OUR STORY
The Ramsey family originates from the Yakama reservation of White Swan, Washington with long-held traditions of self-reliant industry and business entrepreneurship. With over 100 years of family-run businesses in his history, founder Robert “Red” Ramsey had an instinctual penchant for commerce and an understanding of the value it brings to a community. After working with his family-owned reservation cattle ranch, Red ventured out and established many companies specifically specializing in tobacco and petroleum wholesale. Red started First American in 2005.
Though it grew only incrementally at first, the company’s fuel distribution has today expanded to reach most Gas Stations on Trust Lands on the West Coast, bringing much needed economic infusion and freedom to the tribal communities therein.
Red’s commercial success is only the latest battleground for the ongoing struggle for justice and freedom, which was begun generations ago by the Ramsey’s Yakama forefathers.
HISTORY OF THE YAKAMA NATION
In the mid 19th century, the Yakima and 13 other neighboring tribes and bands, pushed to the brink of war and annihilation by the ceaseless expansion of the new American country, united in self preservation. Together, they negotiated the peace known today as the Treaty of the Yakama Nation (1855).
Their Tribal leaders, in exchange for over 10 million acres of ancestral homeland, secured for the people essential rights and freedoms necessary to their cultural survival. These included the right to habitable spaces for living, to infrastructural support from the government, access to hunting and fishing grounds, and most importantly, to unencumbered travel and trade throughout the new Union. With guaranteed access to the resources of the land, and that they and their goods, game, or furs would be protected on their way to and from the markets of neighboring tribes and white settlements, the people of the Yakama Nation survived the near-genocidal establishment of the new government.
The same is no less true now as it was in the 1850s: Native Americans, who in many ways are still to-this-day treated as foreigners on their own home soil, regularly rely upon the upholding of their legal rights, won and promised to them over a century and a half ago.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
As of today, First American Petroleum has helped numerous Tribes and Tribal members keep their money on their lands to help benefit their people. The funds saved and generated by utilizing First American Petroleum products have gone towards the benefit of Tribal Health Programs, Youth Programs, reservation infrastructure, and most importantly, Economic Stability.
Each tribe that engages with First American Petroleum realizes significant business and social benefits: First American gives back to these communities, annually donating hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of tribal partners and customers in local service programs.
Together, First American Petroleum and the communities that engage with us, help to enrich the lives of every Native American of every Tribe of this land; together, we stand for Tribal Sovereignty and justice for our people; together, we will make a brighter day for our future generations; together, we are American Indians committed to helping American Indians.