The Times of Tomahawk and Fire-Brand
Extent of Indian Troubles in the Region of the Columbia--Destruction
of the _Tonquin_--Conflicting Policies of the British and the
Americans in Regard to the Fur-trade--Advances in Settlement by
Americans, and Indian Opposition--The Whitman Mission and its
Relations to the Indians, and to the Hudson's Bay Company--The
Pestilence of 1847--The Whitman Massacre--Mr. Osborne's
Reminiscences--Saving of the Lapwai and Tshimakain Missions--The
Cayuse War--Great War of 1855-56--Kamiakin and Peupeumoxmox--Governor
I. I. Stevens of Washington Territory and his Efforts to Make
Treaties--The Walla Walla Council and the Division among the
Indians--Pearson and his Ride--Outburst of Hostilities and the
Destruction that Followed--Conflict between the Regulars and the
Volunteers--Battles of Walla Walla, Cascades, and Grande Ronde--Second
Walla Walla Council--An Unsatisfactory Peace--Continued Incoming of
Prospectors and Land-seekers--Third Indian War--Disastrous Steptoe
Campaign--Garnett's Campaign in the Yakima--Wright's Campaign to
Spokane and Overthrow of Indian Power--Peace Proclaimed and the
Country Thrown Open to Settlement--Nez Perce War of
1877--Hallakallakeen, or Joseph, the Indian Warchief--His Melancholy
Fate--The Bannock War.
Columbia River history has had its full share of Indian wars. To narrate
these in full would transcend the limits of this chapter. Even during the
era of discovery desperate affrays with the natives were a common
experience of explorers. Captain Gray of the _Columbia_ lost a boat's crew
of seamen at Tillamook. The ship _Boston_ was seized in 1803 by the wily
old chief Maquinna at Nootka.
In 1812 the _Tonquin_, the first vessel of the Pacific Fur Company, in
command of Captain Thorn, was captured at some point to the north of the
Columbia River, variously known as Eyuck Whoola on Newcetu Bay, or Newity
Bay, or Newcetee. She was, as a result of the capture, blown up by the
explosion of her own powder magazine. Gabriel Franchere and Alexander
Ross, of the Astoria party, are the original authorities for this dramatic
story. Irving has made the event a leading feature of his charming
_Astoria_. H. H. Bancroft has discussed it at length in his history of the
Pacific Coast. In recent years Major H. M. Chittenden in his valuable
book, _History of the American Fur Trade_, presents new testimony of much
interest. But whatever discrepencies existed in the records, the general
truth remains that the ship and all her crew, with the exception of one
Indian, disappeared, and great was the loss to the traders at Astoria as a
result.
For more than three decades after the destruction of the _Tonquin_ there
were no serious Indian conflicts. The Hudson's Bay Company carried out
consistently the general policy of harmony with the natives. Most of the
employees were of French Canadian origin, and, with their general
sociability, they were more popular with the Indians than the Americans
usually have been. But with the incoming of American missionaries,
trappers, explorers, and immigrants, the situation changed. Conflicts of
interests, ambitions, and national aims led both Americans and British to
be somewhat more ready to encourage the hostile and suspicious disposition
of the natives. Chiefly, however, the cause of the changing attitude of
the natives must be attributed to the perception by the more intelligent
of the fact that the actual occupation of the country by white farmers,
home builders, and land owners, meant their own destruction. Though this
truth dawned on them only vaguely and gradually, they had begun to be
somewhat familiar with it by the decade of the thirties.
The founding of American missions during that decade, as narrated earlier,
at Chemeketa, Walla Walla, Lapwai, and Tshimakain, and, during the years
following, the obvious intent of the Americans to draw immigration to the
country, prepared the way for the first and perhaps the most ferocious,
though by no means the greatest, of the four principal wars which we plan
to consider. This first one was the war connected with the Whitman
massacre.
We have already described the founding of the Whitman Mission at
Waiilatpu, six miles from the present site of Walla Walla, and twenty-six
miles from the Hudson's Bay fort on the Columbia, known as Fort Walla
Walla. We have also told of Whitman's journey across the continent in the
mid-winter of 1842-43, of his efforts to secure the attention of Congress
and of the Executive to the importance of the Oregon country, and of his
return to Walla Walla in 1843, with the first large immigration of
American settlers.
After the incoming of this immigration, it became more than ever clear to
the more intelligent Indians that this movement of settlers portended a
change in their whole condition. Their wild life could not co-exist with
farming, houses, and the fixed and narrowed limits of the white man's
life. Moreover, since they saw the antagonism between the Americans and
the Hudson's Bay Company, and since the latter was obviously more
favourable to perpetuating the life of the wilderness, the natives were
naturally drawn into sympathy with the latter. Still further, since the
Americans were Protestants and naturally affiliated with the Whitman
Mission and its associated missions, and since the Hudson's Bay people
were mainly Catholics and interested in maintaining the missionary methods
adapted to the regime of the fur-traders, there became injected into the
situation the dangerous element of religious jealousy.
Dr. Whitman perceived that he was standing on the edge of a powder
magazine, and, during the summer of 1847, he arranged to acquire the
mission property of the Methodists at The Dalles, a hundred and sixty
miles down the River, intending to remove thither in the spring. But
meanwhile, the explosives being all ready, the spark was prepared for
igniting them.
During the summer of 1847 measles became epidemic among the Indians. Their
method of treating any disease of which fever was a part was to enter a
pit into which hot rocks had been thrown, then casting water on the rocks,
to create a dense vapour, in which, stripped of clothing, they would
remain until thoroughly steamed. Thence issuing, stark naked and dripping
with perspiration, they would plunge into an icy cold stream. Death was
the almost inevitable result in case of measles. Whitman, who was, it
should be remembered, a physician, not a clergyman, was skilful and
devoted in his attentions, yet many died. Now just at that time a
renegade half-breed known as Jo Lewis seems to have become possessed with
the diabolical mania of massacre. He made the Indians think that Whitman
was poisoning them. Istickus or Sticcus, a Umatilla Indian and a warm
friend of Whitman, had formed some impression of the plot and suggested
the danger. Whitman's intrepid spirit laughed at this, but Mrs. Whitman,
though equally intrepid, seems to have felt some premonition of the swift
coming doom, for the mission children found her in tears for the first
time since the death of her beloved little girl eight years before. The
Doctor tried to soothe her by declaring that he would arrange to go down
the River at once. But on that very day, November 28, 1847, the
picturesque little hill rising a hundred feet above the mission ground,
now surmounted by the granite shaft of the Whitman monument, was observed
to be black with Indians. It was evident from various sinister aspects
that something was impending.
On the next day, November 29th, at about one o'clock, while Dr. Whitman
sat reading, a number of Indians entered the room. Having gained his
attention by the usual request for medicines, one of them, afterwards said
by some to have been Tamahas, and by others have been Tamsaky, rushed
suddenly upon the Doctor and struck his head with a tomahawk. Another
wretch named Telaukait, to whom the Doctor had been the kindest friend,
then cut and hacked the noble face of the philanthropist. The work of
murder thus inaugurated went on with savage energy. The men about the
mission were speedily slain, with the exception of a few who were in
remote places and managed by special fortune to elude observation. Mrs.
Whitman, bravely coming forward to succour her dying husband, was shot in
the breast and sank to the floor. She did not die at once, and it is said
by some of the survivors, then children, that she lingered some time,
being heard to murmur most tender prayers for her parents and children.
Mrs. Whitman was the only woman killed. The other women and girls were
cruelly outraged and held in captivity for several days.
William McBean was at that time in charge of the fort at Walla Walla, and
with a strange disregard of humane feelings, he shut the door of the fort
in the face of one of the escaped Americans, and a little later served the
Osborne family in the same manner. McBean sent a courier down the River to
convey the tidings to Vancouver, but this courier did not even stop at The
Dalles to warn the people, though they were not attacked. James Douglas
was then chief factor at Vancouver, as successor to Dr. McLoughlin. As
soon as he was apprised of the massacre, he sent Peter Skeen Ogden with a
force to rescue the survivors. Ogden acted with promptness and efficiency,
and by the use of several hundred dollars' worth of commodities ransomed
forty-seven women and children. Thirteen persons had been murdered.
One of the most distressing experiences was that of the Osborne family. Of
this Mr. Osborne says:
As the guns fired and the yells commenced I leaned my head upon the
bed and committed myself and family to my Maker. My wife removed the
loose floor. I dropped under the floor with my sick family in their
night clothes, taking only two woollen sheets, a piece of bread, and
some cold mush, and pulled the floor over us. In five minutes the room
was full of Indians, but they did not discover us. The roar of guns,
the yells of the savages, and the crash of clubs and knives and the
groans of the dying continued till dark. We distinctly heard the dying
groans of Mrs. Whitman, Mr. Rogers, and Francis, till they died away
one after the other. We heard the last words of Mr. Rogers in a slow
voice calling "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly." Soon after this I
removed the floor and we went out. We saw the white face of Francis by
the door. It was warm as we laid our hand upon it, but he was dead. I
carried my two youngest children, who were sick, and my wife held on
to my clothes in her great weakness. We had all been sick with
measles. Two infants had died. She had not left her bed in six weeks
till that day, when she stood up a few minutes. The naked, painted
Indians were dancing the scalp dance around a large fire at a little
distance. There seemed no hope for us and we knew not which way to go,
but bent our steps toward Fort Walla Walla. A dense cold fog shut out
every star and the darkness was complete. We could see no trail and
not even the hand before the face. We had to feel out the trail with
our feet. My wife almost fainted but staggered along. Mill Creek,
which we had to wade, was high with late rains and came up to the
waist. My wife in her great weakness came nigh washing down, but held
to my clothes. I braced myself with a stick, holding a child in one
arm. I had to cross five times for the children. The water was icy
cold and the air freezing some. Staggering along about two miles, Mrs.
Osborne fainted and could go no farther, and we hid ourselves in the
brush of the Walla Walla River, not far below Tamsukey's (a chief)
lodges, who was very active at the commencement of the butchery. We
were thoroughly wet, and the cold fog like snow was about us. The cold
mud was partially frozen as we crawled, feeling our way, into the dark
brush. We could see nothing, the darkness was so extreme. I spread one
wet sheet down on the frozen ground; wife and children crouched upon
it. I covered the other over them. I thought they must soon perish as
they were shaking and their teeth rattling with cold. I kneeled down
and commended us to my Maker. The day finally dawned and we could see
the Indians riding furiously up and down the trail. Sometimes they
would come close to the brush and our blood would warm and the shaking
would stop from fear for a moment. The day seemed a week. Expected
every moment my wife would breathe her last. Tuesday night, felt our
way to the trail and staggered along to Sutucksnina (Dog Creek), which
we waded as we did the other creek, and kept on about two miles when
my wife fainted and could go no farther. Crawled into the brush and
frozen mud to shake and suffer on from hunger and cold, and without
sleep. The children, too, wet and cold, called incessantly for food,
but the shock of groans and yells at first so frightened them that
they did not speak loud. Wednesday night my wife was too weak to
stand. I took our second child and started for Walla Walla; had to
wade the Touchet; stopped frequently in the brush from weakness; had
not recovered from measles. Heard a horseman pass and repass as I lay
concealed in the willows. Have since learned that it was Mr. Spalding.
Reached Fort Walla Walla after daylight; begged Mr. McBean for horses
to get my family, for food, for blankets, and clothing to take to
them, and to take care of my child till I could bring my family in,
should I live to find them alive. Mr. McBean told me I could not bring
my family to his fort.
Mr. Hall came in on Monday night, but he could not have an American in
his fort, and he had put him over the Columbia River; that he could
not let me have horses or anything for my wife and children, and I
must go to Umatilla. I insisted on bringing my family to the fort, but
he refused; said he would not let us in. I next begged the priests to
show pity, as my wife and children must perish and the Indians
undoubtedly would kill me, with no success. I then begged to leave my
child who was not safe in the fort, but they refused.
There were many priests in the fort. Mr. McBean gave me breakfast, but
I saved most of it for my family. Providentially Mr. Stanley, an
artist, came in from Colville, narrowly escaped the Cayuse Indians by
telling them he was "Alain" H. B. He let me have his two horses, some
food he had left from Rev. Eells and Walker's mission; also a cap, a
pair of socks, a shirt, and handkerchief, and Mr. McBean furnished an
Indian who proved most faithful, and Thursday night we started back,
taking my child, but with a sad heart that I could not find mercy at
the hands of the priests of God. The Indian guided me in the thick
darkness to where I supposed I had left my dear wife and children. We
could see nothing and dared not call aloud. Daylight came and I was
exposed to Indians, but we continued to search till I was about to
give up in despair when the Indian discovered one of the twigs I had
broken as a guide in coming out to the trail. Following these he soon
found my wife and children still alive. I distributed what little food
and clothing I had, and we started for the Umatilla, the guide leading
the way to a ford.
Mr. McBean came and asked who was there. I replied. He said he could
not let us in; we must go to Umatilla or he would put us over the
river, as he had Mr. Hall. My wife replied she would die at the gate
but she would not leave. He finally opened and took us into a secret
room and sent an allowance of food for us every day. Next day I asked
him for blankets for my sick wife to lie on. He had nothing. Next day
I urged again. He had nothing to give, but would sell a blanket out of
the store. I told him I had lost everything, and had nothing to pay;
but if I should live to get to the Willamette I would pay. He
consented. But the hip-bones of my dear wife wore through the skin on
the hard floor. Stickus, the chief, came in one day and took the cap
from his head and gave it to me, and a handkerchief to my child.
The Whitman massacre was a prelude to the Cayuse War. It should be
remembered that, the year before the massacre, the Oregon country had, by
treaty with Great Britain, become the property of the United States. No
regular government had yet been inaugurated, but the Provisional
Government already instituted by the Americans met on December 9th and
provided for sending fourteen companies of volunteers to the Walla Walla.
These were immigrants who had come to seek homes and their section of
land, and it was a great sacrifice for them to leave their families and
start in mid-winter for the upper Columbia. But they bravely and
cheerfully obeyed the call of duty and set forth, furnishing mainly their
own equipment, without a thought of pecuniary gain or even reimbursement.
Cornelius Gilliam, an immigrant of 1845 from Missouri, was chosen colonel
of the regiment. He was a man of great energy and courage, and though not
a professional soldier,--none of them were,--had the frontier American's
capacity for warfare. The command pushed rapidly forward, their way being
disputed at various points. At Sand Hollows the Indians, led by Five Crows
and War Eagle, made an especially tenacious attempt to prevent the
crossing of the Umatilla River. Five Crows claimed to have wizard powers
by which he could stop all bullets, and War Eagle declared that he could
swallow all balls fired at him. But at the first onset the wizard was so
badly wounded that he had to retire and "Swallow Ball" was killed. Tom
McKay had levelled his rifle and said, "Let him swallow this."
[Illustration: Grave of Marcus Whitman and his Associate Martyrs at
Waiilatpu. Photo. by W. D. Chapman.]
The way was now clear to Waiilatpu, which the command reached on March
4th. The mangled remains of the victims of the massacre had been hastily
interred by the Ogden party, but coyotes had partially exhumed them. The
remains were brought together by the volunteers and reverently, though
rudely, buried at a point near the mission, a place where a marble crypt
now encloses the commingled bones of the martyrs. A lock of long, fair
hair was found near the ruined mission ground which was thought surely to
be from the head of Mrs. Whitman. It was preserved by one of the
volunteers and is now one of the precious relics in the historical museum
of Whitman College.
The Cayuse War dragged along in a desultory fashion for nearly three
years. The refusal of the Nez Perces and Spokanes and the indifference of
the Yakimas to join the Cayuses made their cause hopeless, though there
were several fierce fights with them and much severe campaigning. In 1850
a band of friendly Umatilla Indians undertook to capture the chief band of
the Cayuses under Tamsaky, which had taken a strong position about the
head waters of the John Day River. After a savage battle Tamsaky was
killed and most of the warriors captured. Of these, five, charged with the
leading part in the Whitman massacre, were hanged at Oregon City on June
3, 1850. It remains a question to this day, however, whether the victims
of the gallows were really the guilty ones. The Cayuse Indians were quite
firm in their assertion that Tamahas, who, by one version, struck Dr.
Whitman the first blow, was the only one of the five concerned in the
murder.
Thus ended the first principal war in the Columbia Basin. It was quickly
followed by another, which was so extensive that it may be well called
universal. This was the War of 1855-56. This was the greatest Indian war
in the entire history of the Columbia River.
As we have seen, the American home-builders had outmatched the English
fur-traders in the struggle for possession. On the 3d of March, 1853,
Washington Territory, embracing the present States of Washington and
Idaho, with parts of Wyoming and Montana, was created by Act of Congress,
and Isaac I. Stevens was appointed governor. This remarkable man entered
with tremendous energy upon his task of organising the chaos of his great
domain. The Indian problem was obviously the most dangerous and pressing
one. There were at that time two remarkable chiefs of the mid-Columbia
region, natural successors of Philip, Pontiac, Black Hawk, and Tecumseh,
possessing those Indian traits of mingled nobleness and treachery which
have made the best specimens of the race such interesting objects of
study. These Indians were Kamiakin of the Yakimas, and Peupeumoxmox of the
Walla Wallas.
[Illustration: Cayuse Babies 1. (Copyright by Lee Moorehouse, 1898.)]
[Illustration: Cayuse Babies 2. (Copyright by Lee Moorehouse, 1898.)]
In 1855 the great war broke out almost simultaneously at different points.
There were six widely scattered regions especially concerned. Four of
these, the Cascades, the Yakima Valley, the Walla Walla, and the Grande
Ronde, were on or adjacent to the River. The others were the Rogue River
region and Puget Sound. So wide was the area of this war that intelligent
co-operation among the Indians proved impracticable. This, in fact, was
the thing that saved the whites. For there were probably not less than
four thousand Indians on the war-path, and if they had co-operated, the
smaller settlements, possibly all in the country except those in the
Willamette Valley, might have been annihilated.
The first efforts of Governor Stevens were to secure treaties with the
Indians. Having negotiated several treaties in 1854 with the Puget Sound
Indians, the governor passed over the Cascade Mountains to Walla Walla in
May, 1855. There during the latter part of May and first part of June, he
held a great council with representatives of seventeen tribes. Lieutenant
Kip, U. S. A., has preserved a vivid account of this great gathering, one
of the most important ever held in the annals of Indian history. According
to Lieutenant Kip, there were but about fifty men in the escort of the
daring governor, and if he had been a man sensible to fear he might well
have been startled when there came an army of twenty-five hundred Nez
Perces under Halhaltlossot, known as Lawyer by the whites. Two days later
three hundred Cayuses, those worst of the Columbia River Indians, surly
and scowling, led by Five Crows and Young Chief, made their appearance.
Two days later a force of two thousand Yakimas, Umatillas, and Walla
Wallas came in sight under Kamiakin and Peupeumoxmox. The council was soon
organised. Governor Stevens and General Palmer, the latter the Indian
Agent for Oregon, set forth their plan of reservations, all their speeches
being translated and retranslated until they had filtered down among the
general mass of the Indians. Then there must be a great "wawa," or
discussion by the Indians. It soon became apparent that there were two
bitterly contesting parties. One was a large faction of Nez Perces led by
Lawyer, who favoured the whites. The other faction of the Nez Perces, with
all the remaining tribes, were set against any treaty. With remarkable
skill and patience, Governor Stevens, with the powerful assistance of
Lawyer, had brought the Indians to a point of general agreement to the
creation of a system of reservations. But suddenly there was a commotion.
Into the midst of the council there burst the old chief Looking Glass
(Apashwahayikt), second only to Lawyer in influence among the Nez Perces.
He had made a desperate ride of three hundred miles in seven days,
following a buffalo hunt and a raid against the Blackfeet, and as he now
burst into the midst, there dangled from his belt the scalps of several
slaughtered Blackfeet. As quoted in Hazard Stevens's _Life of Governor
Stevens_, he began his harangue thus: "My people, what have you done?
While I was gone you sold my country. I have come home and there is not
left me a place on which to pitch my lodge. Go home to your lodges. I will
talk with you." Lieutenant Kip declares that though he could understand
nothing of the speech of Looking Glass to his own tribe, which followed,
the effect was tremendous. All the evidence showed that Looking Glass was
a veritable Demosthenes. The work of Governor Stevens was all undone.
But later the Governor and Lawyer succeeded in rallying their forces and
gaining the acquiescence of the Indians to the setting aside of three
great reservations, one on the Umatilla, one on the Yakima, and the third
on the Clearwater and the Snake. These reservations still exist, imperial
domains in themselves, though now divided into individual allotments. The
acquiescence of the Indians in this treaty, as the sequel proved, was
feigned by a number of them, but for the time it seemed a great triumph
for Governor Stevens. From Walla Walla the Governor departed to the
Coeur d'Alene, the Pend Oreille, and the Missoula regions to continue
his arduous task of negotiating treaties.
This great Walla Walla Council cannot be dismissed without brief reference
to an event, not fully known at the time, but which subsequent
investigation made clear, and stamped as one of the most dramatic in the
entire history of Indian warfare. This event was the conspiracy of the
Cayuses and Yakimas to kill Governor Stevens and his entire band, and then
exterminate the whites throughout the country. While the acceptance of the
treaty was still pending, Kamiakin and Peupeumoxmox were framing the
details of this wide-reaching plot, which was indeed but the culmination
of their great scheme of years. Kamiahkin was the soul of the conspiracy.
He was a remarkable Indian. He was of superb stature, and proportions,
over six feet high, sinewy and active. Governor Stevens said of him: "He
is a peculiar man, reminding me of the panther and the grizzly bear. His
countenance has an extraordinary play, one moment in frowns, the next in
smiles, flashing with light and black as Erebus the same instant. His
pantomime is great, and his gesticulation much and characteristic. He
talks mostly in his face and with his hands and arms." He was withal a
typical Indian in treachery and secretiveness. Peupeumoxmox was similar in
nature, but was older and less capable.
Exactly opposite to these was Halhaltlossot, or Lawyer, the Solon of the
Nez Perces. Lawyer became convinced of the existence of this conspiracy
and went by night to the camp of Governor Stevens and revealed it. He
concluded his revelation by saying: "I will come with my family and pitch
my lodge in the midst of your camp, that those Cayuses may see that you
and your party are under the protection of the head chief of the Nez
Perces." When it became clear to the conspiring Cayuses and Yakimas that
Lawyer's powerful division of the Nez Perces was sustaining the little
band of whites, they did not execute their design. Lawyer and his Nez
Perces saved the day for the whites.
And yet the sequel is one of the most lamentable examples of the
miscarriage of justice in Indian affairs that we have any record of. The
friendly Nez Perces saved the whites. The unfriendly faction of the Nez
Perces, led by Joseph and Looking Glass, finally yielded and accepted the
treaty. But they did this with certain expectations in regard to their
reservation. This was set forth to the author by William McBean, a
half-breed Indian, son of the McBean who was the commandant of the
Hudson's Bay post at Wallula. McBean the younger was a boy at the time of
the council at Walla Walla. He was familiar with all the Indian languages
spoken at the council and in appearance was so much of an Indian that he
could pass unquestioned anywhere. Governor Stevens asked him to spy out
the situation and learn what the Nez Perces were going to decide. The
result of his investigations was to show that the whole decision hinged on
the understanding by Joseph's faction that, if they acquiesced in the
treaty and turned their support to the whites, they might retain perpetual
possession of the Wallowa country in North-eastern Oregon as their special
allotment. Becoming finally satisfied that this would be granted them,
they yielded to the Lawyer faction and thus the entire Nez Perce tribe
made common cause with the whites, rendering the execution of the great
plot of Kamiakin and Peupeumoxmox a foredoomed failure. But now for the
sequel. Though it was thus clear in the minds of Joseph and his division
of the Nez Perces that the loved Wallowa (one of the fairest regions that
ever the sun shone on and a perfect land for Indians) was to be their
permanent home, yet the stipulation, if indeed it were intended by
Governor Stevens, never became definitely set down in the "Great Father's"
records at Washington. The result was that when, twenty years later, the
manifold attractions of the Wallowa country began to draw white
immigration, the Indians, now under Young Joseph, son of the former chief,
stood by their supposed rights and the great Nez Perce War of 1877 ensued.
And now, to resume the thread of our discourse, we may note that Governor
Stevens proceeded on his laborious mission to the Flatheads in the region
of the Coeur d'Alene and Pend Oreille lakes in what is now Northern
Idaho. After protracted and at times excited discussion, a treaty was
accepted by which an immense tract of a million and a quarter acres was
set apart for a reservation. From Pend Oreille, Governor Stevens with his
little force, now reduced to twenty-two, crossed the Rockies to Fort
Benton.
But what was happening on the Walla Walla? No sooner was the governor
fairly out of sight across the flower-bespangled plains which extended two
hundred miles north-east from Walla Walla, than the wily Kamiakin began to
resume his plots. So successful was he, with the valuable assistance of
Peupeumoxmox, Young Chief, and Five Crows, that the treaties, just
ratified, were torn to shreds, and the flame of savage warfare burst forth
across the entire Columbia Valley.
Hazard Stevens, in his invaluable history of his father, gives a vivid
picture of how the news reached them in their camp thirty-five miles up
the Missouri from Fort Benton. Summer had now passed into autumn. A
favourable treaty had been made with the Blackfeet. On October 29th, the
little party were gathered around their campfire in the frosty air of fall
in that high latitude, when they discerned a solitary rider making his way
slowly toward them. As he drew near they soon saw that it was Pearson, the
express rider. Pearson was one of the best examples of those scouts whose
lives were spent in conveying messages from forts to parties in the field.
He usually travelled alone, and his life was always in his hand. He seemed
to be made of steel springs, and it had been thought that he could endure
anything. "He could ride anything that wore hair." He rode seventeen
hundred and fifty miles in twenty-eight days at one time, one stage of two
hundred and sixty miles having been made in three days. But as he slowly
drew up to the party in the cold evening light, it was seen that even
Pearson was "done." His horse staggered and fell, and he himself could not
stand or speak for some time. After he had been revived he told his story,
and a story of disaster and foreboding it was, sure enough.
All the great tribes of the Columbia plains west of the Nez Perces had
broken out, the Cayuses, Yakimas, Palouses, Walla Wallas, Umatillas, and
Klickitats. They had swept the country clean of whites. The ride of
Pearson from The Dalles to the point where he reached Governor Stevens is
one of the most thrilling in the annals of the River. By riding all day
and night, he reached a horse ranch on the Umatilla belonging to a noted
half-breed Indian, William McKay, but he found the place deserted. Seeing
a splendid horse in the bunch near by, he lassoed and saddled him. Though
the horse was as wild as air, Pearson managed to mount and start on. Just
then there swept into view a force of Indians who, instantly divining what
Pearson was trying to do, gave chase. Up and down hill, through vale, and
across the rim-rock, they followed, sending frequent bullets after him,
and yelling like demons, "Whupsiah si-ah-poo, Whup-si-ah!" ("Kill the
white man!") But the wild horse which the intrepid rider bestrode proved
his salvation, for he gradually outran all his pursuers. Travelling
through the Walla Walla at night Pearson reached the camp of friendly Nez
Perce Red Wolf on the Alpowa the next day, having ridden two hundred miles
from The Dalles without stopping except the brief time changing horses.
Snow and hunger now impeded his course. Part of the way he had to go on
snowshoes without a horse. But with unflinching resolution he passed on,
and so now here he was with his dismal tidings.
The despatches warned Governor Stevens that Kamiakin with a thousand
warriors was in the Walla Walla Valley and that it would be impossible for
him to get through by that route, and that he must therefore return to the
East by the Missouri and come back to his Territory by the steamer route
of Panama. That meant six months' delay. With characteristic boldness,
Governor Stevens at once rejected the more cautious course and went right
back to Spokane by the Coeur d'Alene Pass, deep already with the winter
snows, suffering intensely with cold and hunger, but avoiding by that
route the Indians sent out to intercept him. With extraordinary address,
he succeeded in turning the Spokane Indians to his side. The Nez Perces,
thanks to Lawyer's fidelity, were still friendly, and with these two
powerful tribes arrayed against the Yakimas, there was still hope of
holding the Columbia Valley.
After many adventures, Governor Stevens reached Olympia in safety.
Governor Curry of Oregon had already called a force of volunteers into the
field. The Oregon volunteers were divided into two divisions, one under
Colonel J. W. Nesmith, which went into the Yakima country, and the other
under Lieutenant-Colonel J. K. Kelley, which went to Walla Walla. The
latter force fought the decisive battle of the campaign on the 7th, 8th,
9th, and 10th of December, 1855. It was a series of engagements occurring
in the heart of the Walla Walla Valley, a "running fight" culminating at
what is now called Frenchtown, ten miles west of the present city of Walla
Walla. The most important feature of it all was the death of the great
Walla Walla chieftain, Peupeumoxmox. But though defeated and losing so
important a chief, the Indians scattered across the rivers and were still
unsubdued.
In March, 1856, the sublime section of the Columbia lying between The
Dalles and the Cascades became the scene of a series of atrocities the
most distressing in the entire war. The Klickitats swooped down upon the
defenceless settlers and massacred them with revolting cruelty. They
vanished like a whirlwind, but men whom the writer has known have related
to him how the volunteers, returning to the scenes of desolation, found
all houses destroyed and the carcasses of cattle thrown into the springs
and wells. They found the naked bodies of the girls and women with stakes
driven through, and those of men horribly mutilated. In savage humour, the
Indians had killed the hogs and left parts of human bodies in their
mouths. One interesting fact connected with the campaign at the Cascades
is that General Phil Sheridan fought his first battle there. The old Block
House on the north side of the River, nearly opposite the present Cascade
Locks, existed until a few years ago, and there was Sheridan's first
battle.
Meanwhile Governor Stevens had organised a force of Washington volunteers.
As the year 1856 progressed, it seemed more plain that the discord which
developed between the regulars under command of General John E. Wool and
the volunteers would result in fatal weakness. Nevertheless Governor
Stevens and Governor Curry kept pressing the movements of their backwoods
soldiers with unflagging energy. They were at last rewarded with a measure
of success. For Colonel B. F. Shaw, commanding the Washington volunteers,
learning that the hostiles were camped in force in the Grande Ronde
Valley, made a rapid march from Walla Walla across the western spur of the
Blue Mountains and struck the collected force of Indians a deadly blow,
scattering them in all directions and ending the war in that quarter.
But the end had not yet come in Walla Walla. Governor Stevens determined
to hold another great council at the site of the first. Leaving The Dalles
on August 19th, he pressed on to Shaw's camp, two miles above the
present location of Walla Walla. On September 5th, Colonel E. J. Steptoe,
with four companies of regulars, arrived at the same place and made camp
on the site of the present fort.
[Illustration: Col. B. F. Shaw, who Won the Battle of Grande Ronde in
1856. By Courtesy of Major Lee Moorehouse.]
And now came on the second great Walla Walla council. The tribes were
gathered as before, and were aligned as before. The division of Nez Perces
under Lawyer stood firmly by Stevens and the treaty. The others did not.
The most unfortunate feature of the entire matter was that Colonel
Steptoe, acting under General Wool's instructions, thus far kept secret,
refused to grant Stevens adequate support and subjected him to
humiliations which galled the fiery Governor to the limit. In fact, had it
not been for the vigilance of the faithful Nez Perces of Lawyer's band,
Stevens and his force would surely have met the doom prepared for them at
the first council. The debt of gratitude due Lawyer is incalculable.
Spotted Eagle ought to be recorded, too, as of similar devotion and
watchfulness. Governor Stevens afterward declared that a speech by him in
favour of the whites was equal in feeling, truth, and courage to any
speech that he ever heard from any orator whatever.
But in spite of oratory, zeal, and argument, nothing could overcome the
influence of Kamiakin, Owhi, Quelchen, Five Crows, and others of the
Yakimas and Cayuses. Nothing was gained. They stood just where they were a
year before. The fatal results of divided counsels between regulars and
volunteers were apparent.
The baffled Governor now started on his way down the River, but not
without another battle. For, as he was marching a short distance south of
what is now Walla Walla city, the Indians burst upon his small force with
the evident intention of ending all scores then and there. But Colonel
Steptoe came to the rescue, and with united forces the Indians were
repulsed.
That was the last battle on the Walla Walla. Colonel Steptoe established a
rude stockade fort on Mill Creek in what is now the heart of the present
Walla Walla city, and went into winter quarters there in 1856-57. Governor
Stevens returned to Olympia and launched forth a bitter arraignment
against Wool. The latter, however, was in a position of vantage and issued
a proclamation commanding all whites in the upper country to go down the
River and leave the Cascade Mountains as the eastern limit of the white
settlement. Thus ended for a time this unsatisfactory and distressing war.
To all appearances Kamiakin and his adherents had accomplished all they
wanted.
But this was not the end. Gold had been discovered in Eastern Washington.
Vast possibilities of cattle raising were evident on those endless
bunch-grass hills. Although there was as yet little conception of the
future developments of the Inland Empire in agriculture and gardening, yet
the keen-eyed immigrants and volunteers had scanned the pleasant vales and
abounding streams of the Walla Walla and the Umatilla and the Palouse, and
had decided in their own minds that, Wool or no Wool, this land must be
opened. In 1857 the Government decided on a change of policy and sent
General N. S. Clarke to take Wool's place. General Clarke opened the
gates, and the impatient army of land hunters and gold hunters began to
move in. Meanwhile, Colonel Wright and Colonel Steptoe, though formerly
they had closely followed Wool's policy, now began to experience a change
of heart. Out of these conditions the third Indian war, in 1858, quickly
succeeded the second, being indeed its inevitable sequence.
[Illustration: Fort Sheridan on the Grande Ronde, Built by Philip Sheridan
in 1855. By Courtesy of Major Lee Moorehouse.]
Three campaigns marked this third war. The first was conducted by Colonel
Steptoe against the Spokanes and Coeur d'Alenes, and ended in his
humiliating and disastrous defeat. The second was directed by Major
Garnett against the Yakimas, resulting in their permanent overthrow. The
third was conducted by Colonel Wright against the Spokanes and other
northern tribes who had defeated Steptoe. This was the Waterloo of the
Indians, and it ushered in the occupation and settlement of the upper
Columbia country.
The Steptoe expedition was the most ill-starred event in the whole history
of the North-west, unless we except that of the destruction of the
_Tonquin_. Colonel Wright was then in command of the new Fort Walla Walla,
located in 1857 on the present ground. Perceiving his former error in
giving the turbulent and treacherous natives undisputed sway, he ordered
Colonel Steptoe to go with two hundred dragoons to the Spokane region and
subject the restless tribes centring there. Steptoe's force was well
equipped in every way except one. The pack train was heavily laden, and an
inebriated quartermaster conceived the brilliant idea of lessening the
burden by _leaving out the larger part of the ammunition_. Even aside from
this fatal blunder, Colonel Steptoe seems to have had no adequate
conception of the vigour and resources of the Indians.
As before, the Nez Perces were the faithful friends of the whites.
Timothy, a Nez Perce chief living on Snake River at the mouth of the
Alpowa, put them across the wicked stream, then running high with the May
freshet, and went on with them as guide.
On May 16, 1858, the force reached a point near four lakes, probably the
group of which Silver Lake and Medical Lake are the chief ones, a few
miles west of Spokane. Here was gathered a formidable array, Spokanes,
Pend Oreilles, Coeur d'Alenes, Okanogans, and Colvilles, the hosts of
the upper country. Steptoe was soldier enough to perceive that it was time
for caution, and he halted for a parley. Saltese, a brawny chief of the
Coeur d'Alenes, declared to him that the Indians were ready to dispute
his farther progress, but that if the white men would retire the Indians
would not molest them. A friendly Nez Perce, seeing the duplicity of
Saltese, struck his mouth, exclaiming, "You speak with a double tongue."
The force turned back and that night all seemed well. But at nine o'clock
the next morning, while the soldiers were descending a canyon to Pine
Creek, near the present site of Rosalia, a large force of Indians burst
upon them like a cyclone. As the battle began to wax hot, the terrible
consequences of the error of lack of ammunition began to become manifest.
Man after man had to cease firing. Captain O. H. P. Taylor and Lieutenant
Gaston commanded the rear-guard. With extraordinary skill and devotion
they held the line intact and foiled the efforts of the savages to burst
through. Meanwhile the whole force was moving as rapidly as consistent
with formation on their way southward. Taylor and Gaston sent a messenger
forward, begging Steptoe to halt the line and give them a chance to load.
But the commander felt that the safety of the whole force depended on
pressing on. Soon a fierce rush of Indians followed, and, when the surge
had passed, the gallant rear-guard was buried under it. One notable figure
in the death-grapple was De May, a Frenchman, trained in the Crimea and
Algeria, and an expert fencer. For some time he used his gun barrel as a
sword and swept the Indians down by dozens with his terrific sweeps. But
at last he fell before numbers, and one of his surviving comrades relates
that he heard him shouting his last words, "O, my God, my God, for a
sabre!"
But the lost rear-guard saved the rest. For they managed to hold back the
swarm of foes until nightfall, when they reached a somewhat defensible
position a few miles from the towering cone of what is now known as
Steptoe Butte. There they spent part of a dark, rainy, and dismal night,
anticipating a savage attack. But the Indians, sure of their prey, waited
till morning. Surely the first light would have revealed a massacre equal
to the Custer massacre of later date, had not the unexpected happened. And
the unexpected was that old Timothy, the Nez Perce guide, knew a trail
through a rough canyon, the only possible exit without discovery. In the
darkness of midnight the shattered command mounted and followed at a
gallop the faithful Timothy on whose keen eyes and mind their salvation
rested. The wounded and a few footmen were dropped at intervals along the
trail. After an eighty-mile gallop during the day and night following, the
yellow flood of Snake River suddenly broke before them between its
desolate banks. Saved! The unwearied Timothy threw out his own warriors as
a screen against the pursuing foe, and set his women to ferrying the
soldiers across the turbulent stream.
Thus the larger part of the command reached Fort Walla Walla alive.
One of the most extraordinary individual experiences connected with the
Steptoe retreat, was that of Snickster and Williams. Some of the survivors
question the correctness of this, and others vouch for its accuracy. It
perhaps should not be set down as proven history. Snickster and Williams
were riding one horse, and could not keep up with the main body. The
Indians, therefore, overtook and seized them before they reached the Snake
River. In a rage because of having been balked of their prey, the Indians
determined to have some amusement out of the unfortunate pair, and told
them to go into the river with their horse and try to swim across. Into
the dangerous stream, two thousand feet wide, almost ice-cold, and with a
powerful current, they went. As soon as they were out a score of yards,
the Indians began their fun by making a target of them. The horse was
almost immediately killed. Williams was struck and sank. Snickster's arm
was broken by a ball, but diving under the dead horse, and keeping himself
on the farther side till somewhat out of range, and then boldly striking
across the current, which foamed with Indian bullets, he reached the south
side of the river and was drawn out, almost dead, by some of Timothy's
Nez Perce Indians.
[Illustration: Tullux Holiquilla, a Warm Springs Indian Chief, Famous in
the Modoc War as a Scout for U. S. Troops. By Courtesy of Major Lee
Moorehouse.]
With the defeat of Steptoe, the Indians may well have felt that they were
invincible. But their exultation was short-lived. As already noted,
Garnett crushed the Yakimas at one blow, and Wright a little later
repeated Steptoe's march to Spokane, but did not repeat his retreat. For
in the battle of Four Lakes on September 1st, and that of Spokane Plains
on September 5th, Wright broke for ever the power and spirits of the
northern Indians.
The treaties were thus established at last by war. The reservations,
embracing the finest parts of the Umatilla, Yakima, Clearwater, and
Coeur d'Alene regions, were set apart, and to them after considerable
delay and difficulty the tribes were gathered.
With the end of this third great Indian war and the public announcement by
General Clarke that the country might now be considered open to
settlement, immigration began to pour in, and on ranch and river, in mine
and forest, the well-known labours of the American state-builders and
home-builders became displayed. The ever-new West was repeating itself.
The Valley of the Columbia now rested from serious strife for a number of
years. But in 1877, an echo of the war of 1855 suddenly startled the
country, and provided an event to which lovers of the tragic and romantic
in history have ever since turned with deep interest. This was the "Joseph
War" in the Wallowa. Our readers will recall that the so-called Joseph
band of Nez Perces opposed the Walla Walla Treaty at first, but finally
acquiesced, with what they understood was the stipulation that they
should possess the Wallowa country as their permanent home. The Joseph of
that time was succeeded by his son, whose Indian name was Hallakallakeen,
"Eagle Wing." He was the finest specimen of the native red man ever
produced in the Columbia Valley. Of magnificent stature and proportions,
with a rare dignity and nobility, which wider opportunities would have
made remarkable, and with a career of mingled light and shade, pathos and
tragedy, Hallakallakeen will go down into history with a record of
passionate devotion from his followers and unstinted encomiums from most
of his opponents.
Joseph loved the Wallowa with a passionate affection, and made at first
every effort to maintain amity with his white neighbours. But when the
Government violated what he had regarded its sacred pledge and permitted
entrance upon the lands which he claimed, he refused to abide by the
decision and led out his warriors to battle. The Nez Perces, though few in
number, could fight face to face with white men, and could use white men's
weapons and white men's tactics. At a desperate battle at White Bird Canyon
they routed the detachment in command of Colonel Perry. The result was to
put arms, ammunition, and provisions in abundance into the hands of the
Indians and hope into their hearts.
General O. O. Howard, then commanding the department of the Columbia, now
assumed command and began so vigorous a campaign against Joseph that the
Indian chief plainly saw that with all his activity he could not avoid
being seized in the closing arms of Howard's command. The interesting
details of the marches, countermarches, desperate encounters, sometimes
favourable to white man and sometimes to red, are to be found in General
Howard's own book. At last, with marvellous skill and good fortune, Joseph
eluded capture and adopted the desperate resolution of crossing the Bitter
Root Mountains by the Lolo trail, descending the Missouri, and ultimately
reaching the Canadian line beyond the land of the Sioux. Encumbered as he
was with his women, children, and entire movable possessions, obliged to
forage and hunt on the way, and avoiding pursuers in rear as well as
forces coming to meet him in front, fighting frequent and some of the time
successful battles,--the Nez Perce chieftain exhibited qualities of
leadership and resources of mind and body which offer materials for a
historical romance equal to De Quincey's _Flight of the Kalmuck Tartars_.
[Illustration: Hallakallakeen (Eagle Wing) or Joseph, the Nez Perce Chief.
By T. W. Tolman.]
Howard's tireless pursuit in the rear and the active and intelligent
co-operation of Gibbon and Miles, who ascended the Missouri to meet the
fleeing Nez Perces, resulted at last in their capture at Bear Paw Mountain
on the Milk River in Montana.
General Howard says that the campaign from the beginning of the Indian
pursuit across the Lolo trail until the embarkation on the Missouri for
the homeward journey, including all stoppages and halts, extended from
July 27th to October 10th, during which time his command marched one
thousand three hundred and twenty-one miles. He says that Joseph,
encumbered with women, children, and possessions, traversed even greater
distances, "for he had to make many a loop in his skein, many a deviation
into a tangled thicket, to avoid or deceive his enemy." Howard pays the
highest tribute to his Indian foe and declares that some of his
operations are not often equalled in warfare.
Joseph's subsequent career was a melancholy one. Transported with his band
to Oklahoma, the wild eagle of the Wallowa so pined away on the flat
prairie and begged so piteously to be allowed to return to the waters of
the Columbia, that his request was granted. But so intense was the feeling
among the people who had suffered from their dangerous enemy that this
poor fragment of the Nez Perces was placed on the Colville Reservation in
Northern Washington. There the restless heart of the Nez Perce Bonaparte
was eaten out by bitter yearnings for his loved Wallowa.
He had an occasional proud and interesting hour. At the time of General
Grant's obsequies at New York, Joseph was in Washington to see the "Great
Father" about his reservation. General Miles, who greatly admired the hero
of the Lolo trail, asked him to ride with himself at the head of the
funeral procession. Mounted on a magnificent charger, Joseph rode solemnly
through the streets of the metropolis by the side of the conqueror of Bear
Paw Mountain, and there were not wanting those who said that the Indian
was the finer horseman and the finer-looking man.
But Joseph died at his camp on the Nespilem without ever seeing Wallowa.
His last request was that he be buried there. He remained an Indian to the
last, not ordinarily living in a house or wearing civilised costume or
even speaking English, though perfectly able to do so. His life might have
been happier had he never been known to fame.
[Illustration: Camp of Chief Joseph on the Nespilem, Wash. Photo. by T. W.
Tolman, Spokane.]
The next year after the Joseph War, or in 1878, occurred the Bannock War,
the scene of which was mainly Umatilla County in Oregon and other parts
adjoining the River. Though at first, as has happened so many times, the
Indians met with successes, the end was their inevitable defeat.
With the close of the Bannock War it may be said that Indian warfare
practically ended. The war-whoop ceased to be heard and the tomahawk was
brandished no more along the Columbia.