Dr. Sally Snyder was an anthropologist, professor, and researcher whose work focused on Psychological Anthropology, Cultural Ecology, North American Native Americans, specifically on the North Pacific Coast, Anthropology of Nutrition, Symbolic Anthropology and Projective systems, and Polynesian cultures. She attended the University of Washington, graduating with her BA in Anthropology and a minor in Psychology in 1951, then later completing her Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1964. Both following and between her degrees she conducted full-time research on Puget Sound Native American cultures, field and statistical genetics, and transcultural social psychological, and psychiatric studies at the University of Washington where she worked closely with Melville Jacobs. She also researched at the Rockland State Hospital Research Facility in New York and the Institute for Cooperative Research.

Snyder taught multiple undergraduate and graduate anthropology, psychiatry, and community and interdisciplinary behavioral-biological sciences courses at universities from 1958 to 1977. These universities included Portland State University, Louisiana State University Medical School, The Merrill-Palmer Institute, the University of Alberta, and the University of Windsor. She was a founding member of the University of Alberta’s Anthropology department and, as a protégé of Margaret Mead, was instrumental in persuading Dr. Mead to visit the department in the 1960s. Snyder wrote many published and unpublished papers, technical reports, book reviews, conference papers, and speeches. She was on the Editorial Advisory board for the Ecology of Food and Nutrition International Journal and was on the Board of Directors, advisory, and steering committee for the Association for the Development of the Commonwealth Cultural Knowledge. She was also a fellow of the American Anthropological Association.

Sally Snyder was an expert witness in the Indian Land Claims cases as an Anthropologist representing the lower Skagit, Kikiallus, Swinomish, and Stillaguamish tribes vs. the United States in the 1950s. The Indian Land Claims Cases were a series of legal cases “against the United States on behalf of any Indian tribe, band, or other identifiable groups of American Indians residing within the territorial limits of the United States or Alaska” who believed the federal government had treated them unjustly through treaty violations, confiscation of land, and other grievances. These cases began following the Indian Claims Commission Act in 1946 which resulted in the creation of The Indian Claims Commission. The outcome of the Indian Land Claims cases was monetary compensation for the over 300 tribal treaties that ceded land to the United States. Snyder was also involved in a 1983 case that concerned the Tulalip Tribes’ request for the determination of usual and accustomed fishing places. The Tulalip Tribes include the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skykomish, and other allied tribes and bands that signed the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott and reside on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. Snyder and the other Anthropologists and tribal elders testified the extent of treaty-time areas where Tulalip predecessors usually and customarily fished. This case also included testimony from Dr. Barbara Lane, with whom Snyder did consulting work.

Sources (accessed August 2023): Google sites University of Alberta Department of Anthropology department people page. Tulalip Tribe Who We Are page - https://www.tulaliptribes-nsn.gov/WhoWeAre/AboutUs