In 1871 the agent began to enforce the laws against the selling of
liquor to the Indians, and, according to a rule of the Indian
Department; he also punished the Indians for drinking. Missionary
influence went hand in hand with his work, and good results have
followed. For years very few Indians on the reservation have been known
to be drunk. Punishment upon the liquor-drinker as well as the
liquor-seller has had a good effect. Far more of the Clallams drink than
of the Twanas. They live so far from the agent that he can not know of
all their drinking, and, if he did, he could not go to arrest them all;
and many of them live so close to large towns where liquor is very
easily obtained, that it has been impossible to stop all of their
drinking. Still his occasional visits, the aid of a few white men near
them, and of the better Indians, together with what they see of the evil
effects of intemperance on themselves, have greatly checked the evil.
Very few complete reformations, however, have taken place among those
away from the reservation, except those who have become Christians. In
addition, a good share of the younger ones have grown up with so much
less temptation than their parents had, and so much more influence in
favor of temperance, that they have become teetotalers.
For a long time, beginning with 1874, a temperance society flourished,
and nearly all the Indians of both tribes joined it. Each member signed
the pledge under oath, and took that pledge home to keep, but in time it
was found that the society had no penalty with which to punish offenders
sufficient to make them fear much to do so again. The agent alone had
that power--so the society died. But the law and gospel did not tire in
the work and something has been accomplished.
The agent could tell many a story of prosecuting liquor-sellers;
sometimes before a packed jury, who, when the proof was positive,
declared the prisoner not guilty; of having Indian witnesses tampered
with, and bought either by money or threats, so that they would not
testify in court, although to him they had previously given direct
testimony as to who had furnished them with the liquor; of a time when
some of the Clallam Indians became so independent of his authority that
they defied him when he went to arrest them, and he was obliged to use
the revenue-cutter in order to take them, and when, in consequence, his
friends feared that his life was in danger from the white
liquor-sellers, because the latter feared the result of their
lawlessness; of a judge who, although a Christian man, so allowed his
sympathies to go out for the criminal that he would strain the law to
let him go; or, on the other hand, of another judge who would strain the
law to catch a rascal; of convicting eight white men at one time of
selling liquor to Indians, only to have some of them take their revenge
by burning the Indians’ houses and all of their contents. Still in a few
years he made it very unsafe for most permanent residents to sell
intoxicating liquors to the Indians, so that but few except transient
people, as sailors and travelers, dared to do so.
“For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain” the Indian and the
liquor-seller can almost rival the “heathen Chinee.” A saloon is on the
beach, and so high that it is easy to go under it. A small hole is in
the floor under the counter. A hand comes up with some money in it:
after dark a bottle goes down, and some Indians are drunk, but nobody
can prove any thing wrong.
An Indian takes a bucket of clams into a saloon and asks the bar-tender
if he wishes them. “I will see what my wife says,” is the reply, and he
takes them to a back room. Soon he comes back and says: “Here, take your
old clams, they are bad and rotten.” The Indian takes them, and soon a
company of Indians are “gloriously drunk,” a bottle having been put in
the bottom of the bucket. Sometimes a part of a sack of flour is made of
a bottle of whiskey.
An Indian, having been taken up for drunkenness, was asked in court, in
Port Townsend, where he obtained his liquor. “If I tell, I can not get
any more,” was the blunt reply. Others have found theirs floating in the
river or lying by a tree, which may all have been true, yet some man who
understood it was the gainer of some money, which perhaps he found. Many
an Indian, when asked who let him have the liquor, has said: “I do not
know;” or, “I do not know his name.”
Yet there are stories on the other side which make a brighter picture.
In 1875 the Twana and Nisqually Indians met as they had often done
during previous years for feasting, visiting, trading, and horse-racing.
The first agreement was to meet on the Skokomish Reservation, but
continued rains made the race-track on the reservation almost unfit for
use, it being bottom land. There was another track on gravelly land
about ten miles from Skokomish. On the Sabbath previous to the races the
sermon had reference to the subject, because of the betting and danger
of drunkenness connected with it. A Nisqually Indian came then and urged
the Skokomish Indians to go to the other race-track at Shelton’s
Prairie, because the one at Skokomish was so muddy. The Skokomish
Indians replied that they did not wish to go to the prairie for fear
there would be whiskey there, but that they would go to work and fix
their own track as well as they could. One sub-chief, the only one of
the chiefs who had a race-horse, said he would not go there. This word
was carried to the Nisqually Indians who were camped at the prairie, but
they refused to come to Skokomish, and sent their messenger to tell the
Skokomish Indians so. Several hours were occupied in discussing the
question. In talking with the agent, the head-chief asked him if he
would send one of the employees to guard them, should they decide to go
to the prairie. The head-chief then went to the prairie and induced the
Nisquallys to come to the reservation for the visit, trading, and
marriage, which was to take place, and for the races if the track should
be suitable. From Wednesday until Saturday was occupied by the Indians
as agreed upon, but the weather continued rainy and the track was unfit
for use. On Saturday the Nisqually Indians went back to the prairie and
invited the Skokomish Indians to go there for the races. On Monday
twenty-five or thirty of them went, but this number did not include a
chief or many of the better class, the great fear being that they would
be tempted to drink. According to the request of the chief, one white
man from the reservation went, together with the regular Indian
policemen. There were also present ten or twelve other white men from
different places, one of whom carried considerable liquor. The Indian
policemen on seeing this went to him and told him he must not sell or
give any of it to any of the Indians, and he promised that he would not.
He was afterward seen offering some to a Nisqually Indian, who refused.
When night came it was found that, with three or four exceptions, all of
the white men present had drank some, and a few were quite drunk, while
it was not known that any of the Indians present had taken any. That the
better class of Indians should not go to the races, and that all should
earnestly contend against going to that place for fear of temptation;
that they asked for a white man to guard them; that an Indian told a
white man not to give liquor to his fellow-Indians, and that, while most
of the white men drank some, it was not known that any Indian drank at
all, although it was not the better class of Indians who were present,
were facts which were encouraging.
A sub-chief of the Clallam Indians, at Elkwa, one hundred and twenty
miles from the reservation, in 1878, found that an Indian from British
Columbia had brought a keg of liquor among his people. He immediately
complained before a justice of the peace, who arrested the guilty man,
emptied his liquor on the ground, and fined him sixty-four dollars.
The head-chief of the Clallams, Lord James Balch, has for nine years so
steadily opposed drinking, and imprisoned and fined the offenders so
much, that he excited the enmity of the Indians, and even of their
doctors, and also of some white men, much as a good Indian agent does.
Although he is not perfect, he still continues the good work. Fifteen
years ago he was among the worst Indians about, drinking, cutting, and
fighting.
In January, 1878, I was asked to go ninety miles, by both Clallams and
Twanas, to a potlatch, to protect them from worthless whites and
Indians, who were ready to take liquor to the place. The potlatch was at
Dunginess, given by some Clallams. I went, in company with about
seventy-five Twanas, and it was not known that more than eight of them
had tasted liquor within four years, although none of them professed to
be Christians. During that festival, which continued nine days, and
where more than five hundred Indians were present, only one Indian was
drunk.
More than once a whiskey-bottle has been captured from an Indian, set
out in view of all on a stump or box, a temperance speech made and a
temperance hymn sung, the bottle broken into many pieces, and the
contents spilled on the ground.
The Indians say that the Hudson’s Bay Company first brought it to them,
but dealt it out very sparingly, but when the Americans came they
brought barrels of it. They seem to be proud that it is not the Indians
who manufacture it, for if it were they would soon put a stop to it; nor
is it the believer in God, but wicked white men who wish to clear them
away as trees are cleared from the ground.
Thus, when we take into consideration the condition of these Indians
fifteen years ago, and the present condition of some other Indians in
the region who lie beastly drunk in open sight, and compare it with the
present status of those now here, there is reason for continued faith in
the God of the law and gospel of temperance.