History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 27

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1134

USA > Washington > Benton County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 27
USA > Washington > Kittitas County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 27
USA > Washington > Yakima County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 27

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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 reservation. But suddenly there was a commotion. Into the midst of the council there burst the old chief Looking Glass (Apashwahayikt), sec- ond only to Lawyer in influence among the Nez Perce. He had made a des- perate 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' 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 res- ervations, one on the Umatilla, one on the Yakima, and the third on the Clear- water and the Snake. These reservations still exist, imperial domains in them- selves, 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 refer- ence to an event, not fully known at the time, but which subsequent investi- gation 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. Kamiakin 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 gesticulations many 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.

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In addition to this vivid description of the Yakima hero by Governor Stevens, we wish to insert here the description of him as given by Winthrop in "Canoe and Saddle." In the Chapter on Missionaries we quoted Winthrop's account of the "Atinam" Mission ("Le Play House" of the Indians, near Kam- iakin's Gardens, the present Tampico), and the Oblate Fathers.' Winthrop goes on to describe his efforts to secure guides and horses for his journey from "Atinam" to The Dalles and the statement of the Fathers that if he could find Kamiakin all could be arranged. The description of meeting the Yakima chief follows: "When I woke, late as sunrise, after the crowded fatigues and diffi- culties of yesterday, I found that already my hosts had despatched Uplintz and Kpawintz to a supposed neighbor camp of their brethren, to seek me a guide. Also the old servitor, a friendly grumbler, was off to the mountains on a similar errand. Patience, therefore, and remember, hasty voyager, that many are the chances of savage life.

"Antipodes had shaken to pieces whatever stitched bag he bore. I seized' this moment to make repairs. Among my traps were needles and thread of the stoutest, for use and for presents. The fascinating squaw of Weenas, if she had but known it, was very near a largess of such articles. But the wrong- doing of Sultan lost her the gift, and my tailor-stock was undiminished. I made a lucky thrust at the one eye of a needle, and began my work with severe atten- tion.

"While I was mending, Uplintz, with his admiring Orson, Kpawintz, came- galloping back. Gone were the Indians they had sought ; gone-so said their trail-to gad nomadly anywhere. And the two comrades, willing to go with me to the world's end for the pleasure of my society and the reward of my shirts, must admit to Father Pandosy, cross-examining, that they had never meandered along The Dalles hooihut.

"The old lay brother also returned bringing bad luck. Where he had looked' to find populous lodges, he met one straggling squaw left there to potter alone,. while the Bedouins were far away. The many chances of Indian life seemed chancing sadly against me. Should I despair of farther progress, and become- an acolyte of the Atinam Mission?

"Just then I raised my eyes, and lo! a majestic Indian in Lincoln green! He was dismounting at the corral from a white pacer. Who now? 'Le bon Dieu l'envoie,' said Father Pandosy ; 'c'est Kamaiakan même.'

"Enter, then, upon this scene Kamaiakan, chiefest of Yakima chiefs. He' was a tall, large man, very dark, with a massive square face, and grave, reflec- . tive look. Without the senatorial coxcombry of Owhhigh, his manner was strikingly distinguished, quiet and dignified. He greeted the priests as a Kaiser might a Papal legate. To me, as their friend, he gave his hand with a gentle- manly word of welcome.

"All the nobs I have known among Redskins have retained a certain dig- nity of manner even in their beggarly moods. Among the plebeians, this ex- cellence degenerates into a gruff coolness or insolent indifference. No one ever saw a bustling or fussy Indian. Even when he begs of a blanketeer gifted with chattels, and beg he does without shame or shrinking, he asks as if he would do

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the possessor of so much trumpery an honor by receiving it at his hands. The nauseous, brisk, pen-behind-the-ear manner of the thriving tradesman, compet- itor with everything and everybody, would disgust an Indian even to the scalp- ing point. Owhhigh, visiting my quarters at Squally with his fugue of beggars, praying me to breech his breechless, shirt his shirtless, shoe his shoeless child, treated me with a calm loftiness, as if I were merely a steward of his, or cer- tainly nothing more than a copotentate of the world's oligarchy. He showed no discomposure at my refusal, as unmoved as his request. Fatalism, indolence, stolidity, and self-respect are combined in this indifference. Most of a savage's prayers for bounty are made direct to Nature; when she refuses, she does so according to majestic laws, of which he, half reflectively, half instinctively, is conscious. He learns that there is no use in waiting and whining for salmon out of season, or fresh grasshoppers in March. According to inevitable laws, he will have, or will not have, salmon of the first water, and aromatic grass- hoppers sweet as honeydew. Caprice is out of the question with Nature, although her sex be feminine. Thus a savage learns to believe that power includes steadiness.

"Kamaiakan's costume was novel. Louis Philippe dodging the police as Mr. Smith, and adorned with a woollen comforter and a blue cotton umbrella, was unkingly and a caricature. He must be every inch a king who can appear in an absurd garb and yet look full royal. Kamiakin stood the test. He wore a coat, a long tunic of fine green cloth. Like the irregular beds of a kitchen garden were the patches, of all shapes and sizes, combined to form this robe of ceremony. A line, zigzag as the path over new-fallen snow trodden by a man after toddies too many, such devious line marked the waist. Sleeves, baggy here, and there tight as a bandage, were inserted somewhere, without refer- ence to the anatomical insertion of arms. Each verdant patch was separated from its surrounding patches by a rampart or a ditch of seam, along which stitches of white threads strayed like vines. It as a gerrymandered coat, gerry- mandered according to some system perhaps understood by the operator, but to me complex, impolitic, and unconstitutional.

"Yet Kamaiakan was not a scarcecrow. Within this garment of disjunc- tive conjunction he stood a chieftainly man. He had the advantage of an im- posing presence and bearing, and above all a good face, a well-lighted Pharos at the top of his colossal frame. We generally recognize whether there is a man looking at us from behind what he chances to use for eyes, and when we detect the man, we are cheered or bullied according to what we are. It is intrinsically more likely that the chieftainly man will be an acknowledged chief among simple savages, than in any of the transitional phases of civilization preceding the edu- cated simplicity of social life, whither we now tend. Kamaiakan, in order to be chiefest chief of the Yakimas, must be clever enough to master the dodges of salmon and the will of wayward mustangs; or like Fine-Ear, he must know where kamas bulbs are mining a passage for their sprouts; or he must be able to tramp farther and fare better than his fellows; or, by a certain tamanous that is in him, he must have power to persuade or convince, to win or over- bear. He must be best as a hunter, a horseman, a warrior, an orator. These

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are attributes not heritable; if Kamaiakan Junior is a nature's nobody, he takes no permanent benefit by his parentage."

Thus much for Winthrop's view of the "Last Hero of the Yakimas."

"LAWYER"

The opposite of Kamiakin and Peupeumoxmox in conception of the situa- tion was Halhaltlossot or Lawyer, the Solon of the Nez Perces. When Lawyer became convinced that the Yakimas and Cayuses were planning to exterminate the Governor and his party he went by night to the camp and revealed the con- spiracy.

Hazard Stevens gives a most vivid account of this event. The powerful opposition of Lawyer's faction of the Nez Perces made it clear to Kamiakin and his followers that they could not count upon such united support as to put through their existing scheme. The Nez Perces saved the day for the whites.

And yet the sequel is one of the most lamentable examples of the miscar- riage 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 Stev- ens asked him to spy out the situation and learn what the Nez Perce 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 they should hold perpetual possession of the Wallowa country in Northeastern 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 exe- cution 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 Gov- ernor Stevens, never became definitely set down in the "Great Father's" records at Washington. The result was that when, twenty years later, the manifold at- tractions 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.

For a better understanding of this singular situation we are adding here a valuable transcription furnished to the author by Major Jay Lynch of Yakima, from which it appears that President Grant had formally withdrawn the order creating that reservation. The whole history illustrates the unfortunate results

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of lack of continuity and stability in Indian affairs and consequent misunder- standings by the Indians.

The transcription referred to is as follows :

Wallowa Valley Reserve.

Department of the Interior,

Office of Indian Affairs, June 9, 1873.

The above diagram is intended to show a proposed reservation for the roaming Nez Perce Indians in the Wallowa Valley, in the state of Oregon. Said proposed reservation is indicated on the diagram by red lines, and is de- scribed as follows, viz .:

Commencing at the right bank of the mouth of the Grande Ronde River; thence up Snake River to a point due east of the southeast corner of township No. 1, south of the base line of the surveys in Oregon, in range No. 46 east of the Willamette meridian; thence from said point due west to the West Fork of the Wallowa River; thence down said West Fork to its junction with the Wallowa River ; thence down said river to its confluence with the Grande Ronde River ; thence down the last named .river to the place of beginning.

I respectfully recommend that the President be requested to order that the lands comprised within the above described limits be withheld from entry and settlement as public lands, and that the same be set apart as an Indian reserva- tion, as indicated in my report to the Department of this date.

EDWARD P. SMITH, Commissioner.

Department of the Interior, June 11, 1873.

Respecfully presented to the President, with the recommendation that he make the order above proposed by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

C. DELANO, Secretary.

Executive Mansion, June 16, 1873.

It is hereby ordered that the tract of country above described be withheld from entry and settlement as public lands, and that the same be set apart as a reservation for the roaming Nez Perce Indians, as recommended by the Sec- retary of the Interior and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

U. S. GRANT.

Executive Mansion, June 10, 1875.

It is hereby ordered that the order dated June 16, 1873, withdrawing from sale and from settlement and setting apart the Wallowa Valley, in Oregon, de- scribed as follows: Commencing at the right bank of the mouth of the Grande Ronde River, thence up Snake River to a point due east of the southeast corner of township No. 1 south of the base line of the surveys in Oregon, in range No. 46 east of the Willamette meridian ; thence from said point due west to the west fork of the Wallowa River; thence down said west fork to its junction with the Wallowa River; thence down said river to its confluence with the Grande Ronde River; thence down the last named river to the place of begin-

Copyrighted and loaned by L. V. MeWhorter Photo by J. W. Langdon PEACH-TE-LA-LA. OR "CAPTAIN JACK"

Courtesy of L. V. MeWhorter

Copyrighted, 1911

YAKIMA WARRIOR SCOUTS

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ning, as an Indian reservation, is hereby revoked and annulled; and the said described tract of country is hereby restored to the public domain.

U. S. GRANT.

And now, after this digression, we resume the thread of our discourse.

After the supposed settlement at Walla Walla, Governor Stevens pro- ceeded to the Coeur d'Alene and Pend Oreille lakes to negotiate similar treaties with the Flatheads. After concluding a treaty there he crossed the Rockies to Fort Benton on the Missouri to meet the Blackfeet.

But meanwhile Kamiakin, Peupeumoxmox, Young Chief, and Five Crows had formed a new league, the treaties were thrown away, and the flame of savage warfare burst forth throughout the entire Columbia Valley.

Hazard Stevens, in his invaluable history of his father, gives a vivid pic- ture of how the news reached them in their camp thirty-five miles up the Mis- souri from Fort Benton. Summer had now passed into Autumn. A favorable 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 lati- tude, 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. Pear- son was one of the best examples of those scouts whose lives were spent in con- veying 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 any- thing 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 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 pur- suers. Traveling through the Walla Walla at night Pearson reached the camp of a friendly Nez Perce, Red Wolf, on the Alpowa the next day, having ridden two hundred miles from The Dalles without stopping except for the brief time of changing horses. Snow and hunger now impeded his course. Part of the

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way he had to go on snowshoes without a horse. But with unflinching resolu- tion 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 the cold and hunger, but avoiding by that route the Indians sent out to intercept him. With extraordinary address, he succeeded in turning the Spo- kane 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. Gov- ernor Curry of Oregon had already called a force of volunteers into the field. The Oregon volunteers were divided into two divisions, one under Col. J. W. Nesmith, which went into the Yakima country, and the other under Lieut .- Col. 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.

We have been following to this point the movements of Governor Stevens in order to preserve the continuity of the story, but in order to be correct in chronology we must turn back a few months and take our station in Yakima, for here actual hostilities began. In narrating the story of the Yakima War the historian has the privilege of following a competent authority.

For here we may avail ourselves of the recently published narrative by A. J. Splawn, "Kamiakin, the Last Hero of the Yakimas."

Many of our readers will no doubt have already read Mr. Splawn's pic- turesque and valuable book. If so they will have discovered in detail the essen- tial features of what we must be content to give in bare outline. In order, however, to exhibit the conditions which in Mr. Splawn's judgment created the state of mind which prepared the Indians for war, we incorporate at this point the third chapter of the book. "In 1853 Lieut. George B. McClellan ar- rived at Fort Vancouver with a party of men for the purpose of exploring the Cascade Mountains in the interest of the Northern Pacific R. R. His main object was to find, if possible, a feasible pass through this range. He was under the immediate command of I. I. Stevens, who had recently been appointed gov- ernor for Washington Territory and who was then on his way overland from the east with a force of men, viewing out a route for this same railroad and making treaties with the different Indian tribes with which he came in contact.

"When McClellan left Fort Vancouver, Indian runners were dispatched to

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the Klickitats and Yakimas to notify the tribes of his coming. The first gov- ernment equipped body of men to reach the Yakima country, it was regarded with suspicion. Skloom, a brother of Ka-mi-akin, was dispatched to the sum- mit of the Cascades to meet the soldiers and learn of their intended movements and purposes. He returned with the additional information that Governor Stevens would be in their country the following year for the purpose of making a treaty with all the tribes; that the Great White Father at Washington, D. C., wished to buy their lands and open them up for white settlement. Nothing more startling or undesired from the Indian viewpoint could have been men- tioned.

"Upon his arrival at the Catholic Mission on the Ahtanum, McClellan was met by Ka-mi-akin, who, together with the priest, Father Pandosy, interviewed him both in regard to his own intentions and those of Governor Stevens. Again, when McClellan was encamped on the Wenas during his exploring trip through the Nah-cheez Pass, Ka-mi-akin visited him, and, imme- diately after, rode over to Ow-hi's home in the Kittitas Valley to inform him of what he had learned. They made an arrangement that when the 'White Chief' (McClellan) reached Kittitas, Ow-hi should accompany him to Wen- at-sha (Wenatchee), with a view to confirming what had already been reported and to gaining further information regarding the probable actions of Governor Stevens. Ow-hi, accompanied by Quil-ten-e-nock, a brother of Sulk-talth- scos-um (Moses), did go on to Wenatchee with McClellan, and, a few days after his return home, rode to Ka-mi-akin's village on the Ahtanum to talk over the situation. The result of the conference was a decision to try to defeat any treaty with the Indians that Governor Stevens might attempt to make.

"Word went out to all the tribes of the Northwest that the Father in Washington, D. C., wanted their lands for the white men and that a great white- chief was even now on his way out to buy them, and that, moreover, if they re- fused to sell, soldiers would be sent to drive them off and seize the lands. Such news naturally aroused the indignation of every tribe in Washington Territory, creating a strong prejudice against Stevens, so that, upon his arrival, he was regarded with the suspicion that would attach to a man who had come to take from them their country. This was the situation at the beginning of 1854.

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History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 27

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920 Publication date: 1919 Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke Number of Pages: 1134

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1134