The Theft of Native Lands In Ketchikan

By Aan Kadax Tseen
Reprinted by permission from Insurgent49

The low tidelands around Ketchikan, Alaska belong to the Taan ta Kwaan (Sea lion People), also known as the Tongass Tribe. Encroachment or theft of Native lands in Ketchikan actually started during the Alaska gold rush late 1880's with so-called mining claims like Venetia Lode and Schoenbar Lode. It was during this time that Alaska Natives were unable to make mining claims on their own lands, because were not citizens of the United States.

I will not forget the Saanya Kwaan (Cape Fox People). Cape Fox is our sister tribe and we are inter-married and have lived around each other since time immemorial. Ketchikan Creek was a Saanya Kwaan subsistence creek, or summer fish camp, until a marriage between a Tongass and Cape Fox. Cape Fox gave Ketchikan Creek as a wedding gift to the Gaanax adi Clan of the Taan ta Kwaan. This story was told to me by Ester Shea, Emma Williams and Mickey Denny.

"Ketchikan was initially settled because of its proximity to the great Ketchikan Creek salmon run, by the time it was incorporated as a city, nearly half of the 95 individuals who signed an incorporation petition in 1900 were miners or employed by the mining industry", according to a story by Dave Kiffer titled," Mining, Once Ketchikan's Principal Industry".

And so the dark days began.

Metlakatla was the winter village of the Taan ta Kwaan before it came a Tsimshian Reservation. There were fish canneries built around Ketchikan that lured tribal members in search of new jobs and new way of life. Tongass Tribe owned the low tide lands and lands around the mouth of Ketchikan Creek and was left alone until the newly incorporated City Council Father's wanted more lands to grow.

Did you know that "Indian Town" had Reservation status in the early 1900's? Yes, and it could only can be created or extinguished by U.S. Congress. It never was.

Illegal taxation and theft of Taan ta Kwaan properties by the City Council Fathers in the early 1900 are in the downtown area of Ketchikan. The City Fathers even went so far as sending a prominent Tongass Native leader to prison because his refused to sell his properties; they had no trials or charges to imprison him in an Oregon prison, but he later died in an insane asylum in Salem, Oregon. There were four other Taan ta Kwaan leaders that would not sell their properties and were imprisoned with no trials or charges. They also died in an insane asylum in Salem.

This is how the Tongass Tribe lost their lands in Ketchikan. This is the reason Tongass Tribe People kept quiet all these years, so that we wouldn't get killed in the early to mid-1900s. To protect my mother's generation and my generation, we were not taught our language, history and culture or told these stories.

Taan ta Kwaan has land claims to Ketchikan Creek and surrounding lands including: Gravina Island, Pennock Island, Annette Island, Village Island, Cat Island, Duke Island, Percy Islands, Southeast side of Prince of Wales Island to Cape Chacon, Long Island and far south to Tongass Island. Taan ta Kwaan claims two origins the Nass River and Unuk River.

Any land claims to Ketchikan belong to the Taan ta Kwaan. Taan ta Kwaan was left out of the initial Alaska Native Land Claims Act and should, at the very least, have Village Corporation status, like Cape Fox Village Corporation of Saxman, Alaska.

The Gaanax adi Clan is one of the oldest Clans in the Tlingit Nation, and deserves to get back our inheritance rights to our land claims from the City of Ketchikan and United States of America.

In closing, we truly live in a brain-washed society, lead to believe we are created equal in the United States. This history is not taught in our public schools. We will see what happens in the near future.

This is my opinion only.

Aan Kadax Tseen, aka Don Hoff Jr.