USA > Washington > History of Washington; the rise and progress of an American state, Vol. IV > Part 2
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admitted that he knew that the sheriff was under arrest, by civil process. Mason then sought to get the death-warrant from the sheriff, but he refused to give it up "without an order," as he said. The deputy sheriff also demanded, or pretended to demand, the warrant, so that he might proceed with the execution, but the sheriff again refused to surrender it.
Leschi had escaped the gallows for the time being, but by means which aroused public indignation to such a point as to make his doom, if possible, more certain. On the night of the day of which he was to have been executed, a public meeting was held at Steilacoom, at which the citizens voiced their indignation at the way in which the law had been trampled upon, in several speeches, and a series of resolu- tions, in which the officers at the fort who had taken part in the affair, those at Fort Nisqually, and the prisoner's attorney were denounced by name. A few evenings later another public meeting was held at Olympia, which was addressed by the governor and Secretary Mason, and similar resolu- tions adopted. One of these resolutions declared that "the conduct, on the part of officers of the United States army, exhibits a most unnatural, and unreasonable sympathy for the Indian, who was known to have been engaged in the fiendish massacre of helpless women and children on White River, in the fall of 1855, and that it is considered by this community good and sufficient cause for their immediate removal from the territory, and dismissal from the army."
The legislature was in session, and on the day following that on which the execution should have taken place, passed an act-"requiring the judges of the supreme court now in the territory, to hold a special session on the first Thursday in February," to pronounce upon the case of Leschi as it then
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stood. The special session was held and the prisoner ordered to be resentenced, and in accordance with this order he was sentenced for a third time, and William Mit- chell, then acting sheriff of Thurston County, Captain Isaac Hays having left the territory, was appointed to carry the sentence into execution. The date fixed was February 19th.
On that day the prisoner was delivered to Mitchell by Colonel Casey, and taken under guard to a point about a mile east of the fort, and near the north end of Lake Steila- coom, where, in a considerable depression in the prairie, forming a natural amphitheater, a gallows had been erected. Here, in the presence of a considerable number of settlers and Indians, he was hanged by the neck until he was dead.
His several trials, the sensational circumstances under which his execution was once postponed, and the public excitement attending his final sentence and execution, have caused him to be remembered as he otherwise would not have been. Some have supposed, from all that has been said and written about him, that he was a great chief-the real organizer and leader of the uprising. But he did not hold even a second place among the leaders of that enter- prise. He was not a great Indian in any sense. He was not a warrior of consequence. He was not an organizer or a manager. He was simply a glib-tongued agitator, and like most other agitators, very competent to get those who listened to him into trouble, but wholly incompetent to get them out of it.
Sometime after his execution Colonel Shaw, who was the interpreter at his trial, reproduced the following speech, from memory, as that made by Leschi on one of the occasions when sentence was passed upon him. Its accuracy was not
1
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vouched for, and yet it is probably as nearly accurate as the reports of other Indian speeches have been, that have long been famous. When asked if he had anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon him, and being told by the interpreter that he might speak if he wished, he arose and said :
"I do not see that there is any use of saying anything. My attorney has said all he could for me. I do not know! anything about your laws. I have supposed that the killing of armed men in wartime was not murder; if it was, the ; soldiers who killed Indians were guilty of murder, too. The Indians did not keep in order like the soldiers and, therefore, could not fight in bodies like them, but had to resort to am- bush, and seek the cover of trees, logs and everything that would hide them from the bullets. This was their mode of fighting, and they knew no other way. Dr. Tolmie and Quatlith, the red-headed chief, warned me against allowing my anger to get the best of my good sense, as I could not gain anything by going to war with the United States, but would be beaten and humbled, and would have to hide like a wild beast in the end. I did not take this good advice but nursed my anger until it became a furious passion, which led me like a false Tamanous. I went to war because I believed that the Indians had been wronged by the white men, and did everything in my power to beat the 'Boston' soldiers, but for lack of numbers, supplies and ammunition, I have failed. I deny that I had any part in killing Miles and Moses. I heard that a company of soldiers were com- ing out of Steilacoom, and determined to lay in ambush for it; but did not expect to catch anyone coming from the other way. I did not see Miles or Moses before or after they were dead, but was told by the Indians that they had been killed. As God sees me, this is the truth."
Leschi then made the sign of the cross, and said in his . own Nisqually tongue
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"'Ta-te-mono, Ta-te lem-mas, Ta-te ha-le-hach, tu-ul-li- as-sist-ah,' which, being interpreted, means, This is the Father, this is the Son, this is the Holy Ghost; these are all one and the same. Amen."
The Indian war was now over, so far as the territorial government and the settlers were concerned. Quiemuth, Leschi and Stehi, who had been active in the uprising, were dead, and Nelson and Kitsap had been apprehended, tried and acquitted. The hostiles west of the mountains were dispersed, and there was no longer any danger that they would make trouble among those who had so long been kept together in the reserve camps. During the summer of 1856, Governor Stevens had visited the camps in the upper Sound, and conferred with the Indians in regard to the changes they wished to have made in their reservations. He had himself learned, by this time, that those assigned to the Puyallups and the Nisquallies were not suited to their use, and, as the treaty with them had been ratified, he undertook to secure for them what they required, by executive proclamation, and this he did while a delegate in Congress, securing for the Puyallups 18,060 acres adjoining the present city of Tacoma, which has since that time made that tribe one of the richest in the United States. The Nisqually reservation was also considerably enlarged. A small reser- vation was also secured for the Muckleshoot tribe, consisting of several fractional sections fronting on White River. It was a curiously shaped reservation, but Stevens afterwards explained that he had arranged it as the Indians wanted it, and it evidently was not arranged as it was for any other reason.
During the sessions of the legislature, of which four had now been held, the governor's recommendations had generally
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been followed, and most of them carried out. The most important business at each session had been the adoption of memorials, informing Congress as to the needs of the territory, and asking appropriations for the improvements most urgently required. Actual legislation had been con- fined to the enactment of laws of local interest, as the work of the first legislature, aided as it had been by Judges Lander, Strong and Monroe, had been so complete as to leave but little in the way of general laws to be desired. The second legislature passed a crude militia law, and amended the school, road and fence laws, and changed the time of holding the general election from June to July. It also set off Cheha- lis County from the second judicial district, and attached it to the first. Representation in the House was increased from eighteen to thirty members. Marriage between white persons and those who were of more than one-fourth Indian or negro blood was forbidden, and clergymen might be fined not less than $50, nor more than $500, for marrying such persons, unless they had been or were living together at the time the act was passed. The territorial penitentiary was voted to Clarke County, the capitol to Olympia, to be located on the land claim of Edmund Sylvester, and the State university to Seattle, though a branch of it was to be established at Boisfort. An act prohibiting the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits, and providing for the appointment of an agent to sell spirits and wine for medicinal, mechanical and sacramental purposes was also passed, to become law when approved by the people, but it was defeated by a majority of 70 votes, in a total of 1, 150 cast.
The third legislature met in the winter of 1855-56, when the settlers had been compelled to abandon their homes, and most of them were serving with the volunteers, while
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their families were living in blockhouses or stockades. Business everywhere in the territory was prostrated. The regular soldiers had been withdrawn from the country east of the mountains, and the Oregon volunteers were fighting the battles for both territories on the Walla Walla, while Governor Stevens was forcing his way through the hostile mountain country, as best he could, toward home. This legislature asked Congress to investigate the conduct of Rains in abandoning the Yakima country, and in disbanding the volunteer company raised to go to Stevens' relief. It also protested against the separation of the offices of governor and superintendent of Indian affairs, as the Indian office had recommended.
When the next legislature assembled, on December Ist, Governor Stevens announced that the message sent to it would be his last, as he had determined to resign. The war was practically ended; the accounts of the quarter- master closed, and his report and that of the adjutant-general completed. These reports, together with the orders, reports and correspondence from and with the various officers in command, and with General Wool and other officers of the regular army, were submitted with the message, and make up a most complete and interesting history of the war, as well as a valuable contribution to the history of the nation. The quartermaster-general's report showed that the total amount of scrip issued was $1,481,475.45, of which $961,882.39 was for equipment supplies, etc., and $519,593.06, for pay of the volunteers. "As an evidence of the fidelity with which the public interest has been protected," says the quarter- master-general, in closing his report, "it is sufficient to state that, whilst 571 horses were purchased for the service, 600 have been turned in and sold. When it is remembered that
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many of the animals have died in service, and that many have been captured by the enemy, it will be seen how faith- fully the animals purchased, and those captured at Grand Ronde have been accounted for."
The companies raised under the calls of acting-Governor Mason, for three months' service, were denominated the Ist regiment, and those under the calls of Governor Stevens, the 2d regiment. Of the former there were, rank and file, 518 mounted men and 345 unmounted; in the latter there were 584 mounted, and 485 unmounted, or a total of 1,069 men serving at one time; of these three companies, consisting of a total of 185 men, were raised in Oregon and 123 were Indians. As the population of the territory was then but little more than 4,000, it appears that nearly one-fifth of the whole were actually under arms, while a large number of others were employed by the quartermaster to keep them supplied with food and ammunition.
The declaration of martial law, and arrest and detention of Judge Lander produced intense feeling throughout the territory, and as time passed the governor's action was more and more severely criticized. People felt that a dangerous precedent had possibly been established, and that unless vigorous protest were made against this autocratic inter- ference with the authority of their courts, great dangers might result. The party names, Whig and Democrat, which had long been familiar, were for the time being disused, and the only parties known were the Stevens and Anti-Stevens. When the legislature organized, William H. Wallace was chosen president, and Elwood Evans, clerk of the Council. Both were Whigs, and opponents of the governor. The House chose Joseph S. Smith, speaker, and Reuben L. Doyle, clerk, and both were Anti-Stevens Democrats. Martial law
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had alienated some of the governor's oldest friends, among them, Evans, and B. F. Kendall, who had come out to the territory as members of his surveying party, and many others.
The message was an able one, as all of Stevens' state papers were. It stated the grounds for his actions fairly, defended his course with his accustomed courage, and closed with a manly request for a full investigation. This the legislature at once proceeded to make. Those opposed to his course were led by Joseph S. Smith, W. H. Wallace, A. A. Denny, Alexander S. Abernethy, Alonzo M. Poe and William Cock, once one of his most ardent friends and sup- porters, and he was defended and championed by Judge William Strong, the able lawyer and sterling citizen, who had been so helpful in forming the code adopted by the first legislature, and who had also been captain of the first volun- teer company raised in Clarke County. Although a Whig in politics heretofore, and the candidate of his party for delegate in Congress at the last election, he now staunchly and eloquently championed the cause of Stevens, a Democrat, although the issue was one in which, as a sound lawyer, he would naturally be expected to be on the other side.
The debate was long and earnest, and the public interest in it was keen and wide spread. It ended in the adoption of a resolution of censure.
This legislature also spent much time and effort in an attempt to adapt matters to the new arrangement by which Congress had provided that court should be held at only one place in each judicial district. This was certain to be oppres- sive to the great majority of settlers, who would be com- pelled to make long journeys with their witnesses, in case they had business in court. To relieve them, so far as pos- sible, from this burden, a series of amendatory laws were
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required, and these were passed. An attempt was also made to confer authority upon the probate courts to try criminal cases, but this was abandoned, and for years after- wards, the courts, now known simply as district courts of the territory, held sessions at only one place in each of these districts.
A new county was also created at this session, out of territory hitherto a part of King and Jefferson counties. It was to be named Slaughter County, if its people approved, but they did not, and subsequently chose the name of Kitsap, that of one of the hostile Indian chiefs, who had been tried for murders committed during the war, and acquitted, but who was subsequently shot by one of his own people.
In the spring of 1857, Governor Stevens became a candi- date for delegate in Congress, where he was ambitious to serve, in order that he might secure the ratification of the treaties he had made, procure the payment of the volunteers, and appropriations for the debts incurred during the war. The Whigs, or rather the Anti-Stevens party, nominated Alexander S. Abernethy, and the governor challenged him to make the campaign in his company, and discuss its issues before the same audiences. But this Abernethy declined to do, and William H. Wallace traveled with the governor's party, and spoke for the opposing candidate. Among the governor's party during this campaign, was Selucius Gar- fielde, a young man of fine abilities and appearance, who had only recently arrived in the territory, under appointment as receiver of the land office. He was an eloquent speaker, assisted the governor greatly in his campaign, and subse- quently became very popular in the territory.
The governor courageously defended his course in pro- claiming martial law, recognizing the fact that he himself
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was the real issue of the campaign. The contest was very spirited, and the debaters visited nearly every important settlement in the territory, before the day for voting arrived. In some places, particularly at Steilacoom, where the various trials and sentences of Leschi had kept public feeling at fever heat, some feeling, amounting almost to bitterness, was shown, but no disturbance of the peace occurred. When the ballots were counted the governor was found to have received 986 votes to 549 for his opponent. Thus by nearly two-thirds of the voters his course was approved.
Early in 1857 General Wool was relieved of his command on the coast by Colonel N. S. Clarke of the 6th infantry, but his policy of preserving peace by keeping settlers out of eastern Washington was continued by Colonel Wright, who remained in command on the ground. His forces had been disposed about as Stevens had recommended in his letter to Wool from the Walla Walla council grounds, two years earlier, and were in the best position possible for holding the hostiles in check. But they did not hold them in complete subjection. Wright's treatment of them, under Wool's direction, only encouraged their hostility. Kam-i-ah-kan, Owhi and other chiefs, although not actively in arms, were quietly at work among the Spokanes, the Okanogans, the Palouses and even the Nez Perces, and encouraging them to hostility. The effect of this agitation in time began to show itself. There were no Americans in the country who could be attacked, except a few miners at Colvile, and the Indians were not bold enough to attack the soldiers. Nevertheless, Wright was made to understand, during the summer of 1857, that the peace he pretended to have made was but a sham. In the fall the Catholic missionaries among the Cœur d'Alenes and other northern tribes, wrote to their brethren at and
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near Vancouver, that they were laboring incessantly to keep the Indians about them at peace, but feared they would not much longer be able to restrain them. Prominent chiefs of the Spokanes declared "that if the soldiers showed them- selves in their country, their people would become furious." The miners at Colvile were becoming alarmed. That industrious and intrepid soldier, Lieutenant John Mullan, whom Stevens had left in the Rocky Mountains in 1853, to complete his railroad survey, was now surveying a wagon i road through their country. Tilcoax, chief of the Palouses, said to be the owner of 800 horses, now boasted of his alliance with Kam-i-ah-kan, and had become bold enough even to shoot cattle belonging to the garrison at Walla Walla. The Cayuses and Walla Wallas were boasting that all the Indians were now united, and could make war for five years if they had to. They had even adopted Wool's phrase, and declared that the war they would make would be "a war of exter- mination. "
The time had come, therefore, when Wright must make war in earnest, or permit his soldiers to be insulted in their camps. Early in August thirteen head of cattle belonging to the garrison at Walla Walla, where Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe was in command, were stolen. Two white men on their way to Colvile were murdered, near the Palouse River, about the same time, and the names of the murderers were reported to Steptoe by a friendly Indian.
Early in May Steptoe prepared to advance into the country of the hostiles, north of the Snake River, and make a demon- stration that would perhaps compel the Palouses, Spokanes and Cœur d'Alenes, inhabiting that region, to have more respect for United States troops and the authority of the government. On the 8th, he left Fort Walla Walla with 159 :
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men belonging to the Ist dragoons, including a detachment from the 9th infantry, and two howitzers. One hundred pack mules had been provided to transport the supplies, which, strange to say, included little more ammunition than the men carried in their cartridge boxes. The route taken lay through the present counties of Walla Walla, Garfield and Columbia, to the mouth of Alpowa Creek, where the command was assisted in crossing the Snake by a party of friendly Nez Perces, from the camp of the native preacher Timothy. From that point Timothy and three of his people accompanied the expedition, Steptoe intending to use them as intermediaries and interpreters. On the 16th, as the command was approaching Four Lakes, the hostiles were found to be assembling about it in formidable numbers. They sent word to Steptoe that he must advance no further or they would attack him. He replied that he had not entered their country with any hostile intent; that he must remain where he was during the night on account of water, but that he would turn back next morning.
True to his promise he started to retreat at 3 o'clock a. m. and by daylight found himself surrounded by from 1,000 to 1,500 warriors, all painted and armed for battle. Before he had gone three miles the attack began, and the battle soon became general. Some of the soldiers were armed only with old musketoons that were of very little value, and some were recruits who had never seen a battle, and scarcely knew how to keep their places in the ranks. These could not be kept from wasting their ammunition, of which their supply was short at best. The Indians, emboldened by their vastly superior numbers, pressed close upon the troops, in flank and rear, who were greatly embarrassed by having to defend their pack train while in motion. The rolling
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character of the ground was also advantageous to the Indians, because of their numbers. The defense of the flanks of the desperately fighting column was assigned to Captain Taylor of Company C and Lieutenant Gaston of Company E, and they sustained their desperate positions with credit to themselves, and the army, until the former was mortally wounded. Steptoe then took position on a hill which offered some advantages for defense, hoping in this way to make a more effective battle. But his men were rapidly disabled by the well-directed fire of the savages, who sometimes pressed so close upon them that they could be driven back only by charges with the bayonet. In one of these, in which Lieutenant Gaston and Gregg, with a few men each, united, twelve Indians were reported to have been killed, and many more wounded. About noon Gaston, a brave officer, was killed, and his men fell back in confusion, and were rallied only with great difficulty. Twice during the day the savages seemed about to make a charge in which they would doubtless : have overwhelmed the entire command, could they have mustered courage to make it. The soldiers were becoming dispirited by the loss of their officers and comrades, and by the seeming certainty that, if wounded, they could not be carried away, and would be left to the mercy of their savage assailants. Night alone saved them from utter and final destruction
Indians rarely continue a battle after nightfall. When the firing began to slacken and then finally ceased, Steptoe consulted with his officers, and determined to make a forced march during the night, and if possible escape. His men had been fighting most of the day without food or water. There was no water to be had where they were. It was 85 miles to the Snake River, beyond which, if he could reach it,
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he might hope to be no further pursued. He was greatly encumbered by his wounded, but as many of his men had now only three or four rounds of ammunition left, they could not hope to maintain the battle through another day where they were. They accordingly buried their howitzers, left their dead unburied, and, gathering up as many of the wounded as could be reached, started for the river. The horses were forced to a gallop. Some of the wounded, who could not walk, were bound upon horses or mules, and one of them suffered so much that he begged to be shot, or to be given a pistol with which to shoot himself. Two wounded men fell behind the column during the night; one of them afterwards reached the river alive, but the other fell into the hands of the savages and was killed and scalped.
According to Steptoe's report, two officers and two men were killed in this battle, two were mortally, six severely and seven slightly wounded, while one, Sergeant Edward Ball, was missing. The Indian losses were believed to be much larger.
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