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 32
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After the command erossed Snake river, its way lay across what is now the heart of the rich Palouse country, then a vast, open bunch-grass region, dotted by bands of Indian horses, and with an occasional village of tepees in the sheltered groves along the streams. The reader will have noted that the author, when quoting from official reports, has regarded the original and correct spelling of the name Pelouse-a French noun translatable into English as a grassy sward, an appellation bestowed by French trappers and voyageurs in the early part of the nineteenth century. This beautiful, rolling region, now so rich in material wealth, and all the attendants of refinement and civilization-with its amplitude of schools, colleges and churches, of homes, towns and cities, served as a great pasturage domain for Indian herds. Its rich volcanic soil had nowhere been broken by the ploughshare's steel.
At the falls of the Spokane the river ran as wild and free as it had thundered through the distant ages, and save the nomadic shelters of the red men, no habita- tion marked its shores. Up the valley, as the command neared lake Coeur d'Alene, evidenees of semi-civilized cultivation met the eye. Wheat-growing had been at- tempted with considerable success by the Spokanes and Coeur d'Alenes, and in their gardens potatoes and other vegetables gave promise of the more bountiful yields that the soil would bear under the white settler's care.
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Excepting an occasional small enclosure for these agricultural beginnings, the Spokane valley was also a spreading bunch-grass domain, over which roamed large bands of eayuse ponies and some small herds of cattle.
The fighting over, the others and their brave men had better opportunity to enjoy the wildly beautiful panorama which nature had spread around their camps. Lieutenant Kip wrote enthusiastically of the entrancing scenes, blending a prospect of rushing waters, of limpid lakes and distant wooded mountains. We quote from his description :
"We broke up our camp this morning at seven, and moved up the river about seven miles, when we again encamped. Most of our way lay through the wood skirting the river ( the command is now marching over ground that afterward became the business and residence sections of Spokane). the scenery around being very beautiful. Just before reaching our camping ground, we passed the great Spokan falls (note his omission of the final 'e'). It is a high. narrow, basaltic canyon, where the whole river passes over an inclined ledge of rocks, with a fall of between forty and fifty feet. The view from every point is exceedingly picturesque. As high up as the falls, salmon are found in great abundance, while above them trout are very plenty."
A few days later the same writer wrote glowingly of the scenes surrounding lake Coenr d'Alene:
"All day we have toiled along through beautiful scenery, yet a country difficult for a force to make its way, as our march has been through the forest in its primeval state. For the first few miles along the borders of the lake, the trees were scat- tered. but after leaving the shore the timber became so thick that the troops had to march in single file. The forest seemed to become more dense as we advanced, until we could see nothing about us but high hills and deep caverns, with thick woods covering all, through which we wound our way in a twilight gloom.
"This is a splendid country as a home for the Indians, and we can not wonder that they are aroused when they think the white men are intruding on them. The Coeur d'Alene lake, one of the most beautiful I have ever seen, with water clear as crystal, is about fifteen miles in length (it is nearer thirty in fact), buried. as it were, in the Coeur d'Alene mountains, which rise around it on every side. The woods are full of berries, while in the Spokan river salmon abound below the falls and trout above. In the winter season deer and elk are found in the mountains. Many parts of the country are good for grazing, while there are a sufficient number of fertile spots where erops can easily be raised. When the Indian thinks of the hunting grounds to which he is looking forward in the Spirit land. we doubt whether he could imagine anything more in accordance with his taste than this reality."
We now resume the thread of the narrative at the point where Colonel Wright went into eamp, with his weary but victory flushed troops, on the Spokane river at a point in the immediate vicinity of Greenwood cemetery of the present day. The sixth of September was a day of rest. Indians skulked on the opposite side of the stream, and that afternoon a few plucked up courage and came into the camp. pro- fessing friendship and giving information about the fords.
The next morning the command marched up the river, passing over the present site of Spokane. Again Indians were sighted on the opposite shore, and communica- tion was opened with them through the Nez Perce guides. They reported that Chief
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Garry was near by and wanted a conference, and Wright directed them to meet him at the ford about two miles above the falls. The command halted at the desig- nated point, and Garry crossed over and came into camp. He said that he had been opposed to the fighting, but that the young men were against him and he could not control his people. Credence was given to his professions, for Dr. Perkins, who had attended the Spokane council at Fort Colville, had made the following mention of Garry: "He says his heart is undecided ; he does not know which way to go; his friends are fighting the whites, and he does not like to join them; but if he does not, they will kill him. During the whole time that we were in the council, Garry* never said a word, but merely looked on."
Wright told Garry to go to his people and all the other Indians and say for him: "I have met you in two bloody battles ; you have been badly whipped ; you have lost several chiefs and many warriors, killed or wounded. I have not lost a man or animal : I have a large force, and you Spokanes. Coeur d'Alenes, Pelouses and Pend d'Oreilles may nnite, and I can beat you as badly as before. I did not come into this country to ask you to make peace ; I came here to fight. Now when you are tired of the war and ask for peace, I will tell you what you must do: You must come to me with your arms, with your women and children, and everything you have. and lay them at my feet ; you must put your faith in me and trust to my mercy. If you do this, I shall then dictate the terms upon which I will grant you peace. If you do not do this, war will be made on you this year and next, and until your nation shall be exterminated." Garry promised to join Wright the following morn- ing on the march.
After the interview with Garry, Polotkin, another Spokane chief, came forward with nine warriors and sought an interview. Wright was suspicious of this Indian, having learned that he had been conspicuous in the attack on Steptoe, and was a leader in the battles of the Four lakes and the Spokane plains. As this party had left their rifles on the opposite bank, Wright directed the chief to sit still while two of his Indians were sent over to bring them in. He then told Polotkin that he would hold him in custody, with one of his men who was strongly suspected of the murder of two miners in the preceding April. After encamping the following evening at a point sixteen miles up the valley, Wright further investigated the case of this Indian, and as his guilt seemed established beyond question, he was hanged for the murder of the miners. This was the first execution as a result of the uprising, but before Wright left the Spokane country he hanged many others. Particulars of this som- mary justice will be narrated further along in the narrative.
When the two Indians had crossed the river to bring in the rifles, one of them, thinking discretion the better part of valor, made off in a hurry, but the other re- turned with the arms, which were found to be of British manufacture, marked
* In the judgment of I. T. Cowley, "Garry was of a weak and vacillating character, crafty and unreliable. He reported to Colonel Wright after the defeat, that he had advised against the hostile movement, but I have been told by Thomas Brown, one of the oldest set- tlers in the Colville valley, that Garry used his utmost endeavors to draw the Colville and Calispel Indians into hostilities, setting forth the allurement of the large amount of phinder which would be divided among them in case of the defeat of the expedition, a result which he thought casy of accomplishment. Prominent members of his own tribe hore informed me of the same circumstances."
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"London, 1847," and had evidently been purchased of the Hudson's Bay company at Fort Colville.
The command marched at sunrise on the morning of September 8, and after ad- vaneing up the valley about ten miles, the Nez Perce scouts reported that they had sighted Indians on the right, and at the same time clouds of dust were seen rising between the command and the mountains. Tilkohitz, a Palouse chief, was trying to run his great band of horses out of the country, and was heading for a pass in the hills on the southern side of the valley. The Nez Perce allies and a number of the soldiers were sent in pursuit, and after a short skirmish captured the whole band of 800 or 900 animals. The Indians retreated to the hills, and, as afterwards learned, watched the driving off of the horses from an eminence, observing that it did not matter a great deal, since Wright would have to turn them loose again, and they could be rounded up after he had left the country. The capture was made "near a wide lake to the right of the great Coeur d'Alene trail. a place where large numbers of the four tribes winter" (probably Saltese lake.) Two days later Colonel Wright, as a war measure, to punish the Indians and prevent the possibility of renewed hostilities after he should leave the country, ordered the killing of these horses, with the excep- tion of about 130 saved for the use of his expedition. This distressing work con- sumed the greater part of two days. The method first adopted was to enclose the animals in a large corral, and then lasso them one by one, drag them out and kill them with a well-placed rifle ball. In this way about 200 were dispatched, but the plan proving slow and painful to the feelings of the soldiers, it was abandoned, and most of the others were killed by firing volleys into the corral. The colts were dis- patched with a blow on the head, and an officer who witnessed the painful duty, wrote afterward that it was most distressing, at night after the killing, to hear the brood mares that yet remained. neighing mournfully for their young. A number of the animals, becoming wild with fright, broke away from their captors and escaped to the hills. The site of this tragedy was appropriately called the "Horse Slaughter camp," and was marked till a comparatively recent date by piles of bones on the open prairie.
On the morning of September 10 an Indian runner came in from the Coeur d'Alene mission, bearing from Father Joset a letter stating that the Indians were entirely crushed and had requested him to intercede for them. Colonel Wright there- upon decided to march his command to the mission. Accordingly an advance was ordered, and on the morning of the eleventh the river was crossed at the upper ford, and the trail taken for lake Coeur d'Alene. This led over an easy prairie road for two and a half miles, where the road forked, one leading across the prairie to Clark's fork of the Columbia, and the other through the open timber along the north bank of the Spokane. This route carried the command across the site of the present town of Post Falls. "About twelve miles below the lake," says Mullan, "the river makes another fall. passing through a deep and narrow rocky gorge some thirty yards wide, in a beautiful sheet of white foam."
Lieutenant Mullan, who subsequently laid out and constructed the famous Mul- lan road for the war department, kept a keen eye during this campaign for possi- bilities of such a road, and in a subsequent report suggested that it might be found feasible to blast out the rocky obstructions at Post Falls and thereby lower the Jake,
CHIEF GARRY AS SKETCHED IN 1855
CHIEF GARRY IN OLD AGE
NEW SLIK PUBLIC LIBRARY
.10K LENOX TILJEN FOUNDATIONS
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reelaim overflow lands in the St. Joe valley and prepare a way for easy road-building along the banks of that stream.
At a point four miles from the lake the command came to some Indian fields and gardens and destroyed there two or three barns filled with wheat. Some eaches hold- ing dried eake and berries were also destroyed. "This outbreak," wrote Kip, "will bring upon the Indians a winter of great suffering from the destruction of their stores."
Just before reaching a camping spot on the lake shore, an Indian burial place was passed. "Each grave was covered with a low log house, surmounted by a eross, the house answering both as a monument and a protection for the remains against wild animals." "Though our mareh was one of devastation through the country, we left unharmed and untouched the spot where reposed the lifeless dead," remarks Mullan-an example which, had it been more closely followed by settlers through- out the northwest, must have softened the antipathy of the natives against the in- vaders, prevented a great deal of bitter indignation, and made unnecessary the re- cording of many savage aets of revenge. To the ghoulish aets of enrio-hunters, who have not hesitated at deseeration of Indian graves, may be traced the cause of the killing of many a white man by infuriated Indians.
As the troops were about to resume their march on the morning of the twelfth, Vineent, head chief of the Coeur d'Alenes eame in, bearing a pass from Father Joset, and announcing that he was rounding up the hostiles to bring them to the mission to meet Wright and sue for peace. The route this day followed an Indian trail along the lake for three and a half miles, when it aseended a mountain that com- manded a fine view of the lake and surrounding forests. A distance of only ten miles was covered, and the army eneamped in a beautiful little prairie on Wolf's Lodge creek.
Thenee on to the mission the way was much obstructed by fallen trees in a dense forest. Over the narrow trail the command could only proceed in single file, and extended over the trail for six or eight miles. The march was made, though, with- out danger, as the fighting spirit had been entirely driven from the Indian breast. Wright considered it, however, an act of prudence to maintain a strong front and rear guard until he reached the mission, nineteen miles from the camp on Wolf's Lodge ereck. It was 10 at night when the last of the paek train arrived at the mis- sion. The weather had been sultry, and the soldiers suffered considerably on the mareh. The officers were provided with mounts, but shared them through the day with exhausted privates who had fallen by the wayside, and many of whom required medieal attenion.
"We first eame in sight of the mission when about five miles off," writes Lieuten- ant Kip. "It is situated in a beautiful valley surrounded by the Coeur d'Alene mountains. A pretty stream. a branch of the Coeur d'Alene river, with clear, cold water, runs alongside of it, furnishing means of irrigation. In the center of the mission stands the church, and round it eluster the other buildings-a mill, a couple of houses for the priests, the dwellings of the Indian converts, and some barns to store their produee. The priests, in the evening, sent a wagon full of vegetables to the officers."
While awaiting the coming of Vineent and other Coeur d'Alenes for the ap- proaching couneil, the officers paid frequent visits to the priests, Fathers Joset and
ยท
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Minitrey, and three lay brothers, by whom they were received with great kindness and politeness. This mission was not established till 1846, when experience had shown that the one on the St. Joseph river was not admirably located, being subject to flood in time of high water. The priests informed Colonel Wright that the Coeur d'Alenes could not muster more than 100 warriors, and the whole tribe did not ex- ered 100 souls. Most of them, though, participated in the recent fights. The Spo- kanes numbered about four times as many warriors and people.
On the morning of the seventeenth, practically all the Coeur d'Alenes being as- sembled, was held the memorable peace couneil. The scene was one of marked bar- barie color. Before Colonel Wright's tent an arbor of trees and boughs had been provided, and in this sylvan chamber the chiefs met the officers who were to deter- mine their fate and future.
"I have committed a great crime," confessed Chief Vincent. in opening the coun- cil. "I am fully conscious of it, and am deeply sorry for it. I and all my people are deeply rejoiced that you are willing to forgive us. I have done."
Colonel Wright (to the Indians) : "As your chief has said, you have committed a great crime. It has angered your Great Father, and I have been sent to punish you. You attacked Colonel Steptoe when he was passing peaceably through your country, and you have killed some of his men. But you ask for peace, and you shall have it on certain conditions.
"You see that you fight against us hopelessly. I have a great many soldiers. I have a great many men at Walla Walla, and have a large body coming from Salt Lake City. What can you do against us? I can place my soldiers on your plains, by your fishing grounds and in the mountains where you catch game, and your helpless families can not run away.
"You shall have peace on the following conditions: You must deliver to me, to take to the general, the men who struck the first blow in the affair with Colonel Steptoe. You must deliver to me. to take to Walla Walla. one chief and four war- riors with their families. You must deliver up to me all property taken in the affair with Colonel Steptoe. You must allow all troops and other white men to pass through your country unmolested. You must not allow any hostile Indians to come into your country, and not engage in any hostilities with any white man. I promise you that if you will comply with all my requirements none of your people shall be harmed, but I will withdraw from your country and you shall have peace forever.
"I also require that the hatchet shall be buried between you and our friends, the Nez Perces."
The part of the speech referring to the Nez Perces was repeated to the Coeur d'Alenes in their presence.
Vincent: "I desire to hear what the Nez Perces' heart is."
Haitzmaliken, chief of the Nez Perces, replied: "You behold me before you. and I will lay my heart open to you. I desire there shall be peace between us. It shall be as the colonel says. I will never wage war against any of the friends of the white man."
Vincent: "It does my heart good and makes also my people glad, to hear you speak so. I have desired peace between us. There shall never be war between our people, nor between us and the white men. The past is forgotten."
The conditions proposed by Colonel Wright were then formally signed, first by
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himself and his offieers, and then by Vineent and the other chiefs and head men. The pipe of peace was smoked all round and the eouneil was ended.
The aged Spokane chief Polotkin, who had formerly been held as a prisoner, also made a short speech, saying that he was satisfied and would try to bring in his people. He left the eamp immediately on the eonelusion of the couneil.
Paeifie relations were now completely established, and the soldiers and Indians engaged in brisk trading, shirts and blankets being exchanged for robes and mocca- sins. But the seene had vet its side of sadness, for a number of the women were weeping bitterly, some for those who had fallen in battle, others for the hostages who were to be taken away to Walla Walla. The Indians found it difficult to understand why the soldiers could be so friendly with them, and Father Joset explained it by saving the soldiers "were like lions in war and lambs in peace."
Some of the Coeur d'Alenes frankly diselosed the taeties by which they had hoped to defeat the command. They had expected to be attacked first by the dra- goons or mounted men, and had planned to eoneentrate their rifle fire and ammuni- tion on that arm of the service. The dragoons disposed of, they had expected to surround the infantry and to keep riding round them, shooting in arrows. As they greatly outnumbered the foot troops, they eounted on thus eutting them off from re- treat and gradually wiping them out. The long range rifles demolished this well planned seheme.
"In the beginning of September." we are informed by an officer under Colonel Wright, "Donati's eomet appeared, and night after night it has been streaming above us in all its glory. Strange as it may seem, it has exerted a powerful influenee over the Indians in our behalf. Appearing just as we entered the country, it seemed to them like some huge besom to sweep them from the earth. The effeet was probably mueh increased by the fact that it disappeared about the time our campaign ended and the treaties were formed. They must have imagined that it had been sent home to their Great Father in Washington, to be put away until required the next time."
"I have never," says Wright in an official report, "witnessed sueh manifestations of joy as were expressed by the whole Coeur d'Alene nation-men, women and chil- dren-at the eonelusion of the treaty. They know us, they have felt our power, and I have full faith that henceforth the Coeur d'Alenes will be our staneh friends."
CHAPTER XXVIII
HOW HANGMAN CREEK DERIVED ITS NAME
WRIGHT HOLDS A COUNCIL WITH THE SPOKANES-CANNY OLD COLVILLE CHIEF-SPO- KANE CHIEFS HUMBLED-KAMIAKEN ELUDES ARREST-QUALCHIEN COMES IN AND IS PROMPTLY HANGED-DIES LIKE A COWARD-OWIII SHOT IN A DASH FOR LIBERTY -SIX MORE INDIANS HANGED ON HANGMAN CREEK-SIXTEEN IN ALL ARE VICTIMS OF THE NOOSE-REMAINS RECOVERED OF SOLDIERS WHO FELL IN STEPTOE'S FIGHT.
W RIGHT'S next move was a great council with the Spokanes, and the plaee ehosen for the rendezvous was on the banks of Hangman ereek, near the present town of Spangle, in the southern part of Spokane county. The command, leaving the Mission on the morning of the 18th, and moving by way of the St. Joseph river, arrived at the couneil grounds on the evening of the 22d, where the Spokane nation awaited hin. Kamiaken, the great war chief of the Yakimas had been in eamp the evening before, but his eourage seems to have failed him for he and another chief eleared out before the troops arrived. Wright sent Chiefs Garry and Big Star out after him, with a message that he should not be harmed if he came in, but if he failed to surrender he would be hunted down and put to death. Kamiaken was regarded as the most powerful chief in the Inland Empire, and the most relentless foe of the white men. Ilis mother was a Yakima and his father a Pelouse, this giving him a great influence over the two tribes, and his talents as an organizer won him considerable authority over most of the tribes of the interior.
"My first acquaintance with Kamiaken," says Kip, "was at the Walla Walla eouneil, three years before. There it was evident that he was the great impediment in the way of any eession of the Indian lands. While the other chiefs, one by one. eame into the measure, and even Looking Glass, the war chief of the Nez Perees, at first entirely hostile, at last yielded to the force of some peculiar arguments which are equally potent with savages and white men. nothing eould move Kamia- ken. With more far-reaching wisdom than the rest. he probably saw that this sur- render of their lands and intrusion of the white men would be the. final step in destroying the nation. Governor Stevens was unable to induee him to express any opinion, but he sat in gloomy silenee. Several times when the governor appealed to him with the inquiry, 'we would like to know what is the heart of Kamiaken,' his only answer was, 'What have I to say?' He was the leader in the outbreak which took place shortly after, when Major Haller's foree was defeated, and he has been, we have no doubt, the moving spirit in arraying all these tribes against us this
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season, and bringing on this open warfare. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that he is afraid to put himself in the power of the whites."
Hangman creek took its name from the hanging of a number of outlaw Indians by order of Colonel Wright at this encampment. It has been a stream of extensive nomenclature. Wright dated his dispatches from this point. "Camp on the Ned- whanld River, W. T., Lat. 17 degrees, 24 minutes north." Others in his party spelled it "Nednald," and yet others termed it the Ned-whuald or Lahtoo creek. In one report it appears as Camas Prairie creek, and a few years before his death the venerable and beloved Protestant missionary Father Eels informed the writer of this volume that the Indians called it "Sin-too-too-ooley" ereck, or the place where little fish were caught. Objecting to the grewsome name of Hangman. the Washington legislature attempted a few years ago to fix the name by statute as Latah creek, a clumsy corruption of the more euphonious Indian word "Lahtoo."
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