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
