Histories of American Indians typically avoid marine waters, instead exploring the loss of ancestral lands. This narrative does not fit the experience of the Makah of Washington state. Instead, Makahs shaped marine space rather than terrestrial space as the primary location of identity and success. Strategic exploitation of this marine borderland enabled them to participate in global exchange networks, to resist assimilation, and to retain greater autonomy than many other reservation communities. The 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay between the U.S. and the Makah did not circumscribe the tribe’s autonomy. Instead, the incremental loss of their marine space at the hands of non-indigenous rivals better able to capture the regulatory power of the state undermined Makah autonomy three generations after the treaty.

“The Sea Is My Country” explores centuries of interactions among Makahs, other indigenous peoples, and non-Indians. Late-eighteenth century accounts reveal that the waters around Cape Flattery, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the west coast of Vancouver Island were a pre-European borderland. During the first half of the nineteenth century, influential Makah chiefs engaged trade and colonization efforts to exercise authority; however, their actions helped make colonialism possible in this region. During the treaty negotiations, Makahs forced the U.S. to alter the document to fit their unique maritime needs. In the immediate post-treaty years, customary Makah waters remained a space of connections rather than a boundary, as imagined by European Americans. In the later nineteenth century, Makah whalers and sealers combined customary practices and strategies with modern opportunities and technology to maintain a unique Makah identity in the changing cultural and environmental world. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, national conservation laws and international agreements – in response to overhunted sea mammal populations – circumscribed Makah marine space and practices, cutting them out of profitable maritime industries. The Makah entered the twentieth century as an impoverished rather than wealthy people, thereby undercutting tribal autonomy. The dissertation concludes by connecting to the contemporary struggle over Makah whaling rights, arguing that current whaling efforts represent actions to regain control of their marine space and to articulate a traditional future.