USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. II, 1848-1888 > Part 36
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357
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
The Argus, however, placed the name of Gaines at the head of its editorial columns as its candidate for delegate to congress. The Portland Times22 was strongly democratic, and sustained the nomination of Lane. The Portland Democratic Standard labored of course for its proprietor, Pratt, till the almost unanimous nomination of Lane by the Salem conven- tion took away its proper occupation, and it turned to general party uses.23
Lane arrived in Oregon early in April, and soon after the convention the campaign began, the whigs and know-nothings, or native Americans, uniting on Gaines and against the democracy.
The native Americans, it may be here said, were largely drawn from the missionary and anti-Hudson's Bay Company voters, who took the opportunity fur- nished by the rise of the new party to give utterance to their long-cherished antipathies toward the foreign element in the settlement of Oregon. Some of them were men who had made themselves odious to right- thinking people of all parties by their intemperate zeal against foreign-born colonists and the catholic religion, basing their arguments for know-nothing
nalist. He studied medicine while in the east, and practised it after return- ing to Oregon. In the West Shore, a monthly literary paper began at Port- land in 1875 by L. Samuels, are Rambling Notes of Oldten Times by Adams, in which are some striking pictures of the trials and pleasures of pioneer life, besides many other articles; but his principal work in life was done as editor of the paper he originated.
22 Of the two papers started in 1850, the Star was removed to Portland in 1851, where it became the Times, edited first by Waterman, and subse- quently by Hibben, followed by Russell D. Austin. It ran until 1858 in the interest of the democratic party. West Shore, Jan. 1876. Austin mar- ried Miss Mary A. Collins of Holyoke, Mass. Oregon Argus, Oct. 13, 1855. 23 Portland Oregonian, April 15, 1876. Another paper that came into being in 1955 was the Pacific Christian Advocate. It was first called the North Pacific Christian Herald, and had for publishers A. F. Waller, Thos II. Pearne, P. G. Buchanan, J. R. Robb, and C. S. Kingsley, with Thos H. I'carne for manager. See Or. Statesman, June 16, 1855. It soon afterward changed its name to Pacific Christian Advocate, published by A. F. Waller, J. L. Parrish, J. D. Boon, C. S. Kingsley, and H. K. Hines, with Thos H. Pearne editor. The following year the methodist general conference, in ses- sion at Indianapolis, resolved to establish a book depository and publish a weekly paper in Oregon; and that the book agents at New York be advised to purchase the Pacific Christian Advocate, already started, at $3,500, aud to employ an editor with a fixed salary. Or. and its Institutions, 107-8.
358
GOVERNMENT AND GENERAL DEVELOPMENT.
principles upon the alleged participation in the Whit- man massacre of the catholic priesthood.24
Anything like cant entering into American politics has always proven a failure; and the democratic party were not too refined to give utterance to an honest disgust of the bigotry which attempted it in Oregon. The election resulted in the complete triumph of democracy, Lane's majority being twenty-one hun- dred and forty-nine.25 There were but four whigs elected to the assembly, two in each house. A dem- ocratie prosecuting attorney was elected in each judi- cial district.26 The party had indeed secured every- thing it aimed at, excepting the vote for a state con- stitution, and that measure promised to be soon se- cured, as the majority against it had lessened more than half since the last election.
In spite of and perhaps on account of the dom- inance of democratic influence in Oregon, there was a conviction growing in the minds of thinking people not governed by partisan feeling, which was in time to revolutionize politics, and bring confusion upon the men who lorded it so valiantly in these times. This was, that the struggle for the extension of slave ter- ritory which the southern states were making, aided and abetted by the national democratic party, would be renewed when the state constitution came to be formed, and that they must be ready to meet the emergency.
In view of the danger that by some political jug- glery the door would be left open for the admission of slavery, a convention of free-soilers was called to meet at Albany on the 27th of June, 1855. Little more was done at this time than to pass resolutions
24 Or. Am. Evang. Unionist, Aug. 2, 1848.
25 Official, in Or. Statesman, June 30, 1855. The Tribune Almanac for 1856 gives Lane's majority as 2,235. The entire vote cast was 10,121. There were believed to be about 11,100 voters in the territory.
26George K. Sheil in the Ist district; Thomas S. Brandon in the 2d; R. E. Stratton in the 3d; and W. G. T'Vault in Jackson county, which was al- lowed to constitute a district.
359
INDIAN AFFAIRS.
expressing the sentiments and purposes of the mem- bers, and to appoint a committee to draft a platform for the anti-slavery party, to be reported to an ad- journed meeting to be held at Corvallis on the 31st of October.27 This was the beginning of a move- ment in which the Argus played an important part, and which resulted in the formation of the republican party of Oregon. It was the voice erying in the wilderness which prepared the way for the victory of free principles on the Northwest Coast, and seeured to the original founders of the Oregon colony the entire absence of the shadow and blight of an insti- tution which when they left their homes in the States the earliest immigrations determined to leave behind them forever. With regard, however, to the progress of the new party, before it had time to com- plete a formal organization, events had oceurred in Oregon of so absorbing a nature as to divert the public mind from its contemplation.
I have already spoken of the round of visits which Indian Superintendent Palmer made in 1854, about which time he coneluded some treaties-none of those made by Gaines ever having been ratified-with the Indians of the Willamette Valley.28 It was not until October that he was able to go to the Indians of south-
27 The committee were John Conner, B. F. Whitson, Thomas S. Kendall, Origen Thomson, and.J. P. Tate. Or. Argus, July 7, 1855. The members of this first anti-slavery meeting of Oregon were Origen Thomson, H. H. Hicklin, T. S. Kendall, Jno. R. McClure, Wm T. Baxter, Wilson Blain, Jno. McCoy, Samuel Hyde, W. L. Coon, Wm Marks, W. C. Hicklin, H. F. McCully, David Irwin, John Smith, Isaac Pest, J. W. Stewart, G. W. Lam- bert, J. B. Forsyth, J. M. McCall, John Conner, Thos Cannon, B. F. Whit- son, W. C. Johnson, Hezekiah Johnson, J. T. Craig, D. C. Hackley, S. R. McClelland, Robert A. Buck, Samuel Bell, J. P. Tate, U. H. Dunning. Alfred Wheeler, Samuel Colver, D. H. Bodinn, W. C. Garwood, D. Beach, Charles Ferry, J. F. Thompson, Milton B. Starr. Or. Argus, July 7, 1855.
28 A treaty was made with the Tualatin band of Calapooyas for their land lying in Washington and Yamhill counties, for which they received $3,300 in goods, money, and farm tools; also provisions for one year, and annuities of goods for twenty years, besides a tract of 40 acres to each family, two of which were to be ploughed and fenced, and a cabin erected upon it. Teach- ers of farming, milling, blacksmithing, etc., were to be furnished with manual- labor schools for the children. The provisions of all of Palmer's treatics were similar.
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GOVERNMENT AND GENERAL DEVELOPMENT.
ern Oregon with the assurance that congress had rat- ified the treaties made at the close of the war of 1853, with some amendments to which they consented sonie- what unwillingly,29 but were pacified on receiving their first instalment of goods. S. H. Culver was removed, and George H. Ambrose made agent on the Rogue River reservation.30 By the 1st of February, 1855, all the lands between the Columbia River and the summit of the Calapooya Mountains, and between the Coast and Cascade ranges, had been purchased for the United States, the Indians agreeing to remove to such local- ities as should be selected for them, it being the in- tention to place them east of the Cascades. But the opposition made by all natives, to being forced upon the territory of other tribes, or to having other tribes brought into contact with them, on their own lands, influenced Palmer to select a reservation on the coast, extending from Cape Lookout on the north to a point half-way between the Siuslaw and Umpqua rivers, taking in the whole country west of the Coast Range, with all the rivers and bays, for a distance of ninety miles, upon which the Willamette and coast tribes were to be placed as soon as the means should be at hand to remove them.
No attempt to treat with the Oregon tribes east of the Cascade Mountains for their lands had ever been made, and except the efforts of the missionaries, and the provisional government, for which White may be considered as acting, nothing had been done to bring them into friendly relations with the citizens of the United States. The Cayuse war had left that tribe
29 The amendment most objected to was one which allowed other tribes to be placed on their reservation, and which consolidated all the Rogue River tribes.
30 Palmer appears to have been rather arbitrary, but being liked by the authorities, in choosing between him and an agent whom ne disliked, they dismissed the agent without inquiry. Sub-agent Philip F. Thompson of Umpqua having died, E. P. Drew succeeded him. Nathan Olney superseded Parrish. There remained R. R. Thompson, W. W. Raymond, and William J. Martin, who resigned in the spring of 1855, and was succeeded by Robert B. Metcalfe. These frequent changes were due, according to Palmer, to in- sufficient salaries.
361
TREATIES AND PURCHASE OF LANDS.
imbittered toward the American people. Governor Stevens of Washington Territoy, when exploring for the Pacific railroad, in 1853, had visited and conferred with the tribes north and east of the Columbia con- cerning the sale of their lands, all of whom professed a willingness to dispose of them, and to enter into treaty relations with the government.31 Stevens had reported accordingly to congress, which appropriated money to defray the expense of these negotiations, and appointed Stevens and Palmer commissioners to make the treaties. But in the mean time a year and a half had elapsed, and the Indians had been given time to reconsider their hasty expressions of friend- ship, and to indulge in many melancholy forebodings of the consequences of parting with the sovereignty of the country. These regrets and apprehensions were heightened by a knowledge of the Indian war of 1853 in Rogue River Valley, the expedition against the Mo- docs and Piutes, and the expedition of Major Haller then in progress for the punishment of the murderers of the Ward company. They had also been informed by rumor that the Oregon superintendent designed to take a part of the country which they had agreed to surrender for a reservation for the discased and de- graded tribes of western Oregon, whose presence or neighborhood they as little desired as the white inhab- itants. At least, that is what the Indians said of them- selves.
Aware to some extent of this feeling, Stevens sent in January 1855 one of his most trusted aids, James Doty, among the Indians east of the mountains, to ascertain their views before opening negotiations for the purchase of their lands. To Doty the Indians made the same professions of friendship and willing- ness to sell their country which they had made to Stevens in 1853; and it was agreed to hold a general council of the Yakimas, Nez Percés, Cayuses, Walla
31 I. I. Stevens, in Ind. Aff. Rept, 1854, 184, 248; U. S. H. Ex. Doc. 55, 2, 33d cong. Ist sess.
362
GOVERNMENT AND GENERAL DEVELOPMENT.
Wallas, and their allies, to be convened in the Walla Walla Valley in May. The place of meeting was chosen by Kamiakin, head chief of the Yakimas, be- cause it was an ancient council-ground of his people, and everything seemed to promise a friendly confer- ence.
A large amount of money was expended in Indian goods and agricultural implements, the customary presents to the head men on the conclusion of treaties. These were transported above The Dalles in keel boats,32 and stored at Fort Walla Walla, then in charge of James Sinclair of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany. A military escort for the commissioners was obtained at Fort Dalles, consisting of forty dragoons under Lieutenant Archibald Gracie,33 the company being augmented to forty-seven by the addition of a detachment under a corporal in pursuit of some Indian murderers whom they had sought for a week without finding.
On the 20th of May the commissioners, who had hastened forward, arrived at Walla Walla, and pro- ceeded to the council-grounds about five miles from Waiilatpu,34 where the encampment was made before the escort arrived.35 The Indians, with their accus-
32 Stevens speaks of this as the opening of navigation above The Dalles. They were succeeded, he says, by sailing vessels of 60 tons freight, and soon by a steamer. Pac. R. R. Rept, xii. 196-7.
33 Lieut Lawrence Kip, of the 3d artillery, who accompanied Gracie on . this occasion as a guest and spectator, afterward published an account of the expedition and transactions of the commission, under title of The Indian Council at Walla Walla, San Francisco, 1855, a pleasantly told narrative, in which there is much correct information, and some unimportant errors con- cerning mission matters of which he had no personal knowledge. He gives pretty full reports of the speeches of the chicfs and commissioners. Lieut Kip also wrote a little book, Army Life on the Pacific Coast, A Journal of the Expedition against the Northern Indians in the Summer of 1858, New York, 1839, in which the author seeks to defend the army officers from aspersions cast upon thein iu the newspapers, and even in speeches on the floor of con- gress, as 'the drones of society, living on the government, yet a useless en- cumbrance and expense.'
" Kip speaks of visiting some gentlemen residing on the site of the old mission, who were 'raising stock to sell to emigrants crossing the plains, or settlers who will soon be locating themselves through these valleys.' Indian Council, 16.
3ª Kip also describes the council-ground as a beautiful spot, and tells us that an arbor had been erected for a dining-hall for the commissioners, with
363
A GRAND POWWOW.
tomed dilatoriness, did not begin to come in until the 24th, when Lawyer and Looking Glass of the Nez Percés arrived with their delegation, and encamped at no great distance from the commissioners, after having passed through the fantastic evolutions, in full war costume, sometimes practised on such occa- sions.36 The Cayuses appeared in like manner two days later, and on the 28th the Yakimas, who, with others, made up an assemblage of between four and five thousand Indians of both sexes. An attempt was made on the day following to organize the coun- cil, but it was not until the 30th that business was begun.
Before the council opened it became evident that a majority of the Indians were not in favor of treating,37 if indeed they were not positively hostile to the peo- ple represented by the commissioners; the Cayuses in particular regarding the troops with scowls of anger, which they made no attempt to conceal. Day after day, until the 11th of June, the slow and reluctant conference went on. The chiefs made speeches, with that mixture of business shrewdness and savage poetry which renders the Indian's eloquence so effective. 38
a table of split logs, with the flat side up. The troops, too, were sheltered in arbors, and but for the showery weather the comfort of the occasion would have equalled its picturesqueness.
36 See Ilist. Or., i. 130-1, this series.
37 Kip's Indian Council, 21.
38 The chief of the Cayuses thought it was wrong to sell the ground given them by the great spirit for their support. ' I wonder if the ground has any- thing to say? I wonder if the ground is listening to what is said. . . I hear what the ground says. The ground says, "It is the great spirit that placed me here. The great spirit tells me to take care of the Indians, to feed them aright. The great spirit appointed the roots to feed the Indians on." The water says the same thing. The great spirit directs me, " Feed the Indians well." The grass says the same thing, "Feed the horses and cattle." The ground, water, and grass say, " The great spirit has given us our names. We have these names and hold these names. Neither the Indians nor the whites have a right to change these names." The ground says, "The great spirit has placed me here to produce all that grows on me, trees and fruit." The same way the ground says, "It was from me man was made." The great spirit in placing men on the earth desired them to take good care of the ground, and do each other no harm. The great spirit said, "You Indians who take care of certain portions of the country should not trade it off except you get a fair price."' Kip's Indian Council, 22-6. In this argument was an attempt to enunciate a philosophy equal to the white mau's. It ended, as all savage
364
GOVERNMENT AND GENERAL DEVELOPMENT.
The commissioners exhausted their store of logic in convincing their savage hearers that they needed the benefits of the culture which the white race could im- part to them. Over and over again, the motives of the treaties and the treaties themselves were explained in the most painstaking manner. The fact was patent that the Indians meant to resist the invasion of their lands by the people of the United States. The Cayuses were against any sale. Owhi, chief of the Umatillas, and brother-in-law of Kamiakin, was op- posed to it. Peupeumoxmox, usually so crafty and non-committal, in this matter was decided; Kamiakin would have nothing to do with it; Joseph and Look- ing Glass were unfriendly; and only Lawyer con- tinued firm in keeping his word already pledged to Stevens.33 But for him, and the numerical strength of the Nez Perces, equal to that of all the other tribes present, no treaty could have been concluded with any of the tribes. His adherence to his deter- mination greatly incensed the Cayuses against him, and some of his own nation almost equally, especially Joseph, who refused to sign the treaty unless it se- cured to him the valley which he claimed as the home of himself and his people. 40 Looking Glass, war chief
arguments do, in showing the desire of gain, and the suspicion of being cheated.
39 . I think it is doubtful,' says Kip, 'if Lawyer could have held out but for his pride in his small sum of book lore, which inclined him to cling to his friendship with the whites. In making a speech, he was able to refer to the discovery of the continent by the Spaniards, and the story of Columbus mak- ing the egg stand on end. He related how the red men had receded before the white men in a manner that was hardly calculated to pour oil upon the troubled waters; yet as his father had agreed with Lewis and Clarke to live in peace with the whites, he was in favor of making a treaty!'
"Concerning the exact locality claimed by Joseph at this time as his home, there has been much argument and investigation. At the beginning of this history, Joseph was living near Lapwai, but it is said he was only there for the purpose of attending Spalding's school; that his father was a Cayuse, who had two wives, one a Nez Perce, the mother of Joseph, and the other a Cay- use, the mother of Five Crows; that Joseph was born on Snake River, near the mouth of the Grand Rond where his father lived, and that after the Lapwai mission was abandoned he went back to the mouth of the Grand Rond, where he died in 1871. These facts are gathered from a letter of Indian Agent Jno. B. Monteith to H. Clay Wood, and is contained in a pamphlet published by the latter, called The Status of Young Joseph and his Band of Nez Perce Indians under the Treaties, etc., written to settle the
365
RETIRING ABORIGINALS.
of the Nez Percés, showed his opposition by not com- ing to the council until the 8th, and behaving rudely when he did come." Up to almost the last day, Paliner, who had endeavored to obtain the consent of the Indians to one common reservation, finding them determined in their refusal, finally offered to reserve lands separately in their own country for those who objected to going upon the Nez Perce reservation, and on this proposition, harmony was apparently re- stored, all the chiefs except Kamiakin agreeing to it. The haughty Yakima would consent to nothing; but when appealed to by Stevens to make known his question of Joseph's right to the Wallowa Valley in Oregon, his claim to which brought on the war of 1877 with that band of Nez Perces. Wood's pamphlet, which was written by the order of department commander Gen. O. O. Howard, furnishes much valuable information upon this rather obscure subject. Wood concludes from all the evidence that Joseph was chief of the upper or Salmon River branch of the Nez Perces, and that his claim to the Wallowa Valley as his especial home was not founded in facts as they existed at the time of the treaty of 1835, but that it was 'possessed in common by the Nez Percés as a summer resort to fish.' As the reservation took in both sides of the Snake River as far up as fifteen miles below the mouth of Powder River, and all the Salmon River country to the Bitter Root Mountains, and beyond the Clearwater as far as the southern branch of the Palouse, the west- ern line beginning a little below the mouth of Alpowa Creek, it included all the lands ever claimed by the Nez Perces since the ratification of the treaty, much of which was little known to white men in 1855, and just which portion of it was reserved by Joseph is a matter of doubt, though Superintendent Palmer spoke of Joseph's band as 'the Salmon River hand of the Nez Perces.' Wood's Young Joseph and the Treaties, 35.
Joseph had perhaps other reasons for objecting to Lawyer's advice. He claimed to be descended from a long line of chiefs, and to be superior in rank to Lawyer. The missionaries, because Joseph was a war chief, and because Lawyer exhibited greater aptitude in learning the arts of peace, endeavored to build up Lawyer's influence. When White tried his hand at managing Indiaus, he appointed over the Nez Percés a head chief, a practice which had been discontinued by the advice of the Hudson's Bay Company. On the death of Ellis, the head chief, whose superior acquirements had greatly strengthened his influence with the Nez Perces, it was Lawyer who aspired to the high chieftainship, on the ground of these same acquirements, and who had gained so much influence as to be named head chief when the com- missioners interrogated the Nez Percés as to whom they should treat with for the nation. This was good ground for jealousy and discord, and a weighty reason why Joseph should not readily consent to the advice of Lawyer, even if there were no other.
" Cram says that Lawyer and Looking Glass had arranged it between them to cajole the commissioners; that the sudden appearance and opposition of the latter were planned to give effect to Lawyer's apparent fidelity; and at the same time by throwing obstacles in the way, to prevent a clutch upon their lands from being realized. In these respects events have shown that Lawyer was the ablest diplomatist at the council; for the friendship of his tribes has remained, and no hold upon their lands has yet inured to the whites.' Top. Mem., 84.
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GOVERNMENT AND GENERAL DEVELOPMENT.
wishes, only aroused from his sullen silence to ejacu- late, " What have I to say?" This was the mood of the Indians on Saturday, the 9th; but on Monday, the 11th, every chief signed the treaties, including Kamia- kin, who said it was for the sake of his people that he consented. Having done this, they all expressed sat- isfaction, even joy and thankfulness, at this termina- tion of the conference. 42
The Nez Perces agreed to take for their lands outside the reservation, which was ample, $200,000 in annuities, and were to be supplied besides with mills, schools, millers, teachers, mechanics, and every reasonable aid to their so-called improvement. The Cayuses, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas were united on one reservation in the beautiful Umatilla country, where claims were already beginning to be taken up. 43
They were to receive the same benefits as the Nez Percés, and $150,000 in annuities, running through twenty years. The Yakimas agreed to take $200,000, and were granted two schools, three teachers, a num- ber.of mechanics, a farmer, a physician, millers, and mills.# By an express provision of the treaties, the country embraced in the cessions, and not included in the reservation, was open to settlement, except that the Indians were to remain in possession of their im- provements until removed to the reservations, when they were to be paid for them whatever they were worth. When the treaties were published, particular attention was called to these provisions protecting the Indians in the enjoyment of their homes so long as they were not removed by authority to the reserves.
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