked about and just magically appeared, I guess, on Congress’s table. And I don’t know, I can’t talk too much about how that came to be, but might want to look that up, because it’s very interesting how one person’s opinions can come into law.
Miller: Hmm.
Thompson: If I could add maybe to that, I think it’s important to realize that the consent decree came out of a time of a lot of turmoil between tribes and the government. I personally believe that the consent decree was the government’s way of trying to make sure that those legal fights that we had seen play out in the Pacific Northwest didn’t play out again.
Miller: So what has been allowed in terms of hunting and fishing rights for tribal members over the last almost 40 years and then we’ll get to what has not been allowed.
Mercer: That question for me?
Miller: Or Sara Thompson, I want to start to get into what the consent decree has meant in practice and what overturning it or changing it would mean. So Sara Thompson, what has it meant in terms of hunting and fishing rights?
Thompson: It has limited our Tribal ability to hunt and fish to within the reservation, within the Trask Unit, and on a very limited number of tags.
Miller: And beyond that, no rights to hunt or fish in places where members of the Tribe had done both since time immemorial?
Thompson: Correct.
Miller: What has that meant? I noted, Sara Thompson, in my introduction, that in addition to being a Tribal member for the Grande Ronde Tribes, you’re also a ceremonial fisher. What has it meant to not be able to hunt or fish in the vast swaths of Western Oregon, where people before you would have been able to do that for hundreds or thousands of years?
Thompson: I grew up in Southern Oregon and I still have family there, and under the current regulations, my family, that are Tribal Members, cannot hunt in the same areas that our ancestors did. And that’s a blow, that’s a blow for my family. And I see the consent decree as this gray cloud hanging over Grand Ronde sovereignty, because it’s a condition on their sovereignty and their ability as a Tribe.
Miller: Bobby Mercer, can you help us expand on that? I mean what do you see as a connection between hunting and fishing and sovereignty?
Mercer: Well, our treaties are pretty much all of Western Oregon and all the different Chiefs that signed those treaties understanding that we would still be able to hunt and fish and take care of ourselves in that way. And even being moved to the reservation that we would still be able to hunt and fish in our usual and custom places, and to not be able to do that, in a place that had become pretty much part of our DNA, I mean our grandfathers forever and grandmothers have forever, have been buried in those places and you know hunting and fishing in all those different rivers and hunting in those mountains and for us to not be able to do that- I mean, today if we want to do that we have to put in for a tag, through the state, right? And to not be able to go and to hunt or fish somewhere that’s been a part of our DNA and who we are as a people is a little frustrating.
Miller: Sara Thompson, what do you imagine life would look like if the consent decree were to go away?
Thompson: I imagine the ability of my niece and nephew to hunt and fish in the same areas under a tribal tag as their ancestors did.
Miller: Are off-reservation fishing and hunting rights of Grand Ronde Tribal Members different from those of other federally recognized tribes in Oregon?
Thompson: I guess I can take a stab at that one.
Mercer: Yeah.
Thompson: Grand Ronde is one of two Tribes that have the consent decree conditions associated with its sovereignty. Other Tribes in Eastern Oregon may not, they don’t have the same limitations that Grand Ronde does.
Miller: You have the support, Bobby Mercer, of Senators Wyden and Merkley and Representatives Schrader and Bonamici. Do you see broader support in Congress right now, to have them review the consent decree?
Mercer: I’m not sure myself but I sure hope so. This is something that was just waved in front of our people and saying either you sign this or it’s gonna take a lot longer for you guys to be reestablished. And so when we go back farther before this, to say look at our treaties, these are the original agreements that our grandfathers made, and some people say, ‘Well, that was so long ago, you know, that’s only four generations back from me, of my grandfathers being treaty signers, and so, I always say, I imagine if they knew that their great grandkids were gonna be treated this way, they would have never signed those treaties in the first place.
Miller: Sara Thompson, let’s say Congress does give you the opportunity to review the consent decree and work with the state of Oregon to modernize your hunting and fishing rights. Do you get the sense that the state is interested in doing that?
Thompson: You know, I think that’s a conversation for another day. I think it’s important to remember that Senate Bill 3126, it is just the first step. It’s about an opportunity to modernize the agreement and those hunting and fishing rights and keeping that in perspective as we move forward.
Miller: Sara Thompson and Bobby Mercer, thanks very much.
Thompson / Mercer: Thank you. Yep.
Miller: Sara Thompson is a Grand Ronde Tribal member and a ceremonial fisher; Bobby Mercer is cultural advisor for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.
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