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 26
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bands- the Upper Pend d'Oreilles on the Horse plains and Jocko prairies, and the lower Pend d'Oreilles on Clark's fork, below the lake of their name, and were canoe Indians, owning few horses. The Kootenays lived about the Flathead river and lake. All these, except the Lower Pend d'Oreilles, went to buffalo, and their hunting trips were spiced with the constant peril and excitement of frequent skirmishes with their hereditary enemies. The Jesuits, in 1843. established a mis- sion among the Lower Pend d'Oreilles, but in 185t moved to the Flathead river, near the month of the Jocko. They also started a mission among the Flatheads in the Bitter Root valley, forty miles above Hellgate, where they founded the beautiful village of St. Mary, amid charming scenery; but the incessant raids of the Blackfeet were surely but slowly 'wiping out' these brave and interesting Indians. and the mission was abandoned in 1850 as too much exposed. The Owen Brothers then started a trading post at this point, which they named Fort Owen; and fourteen miles above it Lieutenant Mullan built his winter camp in 1853, known as Cantonment Stevens, which has been succeeded by the town of Stevens- ville."
At the opening session of the council. Monday, July 9. Governor Stevens made a long speech in which he pointed out the superior advantages of civilization. their need of the protecting arm of the Great Father to stop the incessant and ยท decimating wars with the Blackfeet, and the detailed terms and advantages pro- posed by the government. But while the Indians were most friendly in spirit. and willing and even eager to follow the white man's way. they shrank from the requirement of the proposed treaty which compelled them all to go upon the same reservation. But to the governor this requirement seemed advisable and bene- ficial, since all three tribes belonged to the common Salish family, speaking the same language and being closely intermarried and otherwise allied. He therefore offered to segregate a tract for them either in the upper Bitter Root valley in Victor's country. or the Horse plains and Jocko river in the Pend d'Oreille terri- tory.
When the governor had finished, the chiefs, one by one, voiced either their open opposition or expressed emphatic reluctance to the adoption of this plan. Big Canoe, a Pend d'Oreille chief, objected to relinquishing any part of his terri- tory, but thought the whites and Indians could continue to dwell together without treaties or reservations. In his speech, as translated by the interpreters. he said :
"Talk about treaty, when did I kill you? When did you kill me? What is the reason we are talking about treaties? We are friends. We never spilt the blood of one of you. I never saw your blood. I want my country. I thought no one would ever want to talk about my country. Now you talk, you white men. Now that I have heard. I wish the whites to stop coming. Perhaps you will put me in a trap, if I do not listen to you, white chiefs. It is our land. both of us. If you make a farm. I would not go there and pull up your crops. I would not drive you away from it. If I were to go to your country and say. 'Give me a little piece.' I wonder would you say, 'Here, take it.' Hexpect that is the same way you want me to do here. I am very poor. This is all the small piece I have got. I am not going to let it go. I did not come to make trouble; therefore I would say. I am very poor.
"It is two winters since you passed here. Every year since my horses have
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gone to the Blackfeet. Here this spring the Blackfeet put my daughter on foot. She packed her goods on her back. It made me feel bad. I was going on a war party as your express passed along. Then I think of what I heard from you, my father, and take my heart baek and keep quiet. If I had not listened to . your express, I should have gone on war parties over yonder. We drove one band of horses from the Blackfeet. I talked about it to my Indians. I said, 'Give the horses baek, my children.' My chief took them baek. You talked about it strong, my father. My chief took them back. That is the way we act. When I found my children were going on war parties, I would tell them to stop, be quiet. Tell them I expeet now we will see the chief. I expeet he will talk to the Blaekfeet again."
Governor Stevens: "I will ask you, my children, if you fully understand all that was said yesterday? I ask you now, ean you all agree to live on one reserva- tion? I ask Vietor, are you willing to go on the same reservation with the Pend d'Oreilles and Kootenays? I ask Alexander, are you willing to go on the same reservation with the Flatheads and Kootenays. I ask Michelle, are you willing to go on the same reservation with the Flatheads and Pend d'Oreilles? What do yon, Vietor, Alexander and Michelle, think? You are the head-chiefs; I want you to speak."
Vietor: "I am willing to go 'on one reservation, but I do not want to go over yonder" (the Pend d'Oreille country ).
Alexander: "It is good for us all to stop in one place."
Michelle: "I am with Alexander."
Governor Stevens: "The Pend d'Oreilles and Kootenays think it well to have all these tribes together. Perhaps Vietor might think so by and by, if the place suits. Alexander and Michelle wish to live together, their people in one place; they have a thousand people, the land ought to be good. Each man wants his field : the climate ought to be mild.
"I ask Vietor, Alexander and Michelle to think it over. Will they go to the valley with Vietor, or to the mission with Alexander and Michelle? I do not eare which. You will have your priests with you, whether you go to the mission or Fort Owen. Those who want the priest ean have him. The Great Father means that every one shall do as he pleases in regard to receiving the instructions of the priests."
Next day's eouneil brought no change of mind, Victor refusing to move to the mission, Alexander declining to go to the valley; neither objeeting to the other coming to his place. To overcome this deadlock, Governor Stevens proposed a holiday and feast, and used the delay to send for Father Hoeeken to investigate a rumor that the priests were exerting an adverse influence on the negotiations. Father Hoeeken arrived before the conclusion of the eouneil and quickly eon- vineed the governor of the falsity of the rumor. He expressed complete approval of the treaty, and on its eonelusion signed the instrument as one of the witnesses.
Twelve hundred Indians were now eneamped on the treaty grounds, and for their pleasure on the day of the feast two beeves, eoffee, sugar, flour and other provisions were supplied them. After the feast the Indians counseled among themselves respeeting the treaty.
But at next day's council the deadloek seemed as unbroken as ever. Vietor Vol. 1-13
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refused to speak, declaring that he had not yet made up his mind. At this point the governor adopted a tannting tone:
"Does Victor want to treat?" he asked. "Is he, as one of his people has called him, an old woman? Dumb as a dog. If Victor is a chief, let him speak now."
To escape Stevens' adroit pressure, Victor abruptly left the conneil and went to his lodge. The next day he sent word that his mind was not yet made up, and the governor adjourned the council to Monday, when Victor, manifestly to "save his face" before the governor and his own people, brought forward a compromise arrangement. He proposed that the two tracts under consideration should be carefully surveyed and examined by Governor Stevens, and the one found best should be chosen for the reservation.
Alexander and Michelle persisting in their decision the governor eut the Gordian knot by accepting Victor's plan so far as it concerned him and his people and giving the others the reservation around the mission.
"My children (he said) Victor has made his proposition. Alexander and Mich- elle have made theirs. We will make a treaty for them. Both tracts shall be surveyed. If the mission is the best land, Victor shall live there. If the valley is the best land, Vietor shall stay there. Alexander and Michelle may stay at the mission."
The three head-chiefs then signed the treaties, but Moses, a sub-chief of the Flatheads, would not sign.
"My brother is buried here." he protested. "I did not think you would take the only piece of ground I had. Here are three fellows (the head-chiefs) ; they say. 'Get on your horses and go.' Last year when you were talking about the Black- feet you were joking."
Governor Stevens: "How can Moses say, I am not going to the Blackfoot country? I have gone all the way to the Great Father to arrange about the Black- foot council. What more can I do? A man is coming from the Great Father to meet me. Does Moses not know that Mr. Burr and another man went to Fort Benton the other day?"
With fine imagery Moses rejoined: "You have pulled all my wings off and then let me down."
Governor Stevens: "All that we have done is for your benefit. I have said that the Flatheads were brave and honest and should be protected. Be patient. Everything will come right."
Moses: "I do not know how it will be straight. A few days ago the Black- fect stole horses at Salmon river."
Governor Stevens, to the interpreter: "Ask him if he sees the Nez Perce chief Eagle-from-the-Light; he is going to the Blackfoot council with me."
Moses: "Yes, I see him; they will get his hair. The Blackfeet are not like these people; they are all drunk."
When the influenital men had signed, Governor Stevens said:
"Here are three papers which you have signed, copies of the same treaty. Once goes to the President, one I place in the hands of the head-chief, and one I keep myself. Everything that has been said here goes to the President. I have now a
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few presents for you. They are simply a gift, no part of the payments. The pay- ments can not be made until we hear from the President next year."
After a council protracted for eight days, success crowned the governor's labors. "Every man pleased and every man satisfied," as he expressed it.
This reservation, which was opened to white settlement in 1909, embraced 1,250,- 000 acres. The treaty carried $84,000 in annuity goods. $36,000 to improve the res- ervation ; salaries of $500 a year for twenty years, with a house and ten acres fenced and ploughed, to the three head-chiefs ; schools, mills, hospitals, shops; teachers and mechanics for twenty years; the right to fish, hunt, gather roots and berrics, and pasture stock on vacant land outside the reservation. The three tribes were to con- stitute one nation, under the head chieftainship of Victor, to be called the Flathead nation. Father Hoecken, R. H. Lansdale, W. H. Trappan, R. H. Crosby and Will- iam Craig witnessed the treaty. About 20,000 square miles were ceded. The treaty grounds were adjacent to the present thriving and progressive city of Missoula.
"This is not the place," says Governor Stevens in his narrative of 1855, "to go into the details of the Flathead treaty." With calm confidence in the judgment of history and the unbiased verdict of posterity, the governor adds: "I trust the time will come when my treaty operations of 1855-the most extensive operations ever undertaken and carried out in these latter days of our history-I repcat, I trust the time will come when I shall be able to vindicate them, and show that they were wise and proper, and that they accomplished a great end. They have been very much criticised and very much abused; but I have always felt that history will do thesc operations justice. I have not been impatient as to time, but have been willing that my vindication should come at the end of a term of years. Let short-minded men denonnce and criticise ignorantly and injuriously, and let time show that the gov- ernment made no mistake in the man whom it placed in the great field of duty as its commissioner to make treaties with the Indian tribes."
CHAPTER XXI
PEACE COUNCIL WITH THE WARLIKE BLACKFEET
COURIERS SUMMON NUMEROUS TRIBES-GREAT COUNCIL AT MOUTH OF THE JUDITH- NEBRASKA'S COMMISSIONER PROCRASTINATES-STEVENS' OPENING ADDRESS-TREATY NEGOTIATED AFTER THREE DAY CONFERENCE-COATS AND MEDALS GIVEN TO THE CHIEFS-GERMAN SONGS ROLL ACROSS THE MISSOURI-HOMERIC FEAST OF BUFFALO RIBS AND FLAPJACKS-LISTENING TO THRILLING TALES OF TRAPPER DAYS.
B REAKING camp at the conclusion of the Flathead council, Governor Stevens and party hastened eastward for the great peace council with the Blackfeet. Fort Benton, head of navigation on the Missouri, was the appointed rendez- vous, where his party were to meet Colonel Alfred Cumming, Indian superintendent for Nebraska territory, who had been designated by the government as the other commissioner to negotiate this treaty. Under plans carefully worked out by Stev- ens, Cumming was to ascend the Missouri by steamboat, bringing with him the neces- sary goods and provisions for the council ; but Cumming, who was amazingly pom- pous, petulant and inefficient, had proceeded so dilatorily that he himself at one time despaired of getting on the ground that season. and proposed that the govern- ment postpone the council to the following year.
Officials at Washington realized that this course would never do; that Governor Stevens, with great difficulty, having notified numerous tribes and bands ranging over a vast extent of country, that the council would be held late in the summer of 1855, failure to earry ont these arrangements would be taken by the Indians as a mani- festation of broken faith : the council must be held. Cumming was thereupon admon- ished to go forward with the original plans, but his disregard of Governor Stevens' recommendations involved him in additional delays, and when Stevens and party ar- rived at Benton, they met the disappointing news that Cumming and all the goods and provisions were far down the Missouri: that the Nebraska official had prema- turely unloaded the steamer, and was trying to cordelle the freight up the swift current of the upper Missouri in small boats.
Stevens sent out couriers in all directions, advising the various bands that the council could not be held at the designated date, and asking them to hold their peo- ple in readiness for a later summons. Chafing under these delays and disappoint- ments, foreseeing that the Indians could not be held indefinitely as they must shift their eamps. with the erratie movements of the buffalo, and were in danger of pass- ing beyond call, the governor decided to change the council ground from Fort Benton to the month of the Judith. farther down the Missouri, and thus eliminate
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the delay involved in cordelling the merchandise and provisions over that long and difficult reach of the river.
"Had the goods arrived at any time during this waiting period," says Hazard Stevens, "not less than 12,000 Indians would have attended the council, comprising 10,000 Blackfeet, 1,100 Nez Perces, 700 Flatheads and Pend d'Oreilles and 400 Snakes, the western Indians numbering 2,200." When the council finally assembled, October 16. only 3,500 Indians were in attendance. The double purpose of the pro- posed treaty was to establish an enduring peace between the Blackfeet and the tribes living west of them, and locate the former upon a reservation. In his opening speech the governor said :
"My children, my heart is glad today. I see Indians east of the mountains and Indians west of the mountains sitting here as friends-Bloods, Blackfeet, Piegans, Gros Ventres; and Nez Perees, Kootenays, Pend d'Oreilles, Flatheads; and we have the Cree chief sitting down here from the north and east, and Snakes farther from the west. There is peace now here between you all present. We want peace also with absent tribes. with the Crees and Assiniboines, with the Snakes, and yes, even with the Crows. You have all sent your message to the Crows, telling them you would meet them in friendship here. The Crows were far, and could not be present, but we expect you to promise to be friends with the Crows.
"I shall say nothing about peace with the white man. No white man enters a Blackfoot or a western Indian's lodge without being treated to the very best. Peace already prevails. We trust sneh will continue to be the case forever. We have been traveling over your whole country, both to the east and west of the mountains, in small parties, ranging away north to Bow river, and south to the Yellowstone. We have kept no guard. We have not tied up our horses. All has been safe. There- fore I say. peace has been, is now and will continue, between these Indians and the white man."
The treaty was then read, the governor explaining its terms, sentence by sen- tenee. Speeches by all the chiefs followed, extolling the advantages of peace and manifesting the best of feeling. On the third day the treaty was negotiated and signed by all the attending chiefs and head men. Three days more were given up to the distribution of presents, including coats and medals to the chiefs, with appro- priate speeches by the two commissioners, exhorting them to respect their pledges to the Great Father and control their young braves in the interest of enduring peace. The personnel of the officers was: Isaac 1. Stevens and Alfred Cumming, commis- sioners ; James Doty, secretary ; Thomas Adams and A. J. Vanghn, reporters. The interpreters were: James Bird, A. Culbertson and M. Roche for the Blackfect; Benjamin Kiser and G. Schon, for the Flatheads; William Craig and Delaware Jim, for the Nez Perces.
"The treaty was much more than a treaty of peace as far as the Blackfeet were concerned," comments Hazard Stevens, "for it gave them schools, farms, agricul- tural implements, etc., an agent, and annuities of $35,000 for ten years, of which $15,000 was devoted to edueating them in agriculture and to teaching the children. It contained the usual provision prohibiting intoxicating liquor. The extensive re- gion between the Missouri and the Yellowstone was made the common hunting ground of all the tribes. All agreed to maintain peace with each other, including those tribes that were unable to be present, the Crows. Crees. Assiniboines and
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Snakes. The treaty was made obligatory on the Indians from their signing it, and on the United States from its ratification, which occurred the next spring, and it was duly proelaimed by the president on April 25, 1856.
"The peace made at this conneil was observed with gratifying fidelity in the main. The Blackfeet ceased their incessant and bloody raids, and met their former enemies on friendly terms upon the common hunting grounds. Within a few years, in 1862-63, large white settlements sprang up on the headwaters of the Missouri, but they were spared the horrors and sufferings of Indian warfare with so powerful a tribe, largely in consequence of this treaty. The council, which Governor Stevens planned and carried ont with such foresight, sagacity and indefatigable exertions during two years, bore fruit at last in the perpetual peace he hoped for and pre- dicted. Few treaties with Indians have been so well observed by them as this by the 'bloodthirsty' Blackfeet. They took no part in the great Sioux wars, nor in the outbreak of Joseph. They were afterwards gathered together on a large reserva- tion, including the country about the Sun river, where the governor proposed to es- tablish their farms."
A pleasing description of the council ground has been recorded by the same author, who, as a boy of 13 accompanied his father and witnessed the savage and barbarie eouneil. It was "a wide, level plain, covered with a noble grove of huge cottonwoods. It was on the left bank of the Missouri, nearly opposite but below the mouth of the Judith. This stream was also bordered by broad bottoms, which were covered wih large sage-brush, and fairly swarming with deer. The governor's camp was pitched under the lofty cottonwoods, and lower down was the camp of the erew of men who had dragged the boats up the river. They were a hundred strong, mostly Germans, having many fine voiees among them, and were fond of spending the evenings in singing. The effect of their grand choruses, pealing forth over the river and resounding among the lofty trees, was magnificent.
"In the governor's camp an unusually large Indian lodge-a great cone of poles covered with dressed and smoke-stained buffalo skins-was ereeted and used as an office tent, where the records were copied and smaller conferences held. Every night between eleven and twelve, when the work of the day was concluded, the governor would call in the gentlemen of the party, a few chiefs, and some of the in- terpreters, and have a real Homerie feast of buffalo ribs. flapjacks with melted sugar, and hot coffee. Whole sides of ribs would be brought in, smoking hot from the fire, and passed around, and each guest would cut off a rib for himself with his bunting knife, and sit there holding the huge dainty, three feet long, and tearing off the juiey and delicious meat with teeth and knife, principally the former. No description ean convey an idea of the hearty zest and relish and enjoyment, or the keen appetites, with which they met at these hospitable repasts, and reeounted the varied adventures and experiences of their reeent trips, or listened as Craig, Dela- ware Jim, or Ben Kiser related some thrilling tale of trapper days, or desperate fight with Indian or grizzly bear."
A far cry this may seem from the night-lighted streets of Spokane, with their flaring eleetrie signs, swift-passing automobiles, and pleasure-seeking throngs; bnt these nomadic seenes in Walla Walla vale, and by Missoula's flowing waters, and on the distant plains where mingle the Judith and the Missouri, required their setting and their shifting, seven and fifty years ago, else had there been no peace with In-
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dian tribes, no settlement by daring and adventurous pioneers, no turning of the soil to farm and garden, or felling of the forest monarchs; no rocking out of millions in placer gold or delving deep for hidden treasures of mineral vein and chamber. And withont these antedating achievements, where now could be the beautiful, the sub- stantial empress city of the Inland Empire?
CHAPTER XXII
TRIBES OF INTERIOR TAKE TO THE WARPATH
NEW'S TO SHAKE THE STOUTEST HEART-GOVERNOR CUT OFF FROM OLYMPIA-PEAR- SON'S DESPERATE RIDE TIIROUGHI HOSTILE COUNTRY-STEVENS ADVISED TO DESCEND THE MISSOURI AND RETURN BY SEA- REJECTS THAT COUNSEL AND BOLDLY RETURNS BY DIRECT ROUTE-CROSSES BITTER ROOTS IN THREE FEET OF SNOW-STARTLES INDIANS BY SUDDEN APPEARANCE IN COEUR D'ALENES-FORCED MARCH TO TIIE SPOKANE-MEETS MINERS FROM COLVILLE COUNTRY-STORMY COUNCIL WITH SPO- KANES-GARHY VACILLATES-STEVENS BLAMED FOR YAKIMAS OUTBREAK-SPOKANES CONCILIATED-"SPOKANE INVINCIRLES" ORGANIZED AS MILITIA COMPANY-NEZ PERCES GIVE GOVERNOR AN ARMED ESCORT-HOSTILES ROUTED BY OREGON VOLUN- TEERS-STEVENS RETURNS SAFELY TO OLYMPIA.
"It is vain for the coward to flee: death follows elose behind; it is only by defy- ing it that the brave escape."-l'oltaire.
N BUOYANT spirits, with no premonition of impending peril, Governor Stevens and party left the Blackfoot council ground. "Everything had suc- ceeded to our entire satisfaction. and, indeed. beyond our most sanguine expecta- tions," the governor reported. "The greatest delight and good will seemed to per- vade the minds of all the Indians, and we left them at the mouth of the Judith on our way to Fort Benton, and proceeded thenee to the waters of the Pacifie, rejoiecd that our labors had had such a consummation." I
Packing up, the little party of twenty-four faced westward on October 21, reached Fort Benton the next day, and after a two day pause there, preparing for the long homeward journey, left Benton October 28. On the evening of the twenty-ninth. while in camp on the Teton, the evening meal dispatched and the men assembled around the campfire, a horseman was seen approaching in the gathering twilight. It was the daring express rider, W. II. Pearson, hearing news ealeulated to shake the stoutest heart. He had ridden desperately and long, and as his exhausted mount staggered into the firelight, it was seen, from Pearson's wild, emaeiated and haggard appearanec, that he had passed through some ordcal of a trying nature. Eager arms lifted him from the saddle, friendly hands ministered to the fainting man with warmth and food; and he then delivered his dispatches and a made a report that, for a moment, struck consternation to that little band on desert plains a thousand miles from homc.
"The great tribes of the upper Columbia country, the Cayuses, Yakimas, Walla
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Wallas, Umatillas, Palonses and all the Oregon bands down to The Dalles, the very ones who had signed the treaties at the Walla Walla council and professed such friendship, had all broken out in open war," says Stevens' biographer. "They had swept the upper country clean of whites, killing all the settlers and miners found there, and murdered Agent Bolon under circumstances of peculiar atrocity. Major Ilaller, sent into the Yakima country with a hundred regulars and a how- itzer, had been defeated and forced to retreat by Kamiaken's warriors, with the loss of a third of his force and his cannon. The Indians west of the Cascades aad also risen simultaneously, and laid waste the settlements on Puget Sound and in Oregon, showing that a widespread conspiracy prevailed. The Spokanes and Coeur d'Alenes were hostile, or soon would become hostile under the spur and taunts of the young Cayuse and Yakima warriors sent among them to stir them up. and even some of the Nez Perces were disaffected. A thousand well armed and brave hostile warriors under Kamiaken, Pu-pu-mox-mox. Young Chief and Five Crows. were gathered in the Walla Walla valley, waiting to 'wipe out' the party on its return ; squads of young braves were visiting the Nez Perces, Spokanes and Coeur d'Alenes. vaunting their victories, displaying fresh gory scalps, and using every effort to cajole or force them into hostility to the whites.
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