USA > Washington > Spokane County > Spokane > History of the city of Spokane and Spokane County, Washington : from its earliest settlement to the present time, Volume I > Part 24
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Rinnors ran over the great encampment that these tribes had allied to oppose a treaty, and fears were expressed that an attempt to open the council would be the signal for a warlike outbreak.
The next day a body of 400 mounted Cayuses and Walla Wallas. armed and in full gala dress, and yelling like demons, rode furiously thrice around the Nez Perces camp, and soon thereafter Young Chief, accompanied by his principal sub- chiefs. rode up to the governor's tent, but dismounted on invitation with apparent reluctance, and shook hands with a cold and forbidding demeanor, refused to smoke, and remained but a few moments. "The haughty carriage of these chiefs," wrote Stevens in his journal, "and their manly character have, for the first time. in my Indian experience, realized the descriptions of the writers of fiction."
Head Chief Garry of the Spokanes attended the council, but only as an ob- server. It had been found impossible to assemble the Spokanes at a point so dis- tant from their country. within the brief time that offered, and Governor Stevens proposed a separate treaty with them, later on his return from the Missouri.
A messenger sent to invite the Palouses to the council returned with a single chief of that tribe, who said that his people took little interest and would not come.
Sunday, May 27. Governor Stevens made this entry in his journal: "There was service in the Nez Perce camp and in the Nez Perce language, Timothy being the preacher. The commissioners attended. The sermon was on the ten com- mandments. Timothy has a natural and graceful delivery, and his words were
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repeated by a prompter. The Nez Perces have evidently profited much from the labor of Mr. Spalding, who was with them ten years, and their whole deport- ment throughout the service was devout."
The next day came the Yakimas. Agent Bolon and an interpreter went out to meet them, and returned bringing Kamiaken and the Yellow Serpent. The latter affected to be grieved and indignant over reports that he was unfriendly to the whites, and declared his purpose to face the commissioners and ask why such slanders had been circulated against him. Soon thereafter, in company with Kamiaken, Owhi and Skloom. Yakima chiefs, rode into camp, dismounted and shook hands in apparent friendship, but in the smoke that followed in the arbor they used their own tobacco exclusively, declining that tendered them by the com- missioners.
Governor Stevens formally opened the council in the afternoon of May 29, 1855. Two thousand Indians, more than half of them Nez Perces, were present, seated on the ground in semi-circular rows forty deep, one behind the other. Facing them. under the arbor in front of the tent, sat the commissioners, secretaries, interpreters and Indian agents. Timothy, chief and preacher of the Nez Perces, assisted by several of his young men who had been taught to read and write by the missionary Spalding. were provided a table beneath the arbor and kept their own records for that great and powerful tribc.
Beyond a silent, solemn smoking of the peace pipe, the appointment and swear- ing in of two interpreters for each tribe, and some brief preliminary remarks, little was accomplished the first day. Before adjourning to ten o'clock the next morning Governor Stevens repeated the offer of provisions for the various tribes, suggesting that two oxen be taken to each camp and slaughtered for its use.
"We have plenty of cattle," replied Young Chief of the Cayuses. "They are close to our camp. We have already killed three and have plenty of provisions.
General Palmer to the interpreter: "Say to the Yakimas, 'You have come a long way ; you may not have provisions. If you want any, we have them, and you are welcome.''
"Kamiaken is supplied at our camp," was the quick interjection of Young Chief of the Cayuses, who declined, too. to dine at the table of the commissioners; but Pu-pu-mox-mox (the Yellow Serpent) and the great war chief Kamiaken were more friendly in demeanor, dining with the commissioners and remaining afterwards a long time in their tent, smoking and talking in a friendly way.
May 30 and 31 were devoted to a careful explanation by Governor Stevens of the two treaties that were under consideration. "There were to be two reserva- tions." says his son Hazard Stevens-one in the Nez Perce country of 3,000,000 acres, on the north side of Snake river, embracing both the Kooskooskia (Clearwater) and Salmon rivers, including a large extent of good arable land, with fine fisheries, root grounds, timber and mill sites. and was for the accommodation of the Cayuses. Walla Wallas. Umatillas and Spokanes, as well as the Nez Perces.
"The other embraced a large and fertile tract on the upper waters of the Ya- kima. and was for the Yakimas, Klickitats, Palouses and kindred bands.
"The reservations were to belong to the Indians, and no white man should come upon them without their consent. An agent, with school teachers, mechanics and farmers, would take charge of each reservation, and instruct them in agriculture, Vol. 1-12
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trades, etc .; grist and saw mills were to be built; the head chiefs were to receive an annuity of $500 cach, in order that they might devote their whole time to their people; and annuities in clothing, tools and useful articles were to be given for twenty years, after which they were to be self-supporting.
"The advantages of the reservations were dwelt upon. They embraced some of the best land in the country, and were large enough to afford each family a farm to itself, besides grazing for all their stock ; they contained good fisheries, abundance of roots and berries, and considerable game. They were near enough to the great roads for trade with the immigrants, yet far enough from them to be undisturbed by travelers. By having so many tribes on one reservation, the agent could better look after them, and could accomplish more with the same means at his disposal.
"The staple argument held out was the superior advantages of civilization, and the absolute necessity of their adopting the habits and mode of life of the white man in order to escape extinction. Governor Stevens also exorted them to treat for the sake of the example upon their inveterate enemies, the Blackfeet ; that thereby they would prove themselves firm friends of the whites, and that he would then take delegations from each tribe with his party and proceed to the Blackfoot country, and make a lasting treaty of peace, so that they could ever after hunt the buffalo in safety, and trade horses with the Indians east of the Rocky mountains."
Young Chief of the Cayuses began to show an apparent yielding. On the third day of the council he dined, for the first time, with the other head chiefs at the gov- ernor's table, and that evening sent word that his young men had grown weary of the close confinement of the long sessions, and as they desired a holiday, he asked that the next day be given up to diversion, and no council be held until Saturday. The commissioners, pleased at this indication of a more tractable spirit, cheerfully assented to the idea.
There were now assembled on the ground, according to Lieutenant Kip, "about 5.000 Indians, including squaws and children;" and their encampment and lodges, seattered over the valley for more than a mile, presented "a wild and fantas- tie appearance." The holiday was given over to feasting, horse-racing and foot-racing. Despite all missionary efforts to break up the gambling evil, that passion still ran high in the Indian breast, and fierce gaming attended these council races. "The usual course was a long one, sometimes two miles out and back," says Hazard Stevens. "Oftentimes thirty horses would start together in a grand sweep- stakes; the riders and betters would throw into one common pile the articles put up as stakes-blankets, leggings. horse equipments and whatever else was bet. and the winner would take the whole pile. The foot races were equally long, and the runners would be escorted in their course by a crowd of mounted Indians. galloping behind and beside them so closely that the exhausted ones could hardly stop without being run down. The riders and runners were invariably stripped to the breech- cloth, and presented many fine, manly forms, perfect Apollos in bronze."
When the council reassembled, Saturday, June 2, Governor Stevens invited the Indians to speak freely. "We want you to open your hearts to us," he said, and seizing this invitation, the opponents of the treaties promptly took the lead in the resulting oratory.
"We have listened to all you have to say" began the Yellow Serpent. "and now we desire you to listen when any Indian speaks. I know the value of your speech
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from having heard such speeches in California, and having seen treaties there. We have not seen in a truc light the object of your speeches, as if there were a trec set between us. Look at yourselves: your flesh is white; mine is different, mine looks poor."
Thus with native skill of oratory, Yellow Serpent began an affceted plea of in- feriority, of humility, of inability to eope in cunning with the white commissioners. Then, with a quiek turn of insinuation, he deelared, "If you would speak straight, then I would think you spoke well." Then eame a sharp thrust at the demoralizing effects of that superior white civilization, upon which Governor Stevens had dwelt in all his utteranees: "Should I speak to you of things that happened long ago, as you have done? The whites made me do what they pleased. They told me to do this, and I did it. They used to make our women to smoke. I supposed then they did what was right. When they told me to dance with all these nations that are here, I danced. From that time all the Indians became proud and called themselves chiefs.
"Now how are we here as at a post? From what you have said, I think that you intend to win our country, or how is it to be? In one day the Americans become as numerous as the grass. This I learned in California. I know it is not right : you have spoken in a roundabout way. Speak straight. I have ears to hear you, and here is my heart. Suppose you show me goods, shall I run up and take them? That is the way of all us Indians as you know us. Goods and the earth are not equal. Goods are for using on the earth. I do not know where the whites have given lands for goods.
"We require time to think quietly, slowly. You have spoken in a manner quietly tending to evil. Speak plain to us, I am a poor Indian; show me charity. If there were a chief among the Nez Perees or the Caynses, and they saw evil donc, they would put a stop to it, and all would be quiet. Such chiefs I hope Governor Stevens and General Palmer have."
With cutting sarcasm, the Yellow Serpent added. "I should feel very much ashamed if the Americans did anything wrong. I had but a little to say, that is all."
As if by prearrangement, to bear out Yellow Serpent's assertion that the chiefs would brook no wrong, Camospelo. a Cayuse chief, sharply rebuked some of his young men who had behaved in a disrespectful manner, talking and walking about while the eouneil was in session.
Late that evening Lawyer, chief of the Nez Perees, came secretly to the tent of Governor Stevens and revealed a conspiracy of the Cayuses to massaere all the whites on the eouneil ground. Lawyer, who had suspected treachery, had discovered the peril through a spy. for the plot had been developed in great secrecy. It had been under nightly consideration, and a determination reached in full council of the tribe on the very day that Young Chief had sought as a holiday. They were now only awaiting the assent of the Yakimas and Walla Wallas. and that gained. were to start a war of white extermination.
Lawyer was ready and able to thwart the massacre. "I will come with my family and pitch my lodge in the midst of your eamp,"' he declared. "so that those Cayuses may see that you and your party arc under the protection of the head chief of the Nez Perces." Notwithstanding it was then after midnight, Lawyer carried out his promise before daylight, and the next morning eaused it to be bruited among
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the other Indians that the commissioners enjoyed the protection of the powerful Nez Perces.
Governor Stevens, fearing that full knowledge of the conspiracy would start a panie among the whites, revealed the news only to his secretary, Mr. Doty, and Packmaster Higgins, and through them the soldiers were directed to put their arms in readiness. Night guards were posted, and the council continued as if nothing alarming had developed.
On Monday Lawyer spoke for the treaty. and several of his chiefs followed in similar tenor. They were followed by Kamiaken:
"I have something different to say from what the others have said. They are young men who have spoken as they have spoken. I have been afraid of the white man. His doings are different from ours. Perhaps you have spoken straight that your children will do what is right. Let them do as they have promised."
"I do not wish to speak." declared the Yellow Serpent. contemptuously. "I leave that to the old men."
Eagle-from-the-Light. a Nez Perce chief, spoke with deep feeling and pathetic import. His speech was regarded by some of the white men as the most impressive heard at the council :
"You are now come to join together the white man and the red man. And why should I hide anything? I am going now to tell you a tale. The time the whites first passed through this country, although the people of this country were blind. it was their heart to be friendly to them. Although they did not know what the white people said to them, they answered Yes, as if they were blind. They traveled about with the white people as if they had been lost.
"I have been talked to by the French (employes of the fur companies) and by the Americans; and one says to me, Go this way, and another says Go another way, and that is the reason I am lost between them.
"A long time ago they hung my brother for no offense, and this I say to my brother here, that he may think of it. Afterwards came Spalding and Whitman. They advised us well and taught us well- very well. It was from the same source - the light (the vast). They had pity on us, and we were pitied. and Spalding sent my father to the east-the States, and he went. His body has never returned. He was sent to learn good counsel. and friendship and many things. This is another thing to think of. At the time. in this place here, when there was blood spilled on the ground. we were friends to the whites, and they to us. At that time they found it out that we were friends to them. My chief, my own chief, said, 'I will try to set- tle all the bad matters with the whites,' and he started to look for counsel to straighten up matters, and there his body lies beyond there. He has never returned.
"At the time the Indians held a grand council at Fort Laramie, I was with the Flatheads, and I heard there would be a grand council on this side next year. We were asked to go and find counsel. friendship and good advice. Many of my people started, and died in the country died hunting what was right. There were a good many started : on Green river the smallpox killed all but one. They were going to find good counsel in the east, and here am 1. looking still for counsel. and to be taught what is best to be done.
"And now look at my people's bodies scattered everywhere, hunting for knowl- edge- hunting for some one to teach them to go straight. And now I show it to you.
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and I want you to think of it. I am of a poor people. A preacher eame to us, Mr. Spalding. He talked to us to learn, and from that he turned to be a trader, as though there were two in one, one a preacher and the other a trader. He made a farm and raised grain and bought our stoek, as though there were two in one, one a preacher, the other a trader. And now one from the east has spoken, and I have heard it, and I do not wish another preacher to come, and be both trader and preacher in one. A piece of ground for a preacher big enough for his own use is all that is necessary for him.
"Look at that; it is the tale I had to tell you, and now I am going to hunt friendship and good advice. We will come straight here-slowly perhaps, but we will come straight."
As the Indians were slow to speak, Governor Stevens and Commissioner Palmer devoted the next two days to further explanation of the treaties and a large map, showing the boundaries of the reservations, the streams, root grounds and camping places.
Reticenec, however, continued the prevailing attitude of the aboriginal mind. The chiefs were slow to speak, and when Steaehns, regarded as most amieable of all the Cayuse leaders, expressed his sentiments, they revealed, even in that friendly quarter, a spirit of disapprobation and doubt.
"My friends," began this chief, "I wish to show you my heart. If your mother were in this country, gave you birth and suekled you, and, while you were suekling, some person came and took away your mother, and left you alone and sold your mother, how would you feel then? This is our mother-this country-as if we drew our living from her. My friends, all of this you have taken. Had I two rivers, I would leave the one, and be contented to live on the other. I name the place for myself, the Grande Ronde, the Touchet towards the mountains, and the Tueanon."
Willing to divide his native land with the white invaders, but grieved and mourn- ful over the thought of yielding it all, to the last rood and aere, and moving with his people to a strange and distant reservation. With dim eye and savage, angry heart, this forbidding prospect had been glimpsed by the Cayuse mind eight years before, when Whitman and his little mission band were slain in protest against that ever inereasing train of tented wagons, rolling out of the mysterious and distant east, and rumbling down the western slopes of the beautiful Blue mountains.
Stevens and Palmer well knew how futile it is to attempt to rush the Indian mind to hasty decision, and taetfully adjourned the eonneil to the following day. Lawyer, speaking then for the Nez Perees, adopted the only line of reasoning that gave the slightest hope of winning over the eold and sullen chiefs of other tribes. Ile dwelt upon the vast numbers of westward moving whites, the power of their civilization, the utter hopelessness of Indian opposition, and the imperative need of a peaceful adjustment of their relations. Their only refuge, he declared, would be found in placing themselves under the protection of the Great Father at Wash- ington. Silence followed this appeal for the treaty, to be broken by the hanghty Young Chief of the Cayuses.
"His country he would not sell. He heard what the earth said. The earth said to him, 'God has placed me here to take care of the Indian, to yield roots for him, and grasses for his horses and eattle.' The water spoke the same way. God has
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forbidden the Indian to sell his country except for a fair price, and he did not understand the treaty."
This adroit use of revelation served as a eue for Five Crows, the Yellow Serpent, Owhi and several other chiefs-Owhi, who, three years later, was to meet his death in a daring effort to escape from the guards of Colonel Wright's command.
Pu-pu-mox-mox, or the Yellow Serpent, head chief of the Walla Wallas, proposed that this couneil should adjourn, and another be held at some future time. Ile protested that the Indians were treated like children, were not consulted in the draft- ing of treaties which they were asked to sign, and declared that he wanted no alterna- tive to the complete exclusion of the white people from his domains. Kamiaken, the famous war chief of the Yakimas, maintained a studied silence. "I have nothing to say," was his invariable reply to all appeals to reveal his heart.
Governor Stevens saw that the time had come for plain speaking and vigorous resentment of the accusation that the white commissioners were seeking to deceive the red parties to the proposed treaty.
"My brother and myself have talked straight. Have all of you talked straight? Lawyer has, and his people here, and their business will be done tomorrow.
"The Young Chief says he is blind and does not understand. What is it that he wants? Steachus says that his heart is in one of three places-the Grande Ronde, the Touchet and the Tucanon. Where is the heart of Young Chief?
"Pu-pu-mox-mox can not be wafted off like a feather. Does he prefer the Yakima reservation to that of the Nez Perces? We have asked him before. We ask him now, Where is his heart?
"And Kamiaken, the great chief of the Yakimas, he has not spoken at all. His people have had no voice here today. He is not ashamed to speak. He is not afraid to speak. Then speak out.
"But Owhi is afraid lest God be angry at his selling his land. Owhi, my brother, I do not think that God will be angry if you do your best for yourself and your children. Ask yourself this question tonight, 'Will not God be angry with me if I neglected this opportunity to do them good?' Owhi says his people are not here. Why did he promise to come here, then, to hear our talk? I do not want to be ashamed of Owhi. We expect him to speak straight out. We expect to hear from Kamiaken, from Skloom."
Five Crows here proposed an adjournment. "Listen to me, you chiefs," said he. "Hitherto we have been as one people with the Nez Perces. This day we are di- vided. We. the Cayuses, the Walla Wallas and Kamiaken's people and others will think over the matter tonight, and give you an answer tomorrow."
Stevens and Palmer had now sufficiently tested out the Indian mind to see that in its present form the treaty would fail of acceptance. Concessions must be made, and to overcome the aversion of the Cayuses, the Walla Wallas and the Umatillas to removing to the Nez Perce lands, they brought forward at the council next day a plan for an additional reservation on the upper waters of the Umatilla, at the base of the Blue mountains. To mollify the stubborn chiefs, the annuities of $500 to be paid each of the head chiefs for ten years were extended over a period of twenty years. The Yellow Serpent was offered the additional advantage of trading with settlers and immigrants at an established trading post, and an annuity of $100 for twenty years to his son. In lengthy, rambling speeches Young Chief and Yellow
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Serpent accepted the treaties. "Now you may send me provisions," said the Yel- low Serpent in conclusion ; but Kamiaken of the Yakimas maintained his sullen bearing and refused to assent to the treaties.
A startling incident now menaced all the efforts of the two commissioners. A small band of warriors, painted, armed, chanting a war-song and waving the gory trophy of a freshly taken sealp, came galloping upon the council ground. Instantly the great assemblage was thrown into conjecture and commotion. Looking Glass, war chief of the Nez Perees, returning from a prolonged hunting trip among the Blackfeet, on the great plains east of the Rocky mountains, had learned, on reach- ing the Bitter Root valley, that his tribe were in a great council in the Walla Walla valley, negotiating a treaty without his presence or knowledge. This chief, while old. petulant and shifty, had an influence with the tribe second only to that of Lawyer. He had been made furious by the news, and leaving the main body of his hunting party on the Bitter Root river, had hurried westward with a few ehosen friends. In spite of his seventy years, and deep and melting snows in the Bitter Roots, the war chief and his party had traveled 300 miles in seven days, and were now arrived upon the council ground at the critical moment when the commissioners were laboring with the reealeitrant Kamiaken. Surrounded by his band of faithful warriors, still waving the sealp-loeks of their Blackfeet vietims, Looking Glass rode proudly upon the seene, his brow a thunder-eloud of angry protest, his eye darting indignation at his friends, and broke into a fieree Jeremiad against the tribe:
"My people, my people, what have you done? While I was gone, you have 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 to you !"
Instantly the council was adjourned, and Governor Stevens sought private eoun- sel with Lawyer, who thought that the war chief would calm down when he learned the terms of the treaty. Lawyer, said, though, that Looking Glass's untimely return had so unsettled the tribe that the original boundaries of the Nez Perce reservation. though larger than the tribe would need sinee other provision had been made for the Cayuses, Walla Wallas and Umatillas, could not now be reduced.
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