Rebecca Lena Graham

Rebecca Lena Graham (née Matthias; December 29, 1859 – April 9, 1946) was an American Duwamish tribal member who gained considerable notoriety through her 1893-94 legal battle for her father's sizable inheritance.

Duwamish roots and early life

Rebecca Lena Graham, who went by Lena in her early life, was born in 1859 in Pioneer Square, Seattle, to Pennsylvania-born Frank Matthias and Peggy Curley, a Duwamish woman. Her father came to Seattle in 1851 and the first real estate purchase recorded in the city, buying a lot on Commercial Street (now 1st Avenue) for $20 . He helped build the original building of the University of Washington (the current site of the Olympic Hotel).

She grew up in the Puget Sound area, as her people were located in Seattle. Her maternal grandfather, Su-quardle or Curley, was a Duwamish leader related to Chief Seattle. Waterman's team successfully collected and submitted an Adze, a Duwamish woodworking tool, to Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in 1920.

Graham v. Matthias, 63 F. 523 (1894) Rebecca Lena Graham argued for her right to her father, Frank Matthias', estate in the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Washington. Matthias, who had passed in August 1891, had possessed a significant estate due to the family tie to Chief Seattle. On September 16, 1891, the administration of the estate was granted Frank's brother-in-law, Cyrus Stouffer, and was later shifted to Samuel L. Crawford. At that time, the estate's estimated value was $40,000-$100,000, with some sources estimating it at over $50,000 . Though the January 22, 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott established partial congressional funding of their reservation until the 1920s and congress provided a government settlement to the tribe in 1971, the Duwamish tribe has not been federally recognized. To obtain federal recognition, a tribe is required to prove their Indigenous identity and consistent political structure since "historical times." The first Duwamish petition for recognition was filed in the 1970s. In June 1996, the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs published a report acknowledging the Duwamish Tribal Organization's recognition efforts, relating to part 82 of Title 25 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The tribe needed to meet seven criteria to be recognized (which in turn provided the land, benefits, and services from the government), which were added in 1978 by the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs' Office of Federal Acknowledgement. Since the historical Duwamish Tribe differed from the Duwamish Tribal Organization, established in 1925, and there were names of Duwamish people also listed on other tribes' lists, the petition failed. The Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs report stated the Duwamish people were “clearly identified as a historical tribe by the first Federal officials and American settlers in western Washington Territory in the 1850s.” This report was followed by approval for federal recognition from the Department of Interior in 2001 that was quickly reversed between U.S. Presidential Administrations. An appeal was filed in 2015 that was rejected. The lack of federal tribal recognition means that, along with a lack of government protection of tribal sovereignty, that the Bureau of Indian Affairs did not supply any funding for health and development needs. The Duwamish case for tribal recognition continues to pend in the Interior Board of Indian Appeals today.

Contemporary relevance The lack of tribal recognition has resulted in a lack of government resources for the Duwamish people, as well as a lack of government agency protection of tribal sovereignty. Today, the Duwamish Tribal Chairwoman Cecile Hansen leads the charge on the appeal to gain Duwamish tribal recognition. Rebecca Lena Graham's legal battle exposed divisions in the colonial community of Seattle between those who believed she, as a half-Native woman, deserved recognition and should be granted ownership of her father's estate and those who did not recognize this right. Graham's case was a substantial legal precedent due to Washington's oppressive anti-miscegenation and probate laws. It is important to make note that there are inconsistencies in the records, such as Judge "Hanford" or "Hakford," as well as different framings of Rebecca's narrative in different settings.