The History of the Coast Salish, a group of Native American ethnicities on the Pacific coast of North America bound by a common culture, kinship, and languages, dates back several millennia. Their artifacts show great uniformity early on, with a discernible continuity that in some places stretches back more than seven millennia. In the area of ​​today's Coastal Salish, ie in the broad coastal border of the Canadian province of British Columbia and the US states of Washington and Oregon, traces of human presence go back over ten thousand years. The livelihood was provided by fishing, especially salmon, as well as hunting and gathering activities. Recent research shows that some groups lived as early as the 2nd millennium BC. to a rural way of life with seasonally inhabited villages. Already the first contacts with Europeans around 1775 decimated numerous groups to a great extent by imported diseases, above all by smallpox. Since the colonial powers Great Britain and Spain agreed in 1790 not to have trading posts, the construction of forts did not begin on the Pacific coast accessible by ship, but first on the Columbia and further inland and only reached Vancouver Island more than 50 years later. Thus, the canoe as a means of transport and the trade routes laid out by the coastal inhabitants, such as the Grease trails, gained great importance for the initially most important trade in otter and beaver pelts. In return, the Indians received metal goods and weapons, which greatly changed the local hierarchies and the balance of power between the tribes. While the northern portion of the Salish-inhabited territory fell to the British Hudson's Bay Company, the southern portion fell to the USA in 1846. These displaced the Indians to a much greater extent through settlement and forced them into reservations by military force. While in British Columbia each group that was considered a "tribe" received its own, albeit mostly very small, Indian reserve, the USA set up larger "reservations" in which several tribes lived. Both states attempted to forcibly assimilate the Indians, with the US relying far more heavily on interbreeding, land privatization, and economic pressure. What they had in common was the attempt to wipe out the Indian cultures through bans and a corresponding school system. In the meantime, many tribes have succeeded in reviving their cultural heritage and enforcing self-government. Introductory Overview The early history of the Coast Salish