USA > Washington > History of Washington; the rise and progress of an American state, Vol. III > Part 19
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He left Olympia on March 26th, going by way of Portland to San Francisco, and thence by the isthmus to New York, where he arrived in May. At San Francisco much interest was expressed in the result of his railroad survey, and he was invited to deliver an address on the subject, which he did on the evening of April 13th, at the music hall in Bush Street. A large audience was present, and his description of what he had done was listened to with the closest atten- tion, and as he contended that three roads should be built, if practicable routes were found for them, as he had no doubt would be the case, all that he said was applauded.
He arrived in Washington and submitted his report on June 30th; it was the first of all the reports from the trans- continental exploring parties to be received. But Secretary
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Davis was in no kindly humor with this evidence of efficiency, or with the demonstration that this route was not only practi- cable but desirable. He had already permitted the gover- nor's drafts to go to protest. He would give but scant attention to what he had to say, and finally, in laying his report before Congress, raised the estimate of cost of con- struction from $117,121,000 to $150,871,000, an increase of nearly $34,000,000; magnified the physical difficulties; depre- ciated the agricultural resources of the country; described that part of it west of the Rocky Mountains as one of general sterility, and declared that "the severely cold character of the climate throughout the whole route, except the portion west of the Cascade Mountains, is one of its unfavorable features."
He ignored Tinkham's report of a reconnoissance he had made in Snoqualmie Pass, but quoted McClellan's with approval, remarking that "his examinations presents a reconnoissance of great value, and though performed under adverse circumstances, exhibits all the information necessary to determine the practicability of this portion of the route."
The country which Jefferson Davis thus misrepresented and decried as one of "general sterility," has produced more than 30,000,000 bushels of wheat in a single year, besides oats, barley, hay and other crops in proportion, and it is still only partly under cultivation. Its seemingly most sterile part is already beginning to undergo a marvelous change. Under the influence of irrigation a wide area, which for centuries produced nothing but sagebrush, grease wood and the cactus, is now changing into a more fruitful region than the valley of the Nile, and will in time, be capable of support- ing a population as dense as that of Belgium. In it all the fruits of the temperate zone are grown in perfection, and its
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soil and climate are now known to be suited to the produc- tion of all the grains, fruits and vegetables usually found only in a much wider range, not only in abundance but pro- fusion. By misrepresenting this country Mr. Davis suc- ceeded, as he and others then wished to do, in retarding its development, but he and they could not altogether prevent it. The truth cannot be wholly suppressed; it finally triumphs, however it may be perverted, resisted or buried under volumes of misrepresentation. The smiling fields and bending orchards of eastern Washington, Oregon and Idaho, will annually, and for all time, rebuke the presumption of Mr. Davis in thus attempting, by idle words, to make their development impossible; and if he were living today he might well wish his misrepresentation of them might be for- gotten. But this is not possible; the record of his error remains, and the error itself will become more and more con- spicuous as time advances.
By the unfavorable comments, not to mention the misrepresentations, with which he submitted Governor Stevens' report of his railroad work to Congress, Sec- retary Davis also deprived the country of that immediate benefit that might and probably would have resulted from it.
This exploration was far more thoroughly and carefully made than any that had preceded it, and more fully reported. Had it been brought to public attention as favorably as Fremont's reports were, the improvements that did result from them might have followed much earlier. Not one of Fremont's expeditions were conducted with anything like the skill and energy that characterized Stevens' work, nor were any of his explorations made with anything approach- ing its thoroughness or completeness. And yet Fremont's
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work was heralded to the world as something of surpassing importance, while Stevens' was belittled and, for a time, almost discredited.
Although the governor found his efforts in the interest of a railroad by the northern route balked and discredited, he did not abandon them. As no further appropriations for the survey could be hoped for, he resolved to continue the work, so far as possible, without them. He was still governor and Indian agent, and in the latter capacity he would be required to travel throughout the entire length and breadth of the territory, and thus would have opportunity to make further observations personally. There would also be some money appropriated for assistants, and by making judicious appointments of these assistants, he might secure much information that would be of service. This policy was pursued. Lieutenant Lander also continued the explora- tion, largely with means contributed by his brother, the chief justice, and the work thus done, without extra cost to the government, but purely by the voluntary efforts of Stevens and Lander, resulted in the collection of a vast amount of additional and valuable information, which was some years later embodied in two large volumes, published as one, Volume XII of the Reports of Transcontinental Railroad Survey.
While in Washington the governor was able to be of much assistance to Delegates Lancaster and Lane of Washington and Oregon, in securing Congressional action on the memo- rials which the legislative assemblies of both territories had presented. The donation law was amended in several important respects, and the provisions of the preemption law extended to Washington. Two townships of land were appropriated to Washington for a university. The territory
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was made a separate surveying district, and a surveyor general assigned to it. A large appropriation was made for extinguishing the Indian titles to land both east and west of the mountains, and Governor Stevens was appointed a special commissioner to treat with the warlike Blackfeet and other tribes, in what is now eastern Montana, and if possible make peace among them. For this purpose $10,000 was appropriated. The mail routes were also extended so as to give service for the first time to all the settlements on the Sound, and $30,000 was appropriated for a wagon road from the valley of the Columbia, via the Cœur d'Alene Mission, to Fort Benton.
Both delegates and Governor Stevens urgently advocated the passage of acts for marking the northern boundary, from the Lake of the Woods to the ocean, and for the creation of a commission to examine and determine the claims of the Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound Agricultural companies, but were not successful. Measures for both purposes passed one house but failed in the other.
Having accomplished this much, and Congress having adjourned, Governor Stevens prepared to set out for the West, this time with his wife and four children, the youngest scarcely two years old. Before leaving, however, he learned of some murders committed by the Indians during his absence, and on August 14th applied to the secretary of war for a thousand stands of arms, a hundred thousand cartridges and a few revolvers, to be deposited at Fort Steilacoom, and used to arm the militia, in case it should be necessary for the defense of the settlers. But these were refused, Mr. Davis holding that "the territory is not entitled to, and cannot be supplied with, arms, until the return of the effective militia therein is received."
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Thus the settlers were to be left almost defenseless, when, little more than a year later, war with the Indians should break out. Had the first legislative assembly acted as promptly and wisely upon the governor's recommendation on this most important matter, as it did on most others, the secretary might not have been able to meet this most timely request with this curt refusal; certainly he could not have made it for the reason given, though possibly he would have found another.
The governor and his family sailed from New York on September 20, 1854, on an overcrowded steamer for Panama. They crossed the isthmus by the railroad, then only partly built, and by mules, horses, and in chairs carried on the backs of Indians, as the custom was in that day. From the isthmus to San Francisco was another tedious journey, requiring fourteen days, during which many of the passen- gers suffered from fever, and some died. The party were detained in San Francisco for a month by sickness, and then came by steamer to Portland.
The trip up the Cowlitz and across the country to Olym- pia was a trying one for Mrs. Stevens and her three little daughters, who were not accustomed to travel by canoes and batteaux, poled up stream by Indians, or on horseback, over roads that had never been more than trails, and were now made almost impassable for wheels by the rain. The weather was inclement throughout nearly the whole journey, as it was now November, but it was made by easy stages, after leaving the Cowlitz, the party stopping one night at John R. Jackson's and one at Sidney S. Ford's. The next afternoon just as "the day was closing dim," the tired travelers heard the welcome announcement: "There is Olympia." They were then at the "top of a little hill,"
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Mrs. Stevens says, and that hill was at or near the spot where the Masonic Temple now stands. Before them lay a rather uninviting prospect-" a dismal and forlorn scene," Mr. Hazard Stevens says. "A low, flat neck of land, running into the bay; down it stretched the narrow, muddy track, winding among the stumps which stood thickly on either side; twenty small wooden houses bordered the road, while back of them on the left and next to the shore were a number of Indian lodges, with canoes drawn up on the beach, and Indian dogs running about."
This prospect could not have been a very inviting one to a woman who had grown up among the comforts of civili- zation, and had now left them for a time, not hoping to find a new and more comfortable and agreeable home, as the settler's wives had done, but to accompany her husband as her duty was. But the prospect soon brightened. "I remained three years at Olympia," says Mrs. Stevens, "a great part of the time living alone with the children, the governor being away, in all parts of the territory, making treaties with the Indians, planning and arranging the settle- ment of the country." Agreeable company was not alto- gether lacking. George Stevens, a relative of the governor, Secretary Mason and Lieutenants Arnold and Young, and Evans and Kendall, who had come on with the gover- nor's surveying party, Major H. A. Goldsborough, George Gibbs, Colonel Simmons, Frank Shaw, Orrington Cushman and Major James Tilton, the new surveyor general and his family, when they arrived, were all agreeable people; there were frequent visits by the officers and their wives from Fort Steilacoom, and the settlers and their wives and daughters were untiring in their attentions. Mrs. Stevens says :
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"I had a horse to ride on horseback across the lovely prairies. Almost daily I took a ride about the picturesque, beautiful country, with the rich, dense forests and snowy mountains, green little prairies skirted by timber, lakes of deep, clear water, all of which was new to me, affording great pleasure in exploring Indian trails and a country which was completely new. I also had a boat built, in which I made excursions down the Sound. About two miles down there was a Catholic mission, a large dark house or monas- tery, surrounded by cultivated land, a fine garden in front filled with flowers, bordered on one side, next the water, with immense bushes of wallflowers in bloom; the fragrance resembling the sweet English violet, filling the air with its delicious odor. Father Ricard, the venerable head of this house, was from Paris. He lived in this place more than twenty years. He had with him Father Blanchet, a short, thickset man, who managed everything pertaining to the temporal comfort of the mission. Under him were servants who were employed in various ways, baking, cooking, digging, and planting. Their fruit was excellent and a great rarity, as there was but one more orchard in the whole country. There was a large number of Flatheads settled about them, who had been taught to count their beads, say prayers, and were good Catholics in all outward observances; chanted the morning and evening prayers, which they sang in their own language in a low, sweet strain, which, the first time I heard it, sitting in my boat at sunset, was impressive and solemn. We went often to visit Father Ricard, who was a highly educated man, who seemed to enjoy having some one to converse with in his own language. He said the Canadians used such bad French."
CHAPTER XLIII. TREATIES WITH THE INDIANS.
G OVERNOR STEVENS now prepared to set about a work of scarcely less importance to the territory and its people than the railroad explora- tion which he had pushed so far, but which he could now complete only by his own voluntary efforts, and as time and opportunity should permit. The need for this new work was already beginning to be pressing, and would rapidly become more so, and he made his preparations with his accustomed vigor.
Under the donation law, as originally passed, each settler was to have 640 acres of land if married, and 320 acres if single, after he "shall have resided upon and cultivated the same for four consecutive years." The members of the Simmons party had now been in the territory, and most of them had been on their claims, for more than nine years, and many others had held theirs for more than four years, while still others would soon have completed the full term of residence required. Some already wished to sell their claims, but this they could not do until they received their patents, as the donation law declared all contracts for the sale of claims, entered upon after its passage, void if made before patent issued .*
But patents could not issue to any settlers, until the Indian title was extinguished. This title, whatever it was, the government had recognized from the earliest times. Chief Justice Marshall had defined it as a right of occupancy only. Probably the Indians themselves did not originally regard their claim to the soil, or right to use it, as in any way different from their right to breathe the air that was
* Several claims were advertised for sale in the "Columbian" during the first year of its existence, but these were doubtless claims that had been entered upon before the act became law
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everywhere about them. They found themselves upon it, without knowing how or why. It seemed to be provided for their use, as the air and water had been. They roamed over it, when not resisted by unfriendly neighbors, helped themselves to what they found on or about it, that they had need or could find use for, and passed on, if they thought they might find something that would please them equally well or better, beyond it. If they found some other tribe, friendly or unfriendly, occupying some part of it that pleased their fancy for the moment, they dispossessed them if they could, and in return yielded to some superior tribe when forced to do so. What they occupied today, because it pleased them, or because they had been driven to do so, they might abandon or be driven from tomorrow, as the case might be. They made no use of the soil except to take from it what it naturally produced; did nothing to establish or strengthen title to it, except to remain on it when they did not wish or were not compelled to go else- where. It probably would not have occurred to them to claim any right of ownership in it, if it had not been sug- gested to them.
But now they had long been told that a Great Father, whom they had never seen, and of whom they had only recently begun to hear, would some time send to purchase their lands, and pay them therefor with goods, the value of which they had well learned. They would then have an abundance of food and clothing, as they thought, and would no longer suffer from the cold in winter, or from hunger in the seasons when fish and game, and the roots and berries which the earth produced in season, were not abundant. They were not unwilling to give up a large part of their land to secure this desired change,
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and were living in anticipation of the time when it would be made.
Not a few of them were beginning to doubt that it would be made-they had been hearing about it for so long a time. The settlers were coming in ever increasing numbers; were choosing such land as pleased them, building their homes and otherwise improving it; living in increasing comfort from what they got out of it, and paying them nothing. There was increasing danger that they, or some of them, might begin to be troublesome on this account, and the settlers were growing more and more anxious to have settle- ment made with them, so that they might be sent to their reservations, where they would no longer be subjected to their importunities, and where police regulations for their control could be established and effectively maintained.
By the terms of the Organic act, the governor was also charged with the duties of superintendent of Indian affairs, and for the service to be rendered in that capacity he was to be paid an annual salary equal to his salary as governor, which was $1,500, showing that in the estimation of Congress and the president, his duties and responsibilities as superin- tendent would be quite as important as in his capacity as governor, as indeed they were to be. During the session of Congress recently closed, an appropriation had been made for making the necessary treaties, and to make such payments to the tribes treated with as should be required, and he was now authorized to proceed with the important work that both the settlers and some of the Indians, at least, had so long wished to have done.
Soon after his appointment he had been furnished with a letter containing some very general instructions, by Hon. G. W. Manypenny who was then commissioner of Indian
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affairs .* Manypenny had himself negotiated several trea- ties, notably that with the Omahas, to which reference is made, particularly to its sixth article, in nearly all the treaties made by Governor Stevens, and by General Palmer, who was superintendent of the Indians in Oregon during the same years. In this letter the governor is directed to collect as much information as possible in regard to the Indian tribes, in Washington, their numbers, mode of living, their disposition, whether peaceable or warlike, their rela- tions with neighboring tribes, etc., and to do this he was authorized to appoint one or more special agents, as in his judgment might be indispensable. Interpreters were also to be employed when necessary. These were to gather the information required and forward it as early as possible to the Indian office.
So little was known at that time about the country through which he was to make his survey east of the Rocky Moun- tains, that he was authorized to appoint a special agent in the region lying north of the Missouri River, and west of Minnesota, to gather from the tribes there such information as he was charged to secure from the tribes farther west, and should he deem it advisable to negotiate treaties of peace and friendship with any of the tribes he should meet in that region, he was authorized to do so, but he was to make no promise of presents or provisions, except such as he could fulfill at the time of the negotiation.
In conclusion he was reminded that the Indians in his own territory had been, for a long time, under the influence of the Hudson's Bay Company, and he was therefore enjoined
* I have been furnished by the Indian office with an official copy of these instructions. They cover only a little more than eight typewritten pages letter size, and are very general in character. C. A. S.
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to use the utmost prudence and discretion in all matters relating to this delicate and important subject. The com- missioner had been informed that most of the goods given to the Indians of Oregon, had been purchased from this Com- pany, and there was danger that they might get the impres- sion from that fact, that they were conferred by persons belonging to a foreign government. He hoped that this had not been done to an extent to produce as yet much bad effect, but it was adverse to the policy of our government to cause these people to believe themselves the recipients of foreign gratuities. It was, therefore, suggested that the governor should make all his purchases from American citizens, when practicable, and improve every opportunity to impress on the Indians that it was the American govern- ment and not the British that was conferring these benefits on them. The Indians should be prevented, as far as pos- sible, from crossing the line into the British possessions. The Hudson's Bay Company had so long wielded an undue influence over them that the governor might perhaps find it difficult to carry out these views, but perseverance would, no doubt, finally effect all that was required, or go far toward correcting the present condition of affairs. Under no circumstance should the Company be permitted to have establishments within the limits of our territory, and if any such did exist, "they should be promptly proceeded with in accordance with the requirements of the intercourse law."
During his recent visit to the capital he had been furnished a second letter by the Indian office, setting forth more particularly what he was expected to accomplish by the treaties he was now authorized to make. He was also pro- vided with copies of treaties recently made with various tribes in Missouri and Nebraska, which would be helpful
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to him as models of form, and as containing many details not expressed in the letter of instruction.
It was the opinion of the department, the letter informed him, that the formation of distinct relations with each of the forty or fifty separate bands in the territory would not be as likely to promote the best interests of the white settlers, or of the Indians, as if the latter could be concentrated in a limited number of districts, apart from the settlements of the whites. He was therefore to endeavor to unite the numerous bands and fragments of tribes, so far as possible, and to provide for their concentration upon the reservations to be set apart for their future homes. Unless he could effect arrangements of this kind, it was thought best that he should, for the present, conclude treaties only with the tribes, or bands, in the immediate neighborhood of the white settlements, and between whom and the settlers animosities might prevail, or where disturbances of the peace might be apprehended.
It was not deemed necessary to give specific instructions in regard to the details of the treaties. These he was to learn from the copies of the treaties which had been furnished him. Those made by the commissioner himself indicated the policy of the government in regard to the ultimate civilization of the Indian tribes; the graduation of the annuity payments secured to them; the encouragement of schools and missions among them; the exclusion of ardent spirits from their settlements; the security to be given against the application of their annuity funds to the payment of debts of individuals; the liberation of their slaves; the terms on which roads and railroads might be constructed through their reservations, and the authority to be reserved to the president of determining the manner in which the
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annuities should be applied for the benefit of those who were to receive them.
As to the amount he was to pay for the land ceded, no special instruction was given, but he was referred to the treaties which the commissioner had made for information on this score. It was the settled policy of the department to avoid, so far as it could be judiciously done, the payment of annuities in money, and to substitute implements of agriculture, stock, goods and articles necessary to the com- fort and civilization of the tribes. The governor was to bear in mind that the tribes treated with, resided in a country remote from the capital, and that much time must neces- sarily elapse between the conclusion of negotiations and the ratification of the treaties by the president and Senate, and he was to caution the Indians against expecting the first payment of annuities too soon after the conclusion of the councils. In all his treaty negotiations, he was to exercise "a sound discretion," especially where the circumstances were such as to require a departure from the instructions given, and he was to be careful to leave no question open, out of which difficulties might subsequently arise, or by means of which further demands on the treasury might be encouraged.
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