INDIAN WAR IN WASHINGTON 5
sands of warriors then upon the grounds. No one, of course, will contend that the Indians thoroughly knew what they were doing. All proceedings were conducted through interpreters, and at the best this method was faulty. And then memory is frail. Different people will hear, understand and remember differently. The natives could not read and they placed their "X" marks upon a paper not one word of which they individu- ally understood. Within a month an old Indian has appeared at Seattle who signed the treaty affecting the lands there in January, 1855. He said that the Indians had not been paid as promised ; that they were to receive two buckets full of gold coins for what they gave up in the vicinity of that city. He probably knew as much as the other Indians what they were doing, and his recollection of it was probably no more erroneous than theirs. The first and last of the Stevens treaties were apparently the immediate cause of the war that followed, for the Indians affected by them were the ones that entered upon it, while the Indians affected by the other treaties generally abstained, though the terms of all the treaties were substantially alike.
In these negotiations and treaties, the proprietary rights of the Indians to all the lands in Washington Territory were recognised by the government of the United States. This fact, thus brought to the attention of the natives, set them to reasoning along a line of thought not intended. They saw the white people increase from about one thousand in 1850 to about five thousand in 1855. These white people had taken vast tracts of land, and the best land at that, that belonged to the Indians. The most fertile lands; the most level and approachable; the choicest landings and townsites; the camp- grounds, cemeteries, fishing sites, berryfields were all taken in this wholesale manner by white men who, as the Indians now learned, had no right to them. Further, these apparently lawless white men had no use for more than one per cent of the lands thus taken. As they became more numerous they also became more harsh and arbitrary with the Indians. The
