Gig Harbor Makes Changes To Recognize Puyallup Tribe

GIG HARBOR, WA — Austin Estuary Park has been renamed to honor a lost band of the Puyallup Tribe who used to live in the Gig Harbor area.

Thanks to a resolution recently passed by the Gig Harbor City council, Austin Estuary Park has been renamed to Austin Park, but the estuary itself has been renamed the txʷaalqəł Estuary. txʷaalqəł means "place where there is game".

The name change is just the latest move in a broader effort by the city to recognize the indigenous people who lived in the area before white settlers came in and decimated their population. As the Puyallup Tribe of Indians explains, Gig Harbor, Vashon Island and Maury Island had all originally been populated by a group called the sx̌ʷəbabš, or Swift Water People.

Last week the Peninsula School District elected to name a new elementary after the sx̌ʷəbabš as well, and the new Swift Water Elementary will be open to students starting in Fall 2021.

The Puyallup Tribe says both changes are important to recognize the indigenous people who once lived in the Puget Sound. When settlers first arrived to colonize the region, the sx̌ʷəbabš saw their population cut from over 10,000 to just a few hundred. According to the Puyallup Tribe, many were killed by viral pandemics carried by settlers, but the surviving few were decimated by the settlers themselves, who burned sx̌ʷəbabš villages and destroyed their canoes and fishing nets. By 1864, fewer than 50 sx̌ʷəbabš remained and were eventually forced from their lands to live on the Puyallup Indian Reservation.

To make sure their history is not forgotten again, Mayor Kit Kuhn has authorized the installation of several monuments at the txʷaalqəł Estuary explaining the area's significance to the sx̌ʷəbabš people. The city's website will also be updated to include more on the tribe's history.

Other efforts from the city include a recent resolution recognizing both “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” and “Native American Heritage Month”, which they say will be used to honor the ancestral and traditional lands of the sx̌ʷəbabš, and a proposal to buy and preserve a 11.5 acre plot of land that is of cultural significance to the Puyallup Tribe.

Related: Gig Harbor Moves To Buy, Preserve Critical Salmon Habitat