Like many Northwest Coast indigenous peoples pre-European contact, the Suquamish enjoyed the rich bounty of land and sea west of the Cascade Mountains.

Once the Washington Territory was established in 1853, the U.S. government began signing treaties with area indigenous leaders to extinguish aboriginal claims and make land available for non-Native settlement.

In the Point Elliott Treaty signed on January 22, 1855, the Suquamish agreed to cede land to the United States in exchange for certain payments and obligations.

Another was Seattle (also spelled Si-ahl, Sealth, See-ahth, and Seathl, pronounced [ˈsiʔaːɬ]), son of Schweabe, who was a peacekeeper during the turbulent times of the mid-19th century.

Earlier in his life, he was a noted baseball catcher, playing on a Suquamish team in 1921 that was sent by a national sporting goods company on a goodwill tour of Japan.

[8] Leonard Forsman, an anthropologist and archeologist who has served as the Suquamish Tribe’s chairman since 2005, is a governor-appointed member of the state Board on Geographic Names and an Obama appointee to the U.S.

As of July 2024, the Suquamish Tribal Council is as follows: Government departments include administration, child support enforcement, community development, court, early learning center, education, fisheries, human services, legal, natural resources, and police.

Port Madison Enterprises, the Tribe’s economic development arm, is the second-largest private-sector employer in Kitsap County with 752 employees, surpassed only by Harrison Medical Center.

Notable ventures include the Suquamish Clearwater Casino Resort, White Horse Golf Club, Kiana Lodge, PME Retail, and Property Management.