By Gregory Scruggs
SEATTLE, Oct 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Every month, business coach Maggie Karshner makes three rent payments: one for her apartment, another for her office and the third to the Duwamish tribe.
The Duwamish are an indigenous group of about 700 people whose ancestral lands include what is now present-day Seattle, a city named after their former chief. They gave up 54,000 acres (21,800 hectares) of land to the U.S. government under the terms of an 1855 treaty but were never resettled onto a reservation, according to Jolene Haas, head of Duwamish Tribal Services.
Not legally recognised as a Native American group by the government, the Duwamish have been rendered a so-called “landless tribe” that does not benefit from federal assistance to indigenous people, she added.
In an effort to fill that gap, Karshner is one of more than 2,700 people in greater Seattle who choose to make a monthly contribution through a grassroots initiative called Real Rent Duwamish.
The project is part of a growing movement of individuals, groups and businesses across the country who are voluntarily making up for unpaid reparations.
For Karshner, whose ancestors settled in Washington state in the 19th century, the $12 she pays every month is a small but symbolic gesture to atone for the role her family had in expropriating indigenous land.
“My family history is one of taking Native people’s land repeatedly,” she said. “Even though I didn’t do that, I know that some of what my family used to send me to college came from the benefits my family got from that.”
Real Rent Duwamish celebrates its second anniversary on Oct. 14, the federal Columbus Day holiday.
Some local jurisdictions, including Seattle, have redesignated it as Indigenous Peoples’ Day to reflect that Native Americans were living on the continent before Christopher Columbus’ 15th century arrival.
