Chinook Indian Nation, denied federal recognition, vows to fight

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, March 25, 2026

A Pacific Northwest tribe is vowing to continue its fight for federal recognition after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to settle the issue.

The high court on Monday declined to take up a case that would have decided whether the Chinook Indian Nation would be granted federal recognition, ending the tribe’s latest effort to prove its sovereignty.

“Today’s Supreme Court denial of certiorari just reminds us of the long fight that has brought us to this moment,” Tony A. (naschio) Johnson, chairman of the Chinook Indian Nation, said in a news release Monday. “It is not an end, but instead a beginning of a revitalization of our efforts. We are used to not fitting into the U.S. system that has been built around us, and are not surprised by a lack of justice here.”

The tribe traces its ancestry to the Chinookan people of the lower Columbia River, a bustling community of traders.

In the 19th century, the vast majority of that population was decimated by disease, spread through trade. Survivors spread out through area reservations, as non-Native settlers forcibly removed Northwest Indigenous people from their homelands. Today, members of several tribes in Oregon and Washington trace their ancestry back to Chinookan communities.

The Chinook Indian Nation was formed by Chinookans who refused removal, establishing headquarters at the mouth of the Columbia River. The tribe wrote its constitution in 1925, but was not formally recognized by the federal government.

A decades-long campaign finally led to federal recognition from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 2001, but that status was rescinded 18 months later, following the transition from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration and amid protest from Washington’s Quinault Indian Nation, which stood to lose membership and land following the Chinook recognition.

Under the new administration, the Bureau of Indian Affairs argued that the tribe did not sufficiently document its uninterrupted existence.

Since then, the Chinook tribe has continued its fight to regain that status.

“Federal recognition is essential for our community. It will finally deliver Indian Health Service health care, educational opportunities, [Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act] protections for our ancestors, and other vital resources long denied to our citizens,” Johnson said. “It will fuel economic development, environmental stewardship in our important region, and healing from intergenerational trauma inflicted by the federal boarding school system.”

“Most importantly, federal recognition will ensure our sovereignty is respected by the United States for all generations to come,” he said.

The Chinook tribe’s initial complaint was filed against the U.S. Department of the Interior in August 2017 in the U.S. District Court in Seattle, arguing that the Federally Recognized Indian Tribe List Act of 1994 allows tribes to gain recognition “by a decision of a United States court.” In 2024, the district court dismissed the suit, stating that the question of federal recognition was for lawmakers, not courts to decide.

Judges in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court. That led the tribe to take its case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to take up the question, leaving the previous ruling in place.

In its brief to the Supreme Court, the U.S. Department of the Interior argued that this case was a “poor vehicle” in which to address the question of the Chinook tribe’s federal recognition.

Under new regulations, tribes who have unsuccessfully petitioned for recognition have until Feb. 14, 2030, to re-petition. That alternative path means that the Chinook tribe can only seek help from the courts if its re-petition is denied, attorneys wrote.

That will be only one of many paths the tribe will now take, it said.

“For generations, the sovereign Chinook Indian Nation has fought for the federal recognition that is rightfully ours, and we will not stop now,” Johnson said. “We remain steadfast and determined, pursuing every remaining path, including through re-petitioning at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, congressional action, and executive order. We will continue until justice is finally served and we are properly seated as the recognized tribe at the mouth of our Great Columbia River.”