The day after Christmas 160 years ago, under a Douglas fir on the Nisqually Delta, major Indian tribes of Washington gave up more than 2 million acres of land. The historic deal known as the Treaty of Medicine Creek is a two-page document held at the National Archives. The treaty was brokered with the United States and signed by 62 Indian leaders as land-hungry Americans began to settle into the Puget Sound region. The Treaty of Medicine Creek marks the first in a series of agreements rapidly organized by Isaac Stevens, an intelligent West Pointer and a controversial governor of Washington Territory.

In the Medicine Creek Treaty, the tribes ceded to the United States 2.5 million acres of land from the Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound. They secured $32,500, reservations, and retained the right to fish at "all usual and accustomed grounds and stations."

Throughout history, the tribes have depended on the treaties to preserve their way of life. When fish runs in the Northwest depleted, a rift formed between Indian and non-Indian fishermen. Tribes protested, citing the rights they secured in the treaties of 1854. Violence erupted on 20 major rivers in Western Washington and the Indians made their case in court. On February 12, 1974, Hugo Boldt, a bright, tough federal district judge,  used the Medicine Creek Treaty as the foundation of his opinion that awarded treaty tribes an equal share of the fish.