In the 1960s, Native Americans and their supporters began protesting Washington State laws restricting Native American fishing rights that had been granted in a series of treaties with the United States between 1854 and 1855. The Survival of the American Indian Society (SAIA), the NAACP, and the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC), coordinated a series of protests and demonstrations over several years, known at the time collectively as the "fish wars," which eventually led to the Boldt Decision (United States v. Washington, 1974), a federal ruling guaranteeing Washington tribes half the state's salmon and steelhead trout catch.
This image shows two members of the Nisqually tribe, Herman K. Johns, Jr. and Billy Frank, Jr., owner of Frank's Landing, raising a U.S. flag at Frank's Landing on the Nisqually River. The previous week, the Nisqually had raised a white flag of truce between the tribe and the State Game Department, to symbolize their temporary agreement to keep their gill nets out of the river following the State Supreme Court ruling that the state can restrict off-reservation net fishing to protect fish runs. However, on January 21, the white flag of truce was lowered and replaced with a U.S. flag to signify the resumption of gill-net fishing by the Nisqually and Puyallup tribes, who contended that the state, by treaty, had no right to regulate fishing in usual and accostumed fishing grounds. The flag that was raised had draped the coffin of Johns's father, Herman K. John, Sr., a Nisqually fisherman who served as a paratrooper in WWII and was killed in Belgium in January 1944. "Fish-in" protests at Frank's Landing, and other demonstrations, continued throughout the 1960s.
Signs on flagpole: We're fishing under this and under the treaty signed in 1854 with the U.S. Government. Herman K. Johns, paratrooper. Killed in Belgium January 4, 1944. Occupation Fishing. This flag was presented to 4 of his children: Herman K. Johns Jr, Louise Johns, Annie Johns, Sander Johns. All Nisqually Indians.
Caption information source: http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/fish-ins.htm Caption information source: "Truce Ended, Nets Going Back into River, Nisqually's Declare," Seattle Times, January 11, 1964, p. 11. Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.
