CHAPTER IV.
THE NEZ PERCÉS.
Bounded on the north, south, and east by snow-topped mountains, and on the west by shining waters; holding in its rocky passes the sources of six great rivers; bearing on its slopes and plains measureless forests of pine and cedar and spruce; its meadows gardens of summer bloom and fruit, and treasure-houses of fertility,—lies Oregon: wide, healthful, beautiful, abundant, and inviting, no wonder it was coveted and fought for.
When Lewis and Clarke visited it, eighty years ago, they found living there many tribes of Indians, numbering in all, at the lowest estimates, between twenty and thirty thousand; of all these tribes the Nez Percés were the richest, noblest, and most gentle.
To the Cayuses, one of the most warlike of these tribes, Messrs. Lewis and Clarke presented an American flag, telling them it was an emblem of peace. The gay coloring and beauty of the flag, allied to this significance, made a deep impression on the poetic minds of these savages. They set the flag up in a beautiful valley called the Grande Ronde—a fertile basin some twenty-five miles in diameter, surrounded by high walls of basaltic rock, and watered by a branch of the Snake River: around this flag they met their old enemies the Shoshones, and swore to keep perpetual peace with them; and the spot became consecrated to an annual meeting of the tribes—a sort of fair, where the Cayuse, Nez Percé, and Walla Walla Indians came every summer and traded their roots, skins, elk and buffalo meats, for salmon and horses, with the Shoshones. It was a beautiful spot, nearly circular, luxuriantly covered with grass, the hill wall around it thick grown with evergreen trees, chiefly larch. The Indians called it Karpkarp, which being translated is “Balm of Gilead.”
The life of these Indians was a peculiar one. Most of them had several homes, and as they lived only a part of the year in each, were frequently spoken of by travellers as nomadic tribes, while in fact they were as wedded to their homes as any civilized inhabitants of the world; and their wanderings were as systematic as the removals of wealthy city people from town homes to country places. If a man were rich enough, and fond enough of change, to have a winter house in New York, a house for the summer in Newport, and one for autumn in the White Mountains, nobody would think of calling him a nomad; still less if he made these successive changes annually, with perfect regularity, owing to opportunities which were offered him at regularly recurring intervals in these different places to earn his living; which was the case with the Oregon Indians.
As soon as the snow disappears in the spring there is in certain localities, ready for gathering, the “pohpoh”—a small bulb, like an onion. This is suceeeded by the “spatlam,” and the “spatlam” by the “cammass” or “ithwa,” a root like a parsnip, which they make into fine meal. In midsummer come the salmon in countless shoals up the rivers. August is the month for berries, of which they dry great quantities for winter use. In September salmon again—coming down stream now, exhausted and ready to die, but in sufficiently good condition to be dried for the winter. In October comes the “mesani,” another root of importance in the Indian larder. After this they must depend on deer, bears, small game, and wildfowl. When all these. resources fail, there is a kind of lichen growing on the trees, of which they can eat enough to keep themselves from starving, though its nutritive qualities are very small. Thus each season had its duty and its appointed place of abode, and year after year the same mouth found them in the same spot.
In 1833 a delegation from these Oregon Indians went to St. Louis, and through Mr. Catlin, the artist, made known their object, which was “to inquire for the truth of a representation which they said some white men had made among them, that our religion was better than theirs, and that they would all be lost if they did not embrace it.” Two members of this delegation were Nez Percés—“Hee-oh’ks-te-kin” and “H’co-a-h’co-a-h’cotes-min,” or “Rabbit-skin Leggings,” and “No Horns on his Head.” Their portraits are to be found in “Catlin’s American Indians.” One of these died on his way home; but the other journeyed his thousands of miles safely back, and bore to his tribe the news “that the report which they had heard was well founded, and that good and religious men would soon come among them to teach this religion, so that they could all understand and have the benefits of it.”
Two years later the Methodist Episcopal Society and the American Board both sent missionaries to Oregon. Before this the religion of the fur-traders was the only white man’s religion that the Indians had had the opportunity of observing. Eleven different companies and expeditions, besides the Hudson's Bay and the North-west Companies, had been established in their country, and the Indians had become only too familiar with their standards and methods. It was not many years after the arrival of the missionaries in Oregon that a traveller there gave the following account of his experience with a Nez Percé guide:
“Creekie (so he was named) was a very kind man; he turned
my worn-out animals loose, and loaded my packs on his
own; gave me a splendid horse to ride, and intimated by
significant gestures that we would go a short distance that afternoon.
I gave my assent, and we were soon on our way; having ridden about ten miles, we camped for the night. I
noticed, during the ride, a degree of forbearance toward each other
which I had never before observed in that race. When we
halted for the night the two boys were behind; they had been
frolicking with their horses, and, as the darkness came on, lost
the trail. It was a half-hour before they made their appearance,
and during this time the parents manifested the most
anxious solicitude for them. One of them was but three years
old, and was lashed to the horse he rode; the other only seven
years of age—young pilots in the wilderness at night. But
the elder, true to the sagacity of his race, had taken his course,
and struck the brook on which we were encamped within three
hundred yards of us. The pride of the parents at this feat,
and their ardent attachment to the children, were perceptible
in the pleasure with which they received them at their evenning
fire, and heard the relation of their childish adventures.
The weather was so pleasant that no tent was spread. The
willows were bent, and the buffalo-robes spread over them.
Underneath were laid other robes, on which my Indian host
seated himself, with his wife and children on one side and
myself on the other. A fire burnt brightly in front. Water
was brought, and the evening ablutions having been performed,
the wife presented a dish of meat to her husband and one to
myself. There was a pause. The woman seated herself
between her children. The Indian then bowed his head and
prayed to God. A wandering savage in Oregon, calling on
Jehovah in the name of Jesus Christ! After the prayer he
gave meat to his children and passed the dish to his wife.
While eating, the frequent repetition of the words Jehovah and
Jesus Christ, in the most reverential manner, led me to
suppose that they were conversing on religious topics, and thus
they passed an hour. Meanwhile the exceeding weariness of a
long day's travel admonished me to seek rest. I had slumbered
I know not how long, when a strain of music awoke me. The Indian family was engaged in its evening devotions. They
were singing a hymn in the Nez Percés language. Having
finished, they all knelt and bowed their faces on the buffalo-robe,
and Creekie prayed long and fervently. Afterward they
sung another hymn, and retired. To hospitality, family affection,
and devotion, Creekie added honesty and cleanliness to a
great degree, manifesting by these fruits, so contrary to the
nature and habits of his race, the beautiful influence of the
work of grace on the heart.”
The earliest mention of the Nez Percés in the official records of the Indian Bureau is in the year 1843. In that year an agent was sent out to investigate the condition of the Oregon tribes, and he reports as follows: “The only tribes from which much is to be hoped, or anything to be feared in this part of Oregon, are the Walla Wallas, Cayuses, and Nez Percés, inhabiting a district on the Columbia and its tributaries, commencing two hundred and forty miles from its mouth, and stretching four hundred and eighty miles in the interior.”
The Nez Percés, living farther inland, “inhabit a beautiful grazing district, not surpassed by any I have seen for verdure, water privileges, climate, or health. This tribe forms an honorable exception to the general Indian character—being more noble, industrious, sensible, and better disposed toward the whites and their improvements in the arts and sciences; and though brave as Cæsar, the whites have nothing to dread at their hands in case of their dealing out to them what they conceive to be right and equitable.”
When this agent arrived at the missionary station among the Nez Percés, he was met there by a large body of the Indians with twenty-two of their chiefs. The missionaries received him “with joyful countenances and glad hearts;” the Indians, “with civility, gravity, and dignified reserve.”
He addressed them at length, explaining to them the kind intentions of the Government toward them. They listened with “gravity, fixed attention, and decorum.” Finally an aged chief, ninety years of age, arose and said: “I speak to-day; perhaps to-morrow I die. I am the oldest chief of the tribe. I was the high chief when your great brothers, Lewis and Clarke, visited this country. They visited me, and honored me with their friendship and counsel. I showed them my numerous wounds, received in bloody battle with the Snakes. They told me it was not good; it was better to be at peace; gave me a flag of truce; I held it up high. We met, and talked, but never fought again. Clarke pointed to this day—to you and this occasion. We have long waited in expectation; sent three of our sons to Red River school to prepare for it; two of them sleep with their fathers; the other is here, and can be ears, mouth, and pen for us. I can say no more; I am quickly tired; my voice and limbs tremble. I am glad I live to see you and this day; but I shall soon be still and quiet in death.”
At this council the Nez Percés elected a head chief named Ellis, and adopted the following Code of Laws:
Art. 1. Whoever wilfully takes life shall be hung.
Art. 2. Whoever burns a dwelling-house shall be hung.
Art. 3. Whoever burns an out-building shall be imprisoned six months, receive fifty lashes, and pay all damages.
Art. 4. Whoever carelessly burns a house or any property shall pay damages.
Art. 5. If any one enter a dwelling without permission of the occupant, the chiefs shall punish him as they think proper. Public rooms are excepted.
Art. 6. If any one steal, he shall pay back twofold; and if it be the value of a beaver-skin or less, he shall receive twenty-five lashes; and if the value is over a beaver-skin, he shall pay back twofold, and receive fifty lashes.
Art. 7. If any one take a horse and ride it, without permission, or take any article and use it, without liberty, he shall pay for the use of it, and receive from twenty to fifty lashes, as the chief shall direct.
Art. 8. If any one enter a field and injure the crops, or throw down the fence, so that cattle or horses go in and do damage, he shall pay all damages, and receive twenty-five lashes for every offence.
Art. 9. Those only may keep dogs who travel or live among the game. If a dog kill a lamb, calf, or any domestic animal, the owner shall pay the damage, and kill the dog.
Art. 10. If an Indian raise a gun or other weapon against a white man, it shall be reported to the chiefs, and they shall punish him. If a white man do the same to an Indian, it shall be reported to Dr. White, and he shall punish or redress it.
Art. 11. If an Indian break these laws, he shall be punished by his chiefs; if a white man break them, he shall be reported to the agent, and punished at his instance.
These laws, the agent says, he “proposed one by one, leaving them as free to reject as to accept. They were greatly pleased with all proposed, but wished a heavier penalty to some, and suggested the dog-law, which was annexed.”
In a history of Oregon written by one W. H. Gray, of Astoria, we find this Indian agent spoken of as a “notorious blockhead.” Mr. Gray’s methods of mention of all persons toward whom he has antagonism or dislike are violent and undignified, and do not redound either to his credit as a writer or his credibility as a witness. But it is impossible to avoid the impression that in this instance he was not far from the truth. Surely one cannot read, without mingled horror and incredulity, this programme of the whipping-post, offered as one of the first instalments of the United States Government’s “kind intentions” toward these Indians; one of the first practical illustrations given them of the kind of civilization the United States Government would recommend and introduce.
We are not surprised to read in another narrative of affairs in Oregon, a little later, that “the Indians want pay for being whipped, the same as they did for praying—to please the missionaries—during the great revival of 1839. * * * Some of the influential men in the tribe desired to know of what benefit this whipping-system was going to be to them. They said they were willing it should continue, provided they were to receive shirts and pants and blankets as a reward for being whipped. They had been whipped a good many times, and had got nothing for it, and it had done them no good. If this state of things was to continue, it was all good for nothing, and they would throw it away.”
The Secretary of War does not appear to have seen this aspect of his agent’s original efforts in the line of jurisprudence. He says of the report which includes this astounding code, merely that “it furnishes some deeply interesting and curious details respecting certain of the Indian tribes in that remote part of our territories,” and that the conduct of the Nez Percés on the occasion of this important meeting “impresses one most agreeably.”
A report submitted at the same time by the Rev. Mr. Spaulding, who had lived six years as missionary among the Nez Percés, is much pleasanter reading. He says that “nearly all the principal men and chiefs are members of the school; that they are as industrious in their schools as on their farms. They cultivate their lands with much skill and to good advantage, and many more would do so if they had the means. About one hundred are printing their own books with the pen. This keeps up a deep interest, as they daily have new lessons to print; and what they print must be committed to memory as soon as possible. A good number are now so far advanced in reading and printing as to render much assistance in teaching. Their books are taken home at night, and every lodge becomes a school-room. Their lessons are Scripture lessons; no others (except the laws) seem to interest them.”
Even this missionary seems to have fallen under some strange glamour on the subject of the whipping-code; for he adds: “The laws which you so happily prepared, and which were unanimously adopted by the people, I have printed in the form of a small school-book. A great number of the school now read them fluently.”
In the next year's report of the Secretary of War we read that “the Nez Percé tribe have adopted a few simple and plain laws as their code, which will teach them self-restraint, and is the beginning of government on their part.” The Secretary also thinks it “very remarkable that there should so soon be several well supported, well attended, and well conducted schools in Oregon.” (Not at all remarkable, considering that the Congregationalists, the Methodist Episcopalians, and the Roman Catholics have all had missionaries at work there for eight years.)
In 1846, the Nez Percés, with the rest of the Oregon tribes, disappear from the official records of the Indian Bureau. “It will be necessary to make some provision for conducting our relations with the Indian tribes west of the Rocky Mountains,” it is said; but, “the whole subject having been laid before ongress, it was not deemed advisable to continue a service that was circumscribed in its objects, and originally designed to be temporary.” The founder of the whipping-post in Oregon was therefore relieved from his duties, and it is to be hoped his laws speedily fell into disuse. The next year all the Protestant missions in Oregon were abandoned, in consequence of the frightful massacre by the Cayuses of the missionary families living among them.[1] But the Nez Percés, though deprived of their teaching, did not give up the faith and the practice they had taught them. Six years later General Benjamin Alvord bore the following testimony to their religious character:
“In the spring of 1853 a white man, who had passed the previous winter in the country of the Nez Percés, came to the military post at the Dalles, and on being questioned as to the manners and customs of the tribe, he said that he wintered with a band of several hundred in number, and that the whole party assembled every evening and morning for prayer, the exercises being conducted by one of themselves in their own language. He stated that on Sunday they assembled for exhortation and worship.”
In 1851 a superintendent and three agents were appointed for Indian service in Oregon. Treaties were negotiated with some of the tribes, but they were not ratified, and in 1853 there was, in consequence, a wide-spread dissatisfaction among all the Indians in the region. “They have become distrustful of all promises made them by the United States,” says the Oregon superintendent, “and believe the design of the Government is to defer doing anything for them till they have wasted away, The settlement of the whites on the tracts which they regarded as secured to them by solemn treaty stipulations, results in frequent misunderstandings between them and the settlers, and occasions and augments bitter animosities and resentments. I am in almost daily receipt of complaints and petitions for a redress of wrongs from both parties.”
Governor Stevens, of Washington Territory, in charge of the Northern Pacific Railroad Explorations and Survey, wrote, this year, “These hitherto neglected tribes, whose progress from the wild wanderers of the plains to kind and hospitable neighbors is personally known to you, are entitled, by every consideration of justice and humanity, to the fatherly care of the Government.”
In Governor Stevens's report is to be found a comprehensive and intelligible account of all the Indian tribes in Oregon and Washington Territory. The greater part of the Nez Percés’ country was now within the limits of Washington Territory, only a few bands remaining in Oregon. They were estimated to number at least eighteen hundred, and were said to be a “rich and powerful tribe, owning many horses.” Every year they crossed the mountains to hunt buffalo on the plains of the Missouri.
In 1855 there was a general outbreak of hostilities on the part of the Oregon Indians. Tribe after tribe, even among those who had been considered friendly, fell into the ranks of the hostiles, and some base acts of treachery were committed. The Oregon settlers, menaced with danger on all sides, became naturally so excited and terrified that their actions were hasty and ill-advised. “They are without discipline, without order, and similar to madmen,” says one official report. “Every day they run off the horses and the cattle of the friendly Indians. I will soon no longer be able to restrain the friendly Indians. They are indignant at conduct so unworthy of the whites, who have made so many promises to respect and protect them if they remain faithful friends. I am very sure, if the volunteers are not arrested in their brigand actions, our Indians will save themselves by flying to the homes of their relations, the Nez Percés, who have promised them help; and then all these Indians of Oregon would join in the common defence until they be entirely exterminated.”
It is difficult to do full justice to the moral courage which is shown by Indians who retain friendly to whites under such circumstances as these. The traditions of their race, the powerful influence of public sentiment among their relatives and friends, and, in addition, terror for their own lives—all combine in times of such outbreaks to draw even the friendliest tribes into sympathy and co-operation with those who are making war on whites.
At this time the hostile Indians in Oregon sent word to the Nez Percés, “Join us in the war against the whites, or we will wipe you out.” They said, “We have made the whites run out of the country, and we will now make the friendly Indians do the same.”
“What can the friendly Indians do?” wrote the colonel of a company of Washington Territory Volunteers; “they have no ammunition, and the whites will give them none; and the hostiles say to them, ‘We have plenty; come and join us, and save your lives.’ The Nez Percés are very much alarmed; they say,‘We have no ammunition to defend ourselves with if we are attacked.’ ”
The Oregon superintendent writes to General Wool (in command at this time of the Department of the Pacific), imploring him to send troops to Oregon to protect both friendly Indians and white settlers, and to enable this department to maintain guarantees secured to these Indians by treaty stipulations. He says that the friendly Indians are “willing to submit to almost any sacrifice to obtain peace, but there may be a point beyond which they could not be induced to go without a struggle.”
This outbreak terminated after some sharp fighting, and about equal losses on both sides, in what the Oregon superintendent calls “a sort of armistice,” which left the Indians “much emboldened,” with the impression on their minds that they have the “ability to contend successfully against the entire white race.”
Moreover, “the non-ratification of the treaties heretofore made to extinguish their title to the lands necessary for the occupancy and use of our citizens, seems to have produced no little disappointment; and the continued extension of our settlements into their territory, without any compensation being made to them, is a constant source of dissatisfaction and hostile feeling.
“It cannot be expected that Indians situated like those in Oregon and Washington Territory, occupying extensive sections of country where, from the game and otherwise, they derive a comfortable support, will quietly and peaceably submit, without any equivalent, to be deprived of their homes and possessions, and to be driven off to some other locality where they cannot find their usual means of subsistence. Such a proceeding is not only contrary to our policy hitherto, but is repugnant alike to the dictates of humanity and the principles of natural justice.
“The principle of recognizing and respecting the usufruct right of the Indians to the lands occupied by them has not been so strictly adhered to in the case of the tribes in the Territories of Oregon and Washington. When a territorial government was first provided for Oregon—which then embraced the present Territory of Washington—strong inducements were held out to our people to emigrate and settle there without the usual arrangements being made in advance for the extinguishment of the title of the Indians who occupied and claimed the lands. Intruded upon, ousted of their homes and possessions without any compensation, and deprived in most cases of their accustomed means of support, without any arrangement having been made to enable them to establish and maintain themselves in other locations, it is not a matter of surprise that they have committed many depredations upon our citizens, and been exasperated to frequent acts of hostility.”
As was to be expected, the armistice proved of no avail; and in 1858 the unfortunate Territories had another Indian war on their hands. In this war we find the Nez Percés fighting on the side of the United States against the hostile Indians. One of the detachments of United States troops was saved from destruction only by taking refuge with them. Nearly destitute of ammunition, and surrounded by hundreds of hostile Indians, the little company escaped by night; and “after a ride of ninety miles mostly at a gallop, and without a rest, reached Snake River,” where they were met by this friendly tribe, who “received them with open arms, succored the wounded men, and crossed in safety the whole command over the difficult and dangerous river.”
The officer in command of the Nez Percé band writes as follows, in his report to the Indian Commissioner:
“Allow me, my dear sir, while this general war is going on, to point you to at least a few green spots where the ravages of war do not as yet extend, and which thus far are untainted and unaffected, with a view of retaining them that we may so hereafter point to them as oases in this desert of war. These green spots are the Nez Percés, the Flat-heads, and Pend d'Oreilles. In this connection I refer with grateful pride to an act of Colonel Wright, which embodies views and motives which, endorsed and carried out by the Government, must redound to his credit and praise, and be the means of building up, at no distant day, a bold, brave, warlike, and numerous people.
“Before leaving Walla-Walla, Colonel Wright assembled the Nez Percé people, told them his object was to war with and punish our enemies; but as this great people were and ever had been our friends, he wanted their friendship to be as enduring as the mountains around which they lived; and in order that no difference of views or difficulty might arise, that their mutual promises should be recorded.”
With this view he there made a treaty of friendship with them, and thirty of the bravest warriors and chiefs at once marshalled themselves to accompany him against the enemy.
When Colonel Wright asked these Indians what they wanted, “their reply was worthy of a noble race—‘Peace, ploughs, and schools.’ ” At this time they had no agent appointed to attend to their welfare; they were raising wheat, corn, and vegetables with the rude means at their command, and still preserved the faith and many of the practices taught them by the missionaries thirteen years before.
In 1859 peace was again established in Oregon, and the Indians “considered as conquered.” The treaties of 1855 were ratified by the Senate, and this fact went far to restore tranquillity in the territories. Congress was implored by the superintendents to realize “the importance of making the appropriations for fulfilling those treaty stipulations at the earliest practicable moment;” that it may “prevent the recurrence of another savage war, necessarily bloody and devastating to our settlements, extended under the authority and sanction of our Government.” With marvellous self-restraint, the superintendents do not enforce their appeals by a reference to the fact that, if the treaties had been fulfilled in the outset, all the hostilities of the last four years might probably have been avoided.
The reservation secured to the Nez Percés was a fine tract of country, one hundred miles long and sixty in width—well watered, timbered, and of great natural resources. Already the Indians had begun to practice irrigation in their fields; had large herds of horses, and were beginning to give attention to improving the breed. Some of them could read and write their own language, and many of them professed Christianity, and were exemplary in their conduct—a most remarkable fact, proving the depth of the impression the missionary teachings must have made. The majority of them wore the American costume, and showed “their progress in civilization by attaching little value to the gewgaws and trinkets which so generally captivate the savage.”
In less than two years the peace of this noble tribe was again invaded; this time by a deadly foe—the greed of gold. In 1861 there were said to be no less than tén thousand miners in the Nez Percé country prospecting for gold. Now arose the question, What will the Government do? Will it protect the rights of the Indians or not?
“To attempt to restrain miners would be like attempting to restrain the whirlwind,” writes the superintendent of Washington Territory; and he confesses that, “seeing the utter impossibility of preventing miners from going to the mines,” he has refrained from taking any steps which, by a certain want of success, would tend to weaken the force of the law.
For the next few years the Nez Percés saw with dismay the steady stream of settlers pouring into their country. That they did not resist it by force is marvellous, and can only be explained by the power of a truly Christian spirit.
“Their reservation was overrun by the enterprising miners; treaty stipulations were disregarded and trampled under foot; towns were established thereon, and all the means that cupidity could invent or disloyalty achieve were resorted to to shake their confidence in the Government. They were disturbed in the peaceable possession of what they regarded as their vested rights, sacredly secured by treaty. They were informed that the Government was destroyed, and that whatever treaties were made would never be carried out. All resistance on their part proved unavailing, and inquietude and discontent predominated among them,” says the Governor of Idaho, in 1865. Shortly after, by the organization of that new Territory, the Nez Percés’ reservation had been removed from the jurisdiction of Washington Territory to that of Idaho.
A powerful party was organized in the tribe, advocating the forming of a league with the Crows and Blackfeet against the whites. The non-arrival of promised supplies; the non-payment of promised moneys; the unchecked influx of miners throughout the reservation, put strong weapons into the hands of these disaffected ones. But the chiefs “remained firm and unwavering in their devotion to the Government and the laws. They are intelligent—their head chief, Sawyer, particularly so—and tell their people to still wait patiently.” And yet, at this very time, there was due from the United States Government to this chief Sawyer six hundred and twenty-five dollars! He had for six months been suffering for the commonest necessaries of life, and had been driven to disposing of his vouchers at fifty cents on the dollar to purchase necessaries. The warriors also, who fought for us so well in 1856, were still unpaid; although in the seventh article of the treaty of 1863 it had been agreed that “the claims of certain members of the Nez Percé tribe against the Government, for services rendered and horses furnished by them to the Oregon Mounted Volunteers, as appears by certificates issued by W. H. Fauntleroy, Acting Regimental Quartermaster, and commanding Oregon Volunteers, on the 6th of March, 1856, at Camp Cornelius, and amounting to $4665, shall be paid to them in full in gold coin.”
How many communities of white men would remain peaceable, loyal, and friendly under such a strain as this?
In 1866 the Indian Bureau report of the state of our diplomatic relations with the Nez Percés is that the treaty concluded with them in 1863 was ratified by the Senate, “with an amendment which awaited the action of the Indians. The ratification of this treaty has been delayed for several years for various reasons, partly arising from successive changes in the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Idaho, whose varying opinions on the subject of the treaty have caused doubts in the minds of senators. A later treaty had been made, but, on careful consideration of the subject, it was deemed advisable to carry into effect that of 1863. The Nez Percés claimed title to a very large district of country comprised in what are now organized as Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, but principally within the latter Territory; and already a large white population is pressing upon them in the search for gold. They are peaceable, industrious, and friendly, and altogether one of the most promising of the tribes west of the Rocky Mountains, having profited largely by the labors of missionaries among them.”
By the treaty ratified in this year they, give up “all their lands except a reservation defined by certain natural boundaries, and agree to remove to this reservation within one year, Where they have improvements on lands outside of it, such improvements are to be appraised and paid for. The tillable lands are to be surveyed into tracts of twenty acres each, and allotted to such Indians as desire to hold lands in severalty. The Government is to continue the annuities due under former treaties, and, in addition, pay the tribe, or expend for them for certain specific purposes having their improvement in view, the sum of $262,500, and a moderate sum is devoted to homes and salaries for chiefs. The right of way is secured through the reservation, and the Government undertakes to reserve all important springs and watering-places for public use.”
In this same year the Governor of Idaho writes, in his annual report to the Department of the Interior: “Prominent among the tribes of Northern Idaho stand the Nez Percés, a majority of whom boast that they have ever been the faithful friends of the white man. But a few over half of the entire tribe of the Nez Percés are under treaty. The fidelity of those under treaty, even under the most discouraging circumstances, must commend itself to the favorable consideration of the Department. The non-payment of their annuities has had its natural effect on the minds of some of those under treaty; but their confiding head chief, Sawyer, remains unmoved, and on all occasions is found the faithful apologist for any failure of the Government. Could this tribe have been kept aloof from the contaminating vices of white men, and had it been in the power of the Government promptly to comply with the stipulations of the treaty of 1855, there can be no doubt but that their condition at this time would have been a most prosperous one, and that the whole of the Nez Percé nation would by this time have been willing to come under treaty, and settle on the reservation with those already there.”
In 1867 the patience of the Nez Pereés is beginning to show signs of wearing out. The Governor of Idaho writes: “This disaffection is great, and serious trouble is imminent. It could all be settled by prompt payment by the Government of their just dues; but if delayed too long I greatly fear open hostilities. They have been patient, but promises and explanations are losing force with them now. * * * Their grievances are urged with such earnestness that even Sawyer, who has always been our apologist, has in a measure abandoned his pacific policy, and asks boldly that we do them justice. * * * Even now it may not be too late; but, if neglected, war may be reasonably expected. Should the Nez Percés strike a blow, all over our Territory and around our boundaries will blaze the signal-fires and gleam the tomahawks of the savages—Kootenays, Pen d’Oreilles, Cœur d’Alenes, Blackfeet, Flat-heads, Spokanes, Pelouses, Bannocks, and Shoshones will be involved.”
This disaffection, says the agent, “began to show itself soon after the visit of George C. Haigh, Esq., special agent, last December, to obtain their assent to the amendments to the treaty of June 9th, 1863—the non-ratification of that treaty had gone on so long, and promises made them by Governor Lyon that it would not be ratified, and that he was authorized to make a new treaty with them by which they would retain all of their country, as given them under the treaty of 1851, except the site of the town of Lewiston. They had also been informed in March, 1866, that Governor Lyon would be here in the June following, to pay them back-annuities due under the treaty of 1855. The failure to carry out these promises, and the idea they have that the stipulations of the treaty of 1863 will be carried out in the same manner, is one of the causes of their bad feeling. It showed itself plainly at the council lately held, and is on the increase. If there is the same delay in carrying out the stipulations of the treaty of 1863 that there has been in that of 1855, some of the chiefs with their bands will join the hostile Indians. There are many things it is impossible to explain to them. They cannot understand why the $1185 that was promised by Governor Lyon to the Indian laborers on the church is not paid. He told them when the walls were up they should receive their pay. These laborers were poor men, and such inducements were held out to them that they commenced the work in good faith, with the full expectation of receiving their pay when their labors ceased.”
The head chief Sawyer's pay is still in arrears. For the last quarter of 1863, and the first and second of 1864, he has received no pay. No wonder he has ceased to be the “apologist” of the Government, which four years ago promised him annuity of $500 a year.
Spite of this increasing disaffection the Nez Percés are industrious and prosperous. They raised in this year 15,000 bushels of wheat. “Many of them carried their wheat to be ground to the mills, while many sold the grain to packers for feed, while much of it is boiled whole for food. Some few of the better class have had their wheat ground, and sold the flour in the mining-camps at lower prices than packers could lay it down in the camps. Some have small pack-trains running through the summer; one in particular, Cru-cru-lu-ye, runs some fifteen animals; he sometimes packs for whites, and again runs on his own account. A Clearwater Station merchant a short time ago informed me of his buying some oats of Cru-cru-lu-ye last fall. After the grain had been weighed, and emptied out of the sacks, the Indian brought the empty sacks to the scales to have then weighed, and the tare deducted, saying he only wanted pay for the oats. Their sales of melons, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, squashes, green pease, etc., during the summer, in the different towns and mining-camps, bring in some $2000 to $3000. Their stock of horses and cattle is increasing fast, and with the benefits to be derived from good American stallions, and good bulls and cows, to be distributed to them under the stipulations of the treaty of 1863, they will rapidly increase in wealth.”
In 1869 their reservation is still unsurveyed, and when the Indians claim that white settlers are establishing themselves inside the lines there is no way of proving it, and the agent says all he can do is to promise that “the white man's heart shall be better;” and thus the matter will rest until another disturbance arises, when the same complaints are made, and the same answers given as before—that “the white man's heart shall be better, and the boundary-line shall be surveyed.”
Other treaty stipulations are still unfulfilled; and the non-treaty party, while entirely peaceable, is very strong, and immovably opposed to treaties.
In 1870, seven years after it was promised, the long deferred survey of the reservation was made. The superintendent and the agent both remonstrated, but in rain, against the manner in which it was done; and three years later a Board of Special Commissioners, appointed to inquire into the condition of the Indians in Idaho, examined the fence put up at that time, and reported that it was “a most scandalous fraud. It is a post-and-board fence. The posts are not well set. Much of the lumber is deficient in width and length. The posts are not dressed. The lumber laps at any joint where it may chance to meet, whether on the posts or between them, and the boards are not jointed on the posts where they meet; they are lapped and fastened generally with one nail, so that they are falling down rapidly. The lumber was cut on the reservation. The contract price of the fence was very high; the fencing done in places of no value to any one, for the reason that water cannot be had for irrigation. The Government cannot be a party to such frauds on the people who intrust it with their property.”
In this year a commission was sent to Oregon to hold council with the band of Nez Percés occupying Wallowa Valley, in Oregon, “with a view to their removal, if practicable, to the Nez Percé Reservation in Idaho. They reported this removal to be impracticable, and the Wallowa Valley has been withdrawn from sale, and set apart for their use and occupation by Executive order.”[2]
This commission report that one of the most troublesome questions in the way of the Government's control of Indian affairs in Idaho is the contest between the Catholic and Protestant churches. This strife is a great detriment to the Indians. To illustrate this, they quote Chief Joseph's reason for not wishing schools on his reservation. He was the chief of the non-treaty band of Nez Percés occupying the Wallowa Valley, in Oregon:
“Do you want schools and school-houses on the Wallowa Reservation?” asked the commissioners.
Joseph. “No, we do not want schools or school-houses on the Wallowa Reservation.”
Com. “Why do you not want schools?”
Joseph. “They will teach us to have churches.”
Com. “Do you not want churches?”
Joseph. “No, we do not want churches.”
Com. “Why do you not want churches?”
Joseph. “They will teach us to quarrel about God, as the Catholics and Protestants do on the Nez Percé Reservation, and at other places. We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that.”
Great excitement prevailed among the settlers in Oregon at the cession of the Wallowa Valley to the Indians. The presence of United States soldiers prevented any outbreak; but the resentment of the whites was very strong, and threats were openly made that the Indians should not be permitted to occupy it; and in 1875 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs writes:
“The settlements made in the Wallowa Valley, which has for years been the pasture-ground of the large herds of horses owned by Joseph's band, will occasion more or less trouble between this band and the whites, until Joseph is induced or compelled to settle on his reservation.”
It is only two years since this valley was set apart by Executive order for the use and occupation of these Indians; already the Department is contemplating “compelling” them to leave it and go to the reservation in Idaho. There were stormy scenes there also during this year. Suits were brought against all the employés of the Lapwai Ageney, and a claim set up for all the lands of the agency, and for many of the Indian farms, by one Langford, representing the old claim of the missionaries, to whom a large tract of ground had been ceded some thirty years before. He attempted to take forcible possession of the place, and was ejected finally by military force, after the decision of the Attorney-general had been given that his claim was invalid.
The Indian Bureau recommended a revocation of the executive order giving the Wallowa Valley to Joseph and his band. In June of this year President Grant revoked the order, and in the autumn a commission was sent out “to visit these Indians, with a view to secure their permanent settlement on the reservation, their early entrance on a civilized life, and to adjust the difficulties then existing between them and the settlers.”
It is worth while to study with some care the reasons which this commission gave to Chief Joseph why the Wallowa Valley, which had been given to him by Executive order in 1873, must be taken away from him by Executive order in 1875:
“Owing to the coldness of the climate, it is not a suitable location for an Indian reservation. * * * It is now in part settled by white squatters for grazing purposes. * * * The President claimed that he extinguished the Indian title to it by the treaty of 1863. * * * It is embraced within the limits of the State of Oregon. * * * The State of Oregon could not probably be induced to cede the jurisdiction of the valley to the United States for an Indian reservation. * * * In the conflicts which might arise in the future, as in the past, between him and the whites, the President might not be able to justify or defend him. * * * A part of the valley had already been surveyed and opened to settlement: * * * if, by some arrangement, the white settlers in the valley could be induced to leave it, others would come.”
To all these statements Joseph replied that he “asked nothing of the President. He was able to take care of himself. He did not desire Wallowa Valley as a reservation, for that would subject him and his band to the will of, and dependence on, another, and to laws not of their own making. He was disposed to live peaceably. He and his band had suffered wrong rather than do wrong. One of their number was wickedly slain by a white man during the last summer, but he would not avenge his death.”
“The serious and feeling manner in which he uttered these sentiments was impressive,” the commissioners say, and they proceeded to reply to him “that the President was not disposed to deprive him of any just right, or govern him by his individual will, but merely subject him to the same just and equal laws by which he himself as well as all his people were ruled.”
What does it mean when commissioners sent by the President to induce a band of Indians to go on a reservation to live, tell them that they shall be subjected on that reservation “merely to the same just and equal laws” by which the President and “all his people are ruled?” And still more, what is the explanation of their being so apparently unaware of the enormity of the lie that they leave it on official record, signed by their names in full? It is only explained, as thousands of other things in the history of our dealings with the Indians are only to be explained, by the habitual indifference, carelessness, and inattention with which questions relative to Indian affairs and legislation thereon are handled and disposed of, in whatever way seems easiest and shortest for the time being. The members of this commission knew perfectly well that the instant Joseph and his band moved on to the reservation they became subject to laws totally different from those by which the President and “all his people were ruled,” and neither “just” nor “equal:” laws forbidding them to go beyond certain bounds without a pass from the agent; laws making them really just as much prisoners as convicts in a prison—the only difference being that the reservation is an unwalled out-of-door prison; laws giving that agent power to summon military power at any moment, to enforce any command he might choose to lay on them, and to shoot them if they refused to obey.[3] “The same just and equal laws by which the President himself and all his people are ruled!” Truly it is a psychological phenomenon that four men should be found willing to leave it on record under their own signatures that they said this thing.
Farther on in the same report there is an enumeration of some of the experiences which the Nez Percés who are on the Idaho Reservation have had of the advantages of living there, and of the manner in which the Government has fulfilled its promises by which it induced them to go there; undoubtedly these were all as well known to Chief Joseph as to the commissioners. For twenty-two years he had had an opportunity to study the workings of the reservation policy. They say:
“During an interview held with the agent and the treaty Indians, for the purpose of ascertaining whether there were sufficient unoccupied tillable lands for Joseph’s band on the reservation, and for the farther purpose of securing their co-operation to aid us in inducing Joseph to come upon the reservation, facts were brought to our attention of a failure on the part of the Government to fulfil its treaty stipulations with these Indians. The commission therefore deem it their duty to call the attention of the Government to this subject.
“1st. Article second of the treaty of June 9th, 1863, provides that no white man—excepting such as may be employed by the Indian Department—shall be permitted to reside upon the reservation without permission of the tribe, and the superintendent and the agent. Nevertheless, four white men are occupying or claiming large tracts on the reservation.
“It is clearly the duty of the Government to adjust and quiet these claims, and remove the parties from the reservation. Each day’s delay to fulfil this treaty stipulation adds to the distrust of the Indians in the good faith of the Government.
“2d. Article third of the same treaty of 1863 provides for the survey of the land suitable for cultivation into lots of twenty acres each; while a survey is reported to have been early made, no measures were then, or have been since, taken to adjust farm limits to the lines of the surveyed lots.
“3d. Rules and regulations for continuing the possession of these lots and the improvements thereon in the families of deceased Indians, have not been prescribed, as required by the treaty.
“4th. It is also provided that certificates or deeds for such tracts shall be issued to individual Indians.
“The failure of the Government to comply with this important provision of the treaty causes much uneasiness among the Indians, who are little inclined to spend their labor and means in improving ground held by the uncertain tenure of the pleasure of an agent.
“5th. Article seventh of the treaty provides for a payment of four thousand six hundred and sixty-five dollars in gold coin to them for services and horses furnished the Oregon Mounted Volunteers in 1856. It is asserted by the Indians that this provision of the treaty has hitherto been disregarded by the Government.”
The commissioners say that “every consideration of justice and equity, as well as expediency, demands from the Government a faithful and literal compliance with all its treaty obligations toward the Indians. A failure to do this is looked upon as bad faith, and can be productive of only bad results.”
At last Chief Joseph consented to remove from the Wallowa Valley with his band, and go to the Lapwai Reservation. The incidents of the council in which this consent was finally wrung from him, are left on record in Chief Joseph's own words, in an article written by him (through an interpreter) and published in the North American Review in 1874. It is a remarkable contribution to Indian history.
It drew out a reply from General O. O. Howard, who called his paper “The true History of the Wallowa Campaign;” published in the North American Review two months after Chief Joseph's paper.
Between the accounts given by General Howard and by Chief Joseph of the events preceding the Nez Percé war, there are noticeable discrepancies.
General Howard says that he listened to the “oft-repeated dreamer nonsense of the chief, ‘Too-hool-hool-suit,’ with no impatience, but finally said to him: ‘Twenty times over I hear that the earth is your mother, and about the chieftainship of the earth, I want to hear it no more.’ ”
Chief Joseph says: “General Howard lost his temper, and said ‘Shut up! I don’t want to hear any more of such talk.’
“Too-hool-hool-suit answered, ‘Who are you, that you ask us to talk, and then tell me I sha’n’t talk? Are you the Great Spirit? Did you make the world?’ ”
General Howard, quoting from his record at the time, says: “The rough old fellow, in his most provoking tone, says something in a short sentence; looking fiercely at me. The interpreter quickly says: ‘He demands what person pretends to divide this land, and put me on it? In the most decided voice I said, ‘I am the man. I stand here for the President, and there is no spirit, bad or good, that will hinder me. My orders are plain, and will be executed.’ ”
Chief Joseph says: “General Howard replied, ‘You are an impudent fellow, and I will put you in the guard-house,’ and then ordered a soldier to arrest him.”
General Toward says: “After telling the Indians that this bad advice would be their ruin, I asked the chiefs to go with me to look at their land. ‘The old man (Too-hool-hool-suit) shall not go. I will leave him with Colonel Perry.’ He says, ‘Do you want to scare me with reference to my body?’ I said, ‘I will leave your body with Colonel Perry.’ I then arose and led him out of the council, and gave him into the charge of Colonel Perry.”
Chief Joseph says: “Too-hool-hool-suit made no resistance. He asked General Howard, ‘Is that your order? I don’t care, I have expressed my heart to you. I have nothing to take back. I have spoken for my country. You can arrest me, but you cannot change me, or make me take back what I have said.’ The soldiers came forward and seized my friend, and took him to the guard-house. My men whispered among themselves whether they should let this thing be done. I counselled them to submit. * * * Too-hool-hool-suit was prisoner for five days before he was released.”
General Howard, it will be observed, does not use the word “arrested,” but as he says, later, “Too-hool-hool-suit was released on the pledge of Looking-glass and White Bird, and on his own earnest promise to behave better,” it is plain that Chief Joseph did not misstate the facts. This Indian chief, therefore, was put under military arrest, and confined for five days, for uttering what General Howard calls a “tirade” in a council to which the Indians had been asked to come for the purpose of consultation and expression of sentiment.
Does not Chief Joseph speak common-sense, as well as natural feeling, in saying, “I turned to my people and said, ‘The arrest of Too-hool-hool-suit was wrong, but we will not resent the insult. We were invited to this council to express our hearts, and we have done so.’ ”
If such and so swift penalty as this, for “tirades” in council, were the law of our land, especially in the District of Columbia, it would be “no just cause of complaint” when Indians suffer it. But considering the frequency, length, and safety of “tirades” in all parts of America, it seems unjust not to permit Indians to deliver them. However, they do come under the head of “spontaneous productions of the soil;” and an Indian on a reservation is “invested with no such proprietorship” in anything which comes under that head.[4]
Chief Joseph and his band consented to move. Chief Joseph says: “I said in my heart that, rather than have war, I would give up my country. I would give up my father’s grave. I would give up everything rather than have the blood of white men upon the hands of my people.”
It was not easy for Joseph to bring his people to consent to move. The young men wished to fight. It has been told that, at this time, Chief Joseph rode one day throngh his village, with a revolver in each hand, saying he would shoot the first one of his warriors that resisted the Government. Finally, they gathered all the stock they could find, and began the move. A storm came, and raised the river so high that some of the cattle could not be taken across. Indian guards were put in charge of the cattle left behind. White men attacked these guards and took the cattle. After this Joseph could no longer restrain his men, and the warfare began, which lasted over two months. It was a masterly campaign on the part of the Indians. They were followed by General Howard; they had General Crook on their right, and General Miles in front, but they were not once hemmed in; and, at last, when they surrendered at Bear Paw Mountain, in the Montana Hills, it was not because they were beaten, but because, as Joseph says, “I could not bear to see my wounded men and women suffer any longer; we had lost enough already. * * * We could have escaped from Bear Paw Mountain if we had left our wounded, old women and children, behind. We were unwilling to do this. We had never heard of a wounded Indian recovering while in the hands of white men. * * * I believed General Miles, or I never would have surrendered. I have heard that he has been censured for making the promise to return us to Lapwai. He could not have made any other terms with me at that time. I could have held him in check until my friends came to my assistance, and then neither of the generals nor their soldiers would ever have left Bear Paw Mountain alive. On the fifth day I went to General Miles and gave up my gun, and said, ‘From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more.’ My people needed rest; we wanted peace.”
The terms of this surrender were shamefully violated. Joseph and his band were taken first to Fort Leavenworth and then to the Indian Territory. At Leavenworth they were placed in the river bottom, with no water but the river water to drink.
“Many of my people sickened and died, and we buried them in this strange land,” says Joseph, “I cannot tell how much my heart suffered for my people while at Leavenworth. The Great Spirit Chief who rules above seemed to be looking some other way, and did not see what was being done to my people.”
Yet with a marvellous magnanimity, and a clear-headed sense of justice of which few men would be capable under the circumstances, Joseph says: “I believe General Miles would have kept his word if he could have done so. I do not blame him for what we have suffered since the surrender. I do not know who is to blame. We gave up all our horses, over eleven hundred, and all our saddles, over one hundred, and we have not heard from them since. Somebody has got our horses.”
This narrative of Chief Joseph's is profoundly touching; a very Iliad of tragedy, of dignified and hopeless sorrow; and it stands supported by the official records of the Indian Bureau.
“After the arrival of Joseph and his band in Indian Territory, the bad effect of their location at Fort Leavenworth manifested itself in the prostration by sickness at one time of two hundred and sixty out of the four hundred and ten; and ‘within a few months’ in the death of ‘more than one-quarter of the entire number.’ ”[5]
“It will be borne in mind that Joseph has never made a treaty with the United States, and that he has never surrendered to the Government the lands he claimed to own in Idaho. * * * Joseph and his followers have shown themselves to be brave men and skilful soldiers, who, with one exception, have observed the rules of civilized warfare. * * * These Indians were encroached upon by white settlers, on soil they believed to be their own, and when these encroachments became intolerable, they were compelled in their own estimation to take up arms.”[6]
Chief Joseph and a remnant of his band are still in Indian Territory, waiting anxiously the result of the movement now being made by the Ponca chief, Standing Bear, and his friends and legal advisers, to obtain from the Supreme Court a decision which will extend the protection of the civil law to every Indian in the country.
Of the remainder of the Nez Percés (those who are on the Lapwai Reservation), the report of the Indian Bureau for 1879 is that they “support themselves entirely without subsistence from the Government; procure of their own accord, and at their own expense, wagons, harness, and other farming implements beyond the amount furnished by the Government under their treaty,” and that “as many again as were taught were turned away from school for lack of room.”
The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions has contributed during this year $1750 for missionary work among them, and the Indians themselves have raised $125.
Their reservation is thus described: “The majority of land comprising the reservation is a vast rolling prairie, affording luxuriant pasturage for thousands of their cattle and horses. The Clearwater River, flowing as it does directly through the reserve, branching out in the North, Middle, and South Forks, greatly benefits their locations that they have taken in the valleys lying between such river and the bluffs of the higher land, forming in one instance—at Kaimaih—one of the most picturesque locations to be found in the whole North-west. Situated in a valley on either side of the South Fork, in length about six miles, varying in width from one-half to two miles; in form like a vast amphitheatre, surrounded on all sides by nearly perpendicular bluffs rising two thousand feet in height, it forms one of the prettiest valleys one can imagine. A view from the bluff reveals a living panorama, as one sees the vast fields of waving grain surrounding well-built and tasty cottages adorned with porches, and many of the conveniences found among industrions whites. The sight would lead a stranger, not knowing of its inhabitance by Indians, to inquire what prosperous white settlement was located here. It is by far the most advanced in the ways of civilization and progress of any in the Territory, if not on the coast.”
How long will the white men of Idaho permit Indians to occupy so fair a domain as this? The small cloud, no larger than a man’s hand, already looms on their horizon. The closing paragraph of this (the last) report from the Nez Percés is:
“Some uneasiness is manifest about stories set afloat by renegade whites, in relation to their treatment at the expiration of their treaty next July, but I have talked the matter over, and they will wait patiently to see the action on the part of the Government. They are well civilized; but one mistake on the part of the Government at this time would destroy the effects of the past thirty years' teachings. Give them time and attention; they will astonish their most zealous friends in their progress toward civilization.”
- ↑ See Appendix, Art. XIII.
- ↑ Report of the Secretary of the Interior for 1873.
- ↑ Witness the murder of Big Snake at Fort Reno, Indian Territory, in the summer of 1879.
- ↑ Annual Report of the Indian Commissioner for 1878, p. 69.
- ↑ Annual Report of the Indian Commissioner for 1878, p. 33.
- ↑ Same Report, p. 34.