“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. Faunt-
