Healing, apologies at treaty ceremony

SEATTLE, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- Descendants of signers of a treaty that took land from Native Americans 155 years ago gathered north of Seattle for healing and apology, participants said.

The Point Elliott Treaty, which took land from Puget Sound-area native tribes in exchange for reservations and fishing rights, was signed in 1855.

The Seattle Times reported 200 people gathered Sunday near Puget Sound, including a fourth-generation descendant of Chief Sealth, the great-great-granddaughter of Seattle pioneer David Denny and the great-great-grandson of Commodore Thomas Phelps of the USS Decatur, the newspaper said.

The event at the location of the treaty signing, now Mukilteo Lighthouse Park, marked the first gathering of descendants of the treaty signers.

"There are not enough words to say that you're sorry," Amy Johnson, chairwoman of the The Descendants Committee of Seattle who coordinated the event, said.

She is a great-great-granddaughter of Denny.

"All we have to offer is today. Today marks a new beginning."

Nancy Shaw Morton's grandfather was Col. Benjamin Franklin Shaw, who translated for the governor at the treaty signing.

"We must heal with friendship because we are all Americans," Morton, 70, who drove up from Portland, said. "It is important that we work together as a people."

"Treaties are supposed to be the law of the land, but we owned all the land before this," Larry Campbell, a historian for the Swinomish Tribe, said.

The Rev. James Kearny, a descendant of Thomas Phelps, the commodore of the ship who enforced the treaty against Native Americans, came to offer his apologies.

"When you do any reconciliation, you expect anger," Kearny said. "But we are dealing with this directly, saying, 'Teach me. Let's start again.'"