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 44
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"I gave Mrs. Yeaton Lot 1, Block +, directly across Howard street from the city hall, and at the same time presented her daughter, Lulu, Lot 7, in Block 23, the south-east corner of Riverside and Lincoln directly across the street from the Empire State building. Mrs. Yeaton wanted to sell her lot right away, and insisted so strongly that I went out and disposed of it for her for $1.200. I persuaded Lulu
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to hold her lot for several years. Several times she wrote me, asking that I dis- pose of it for her, and finally became so insistent that I found a buyer and sent her $5,000.
"From 1873 to 1877," continued Mr. Glover. "my trade almost entirely was with Indians who brought in furs. I have bought as high as $1,000 in one night. The Indians are peculiar in their ways of doing business, doing their trading almost invariably at night. My first business in this line was in December, 1873. They came in one evening about sunset, a swarm of them. Up to that time, M. M. Cowley and Tommy Ford, who had a trading-post at a point seventeen miles up the river, had enjoyed a monopoly of the Indian trade in this valley. This time there was about a foot of snow on the ground, and forty or fifty Indians came into my place a little after dark, with their furs packed on their ponies. They always wanted to have a long smoke before getting down to business. After they had their smoke ont they would ask prices and this would be followed by the actual business of bartering wares for furs. The skins I bought were chiefly marten. The dark marten was as handsome a fur as could be bought anywhere. For these I paid from $2.50 to $5.00. Other furs were musk-rat. beaver. black and brown bear, and at times in winter, a great many buckskins. In the fall of 1874 I bought some of the most beautiful buffalo robes I had ever seen, forty-five of them, and for these paid from $+ to $1.50. They were beautifully tanned. I shipped them by wagon to Wallula and thenee by boat by way of Portland to Victoria, paying the freight and receiving for these beautiful robes only $5.25. If it had not been for the profit on my mer- chandise, I would have lost on the transaction.
"I never could learn the reason, but these fur-bearing animals disappeared like magic and after 1877 my Indian trade in furs fell off to almost nothing."
CHAPTER XXXVI
NEZ PERCE WAR AND MASSACRES OF 1877
SAVAGE DEVOTION TO A CAUSE-JOSEPHI'S LOVE FOR THE WALLOWA VALLEY-INDIAN BUREAL' VACILLATES-FIRST CONFLICT WITH SETTLERS-FANAATACISM OF THE "DREAMERS -JOSEPH'S BAND ORDERED TO NEZ PERCE RESERVE-WAR PARTY PRE- PARES FOR THE CONFLICT-CAMAS PRAIRIE SETTLERS ATTACKED-MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN MASSACRED-SHOCKING ATROCITIES-SETTLERS FLEE TO PLACES OF REFUGE-FIERCE AND SANGUINARY BATTLES WITH U. S. TROOPS-JOSEPHI'S REMARK- ABLE RUNNING CAMPAIGN-SETTLERS IN SPOKANE REGION ARE TERRORIZED-TAKE REFUGE ON HAVERMALE ISLAND-J. N. GLOVER'S RECOLLECTIONS-WAR PARTY DANCES NIGHTLY BY THE FALLS-ARRIVAL OF THE TROOPS-M. M. COWLEY'S REMIN- ISCENCES.
Kamiah, Kamiah, Voice of the Wolf.
Blood of my spirit and heart of your sires, Sleep, for the West is kindling its fires; Sleep, for the sun, worn out by its flight. Creeps to the dusky wigwams of Night. Sleep, little Kamiah, Voiee of the Wolf.
Kamiah, Kamiah, Voice of the Wolf,
Some day our fathers will call from the sky, And mareh with the braves; the palefree will fly Like snow when Chinooks blow over the swale. Sleep, for you soon must go forth on the trail. Sleep, little Kamiah, Voiee of the Wolf.
Kamiah, Kamiah, Voice of the Wolf,
The buffalo yet shall return to the plain, The bellow of moose shall be heard once again. The red men shall hunt through the land as they please.
Slumber. my young brave, and dream you of these. Slumber, my Kamiah, Voice of the Wolf.
-Winfred Chandler.
N SPECTACULAR setting and deep, tragie interest the Nez Peree Indian war of 1877 stands out in history, an unsurpassed exhibition of savage devotion to a eause. In a technical, legal sense Chief Joseph erred in that dramatie clash of arms. In its moral aspects, the uprising was not unjustified. I
From time immemorial the Joseph band of the Nez Peree tribe had occupied in summer and autumn the Wallowa valley in eastern Oregon. Their deep aneestral
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love for it flashed keen and strong in 1855, when Governor Isaac 1. Stevens of Washington and Indian Superintendent Joet Palmer of Oregon negotiated treaties with the various tribes of the interior and Old Chief Joseph, father of the warrior of later days, insisted that this ancestral vale be included within the areas set apart for the Nez Perces. As we have seen in a preceding chapter the discovery of gold in northern Idaho led to the adoption in 1863 of a supplemental treaty which narrowed the boundaries of the Indians' domain, and surrendered the Wallowa country to the United States. This treaty Old Joseph refused to sign : its validity he challenged to his death, and his people went on making their annual pilgrimages to their favorite hunting land. Old Joseph was buried there.
Young Joseph fell heir to his father's cause. The tribe, as a whole had no right to barter away the possessions of a powerful protesting clan : the Wallowa valley had always been the acknowledged property of this particular band ; they had never assented to its sale : and for more than twenty years had maintained, without official protest. their possessory rights. Thus, in brief. Joseph and his supporters presented their ense.
Down to 1872 the Wallowa region remained as wild as it had been a hundred years before : but in the spring of that year the Tulley Brothers drove in 300 head of stock and used the valley as a cattle range. A little later came other stockmen. and in August forty or fifty Nez Perces held a protesting council. but offered no overt resistance to the white invaders.
In 1873 the secretary of the interior recorded an official order that seemed, at least to the Indian mind, to confirm their claim. He directed
"That the band of Indians referred to be permitted to remain in said valley and occupy it during the summer and autumn, or for such time as the weather is snitable, according to a previous custom; and that assurance be given them that it is not the intention of the department to disturb them so long as they remain quiet."
The secretary further directed that white settlers be notified that they were prohibited from settling in the valley, and that the property of the settlers already there be appraised. in order that congress might be asked for an appropriation, and "that the claims of the settlers may be extinguished."
Governor L. F. Grover of Oregon promptly wrote a protesting letter to the secretary of the interior. "I urge (he said) that the Indian title to the land oc- cupied by these settlers has been doubly extinguished-first by treaty, and second by form of law There is abundant room for Joseph's band on the pres- ent Nez Perce reservation. Joseph's band do not desire the Wallowa valley for a reservation and for a home. I understand that they will not accept it on condition that they shall occupy it as such. The reason of this is obvious: they can have better land and a more congenial climate at a location which has been tendered them upon the Nez Perce reservation. There are but seventy-two warriors in this band. The white settlers in the Wallowa country number eighty-seven."
Vacillating first on this side and then on that, the Indian bureau decided in the spring of 1874 to abandon its plan of making an Indian reservation of the Wallowa country, and so advised Senator Kelly of Oregon.
Joseph's band continued its summer visits, but no conflict occurred till the sum- mer of 1876. A. B. Findley and Wells MeNall, while hunting lost horses, came upon an Indian encampment : an altercation followed. one of the Indians grappled with
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MeNall and tried to wrest away his riffe, and Findley shot and killed the Indian. The white men were tried at Union and acquitted. and thereupon the Indians demanded that they be tried by Indian law. This was denied them, and Joseph ordered the white settlers to leave the valley. The settlers appealed for help, and forty volunteers eame out from Union and other towns and eneamped at the MeNall raneli the day preceding that set by Joseph for the evietion. Lieutenant Forse with forty-eight regular soldiers made a forced march from Fort Walla Walla, and found the Indians on a hill near Wallowa lake, painted, stripped, well armed and in battle array. Forse held a council with them and demanded that they should stay on the opposite side of Hurricane ereek from the whites. Joseph assented and the warriors washed off their war paint.
In November, 1876 a commission was sent to Lapwai to endeavor to adjust these differences with Joseph and the non-treaty Indians, but the eouneil broke up after several stormy sessions, with no agreement. The commissioners met stout opposi- tion from the "dreamers." who contended that since the earth was ereated by the Great Spirit for his red children, to sell it would be shameful saerilege, an act comparable with the sale of one's mother.
"This fanaticism." wrote General Howard. "is kept up by the superstition of these dreamers, who industriously teach that if they continue steadfast in their present belief, a leader will be raised up in the east who will restore all the dead Indians to life, who will unite with them in expelling the whites from this country, when they will again enter upon and repossess the lands of their ancestors."
The commission recommended: "If these Indians overrun lands belonging to the whites, and eommit depredations on their property, we recommend the employ- ment of sufficient forces to bring them into subjeetion and to place them upon the Nez Peree reservation. The Indian agent at Lapwai should be fully instrueted to earry into execution these suggestions, relying at all times upon the department commander for aid when necessary."
Early in 1877 the government ordered Judian Agent J. B. Monteith to carry out the recommendations of the commission, and directed Howard to occupy the Wal- lowa valley and cooperate with the agent. Howard and the agent then dirceted pressure against Joseph, and an extended conference at Fort Lapwai in May was attended by Howard. Monteith, P. B. Whitman (a nephew of Dr. Marens Whit- man) as interpreter, Joseph, his brother Ollieutt. and about fifty of the non-treaty Indians. After a stormy council the Indians agreed to go upon the reservation, and June 11 was designated as the date.
The war party among the Nez Perees devoted the intervening month to hasty and seeret preparations for conflict. Guns and ammunition were purchased, horses were rounded up, and provisions accumulated in a wild and pieturesque glen at the head of Rocky eanyon, eight miles west of Grangeville. In that deep and seeluded defile they herded their stoek. killed beeves and dried the meat, and stored their provisions in a great cave. By day there were eouneils and drills. by night danees and fcasting. Here they argued the momentous issue, peace or war, with opposing forees almost evenly divided.
General Howard at Lapwai received his first intimation of treachery in a letter of June 14 from I. P. Brown of Mt. Idaho on Camas prairie.
"Yesterday ( wrote Brown) they had a grand parade. About 100 were mounted
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and well armed, and went through the maneuvers of a fight for about two hours. They say openly that they are going to fight the soldiers when they come to put them on the reservation. A good many were in town today, and were trying to obtain powder and other ammunition."
On the day after came this startling bulletin:
"MOUNT IDAHO, 7 a. m., Friday, June 15, 1877.
"Commanding Officer, Fort Lapwai:
"Last night we started a messenger to you, who reached Cottonwood house, where he was wounded and driven back by the Indians. The people of Cotton- wood undertook to come here during the night; were interrupted, all wounded or killed. Parties this morning found some of them on the prairie. The whites are .. engaged, about forty of them, in getting in the wounded. One thing is certain: we are in the midst of an Indian war. Every family is here, and we have taken all the precautions we can. but are poorly armed. We want arms and ammunition and help at once. Don't delay a moment. We have a report that some white men were killed yesterday on the Sahnon river. Yon can not imagine the people in a worse condition than they are here. Mr. West has volunteered to go to Lapwai; rely on his statements.
"L. P. BROWN."
Howard promptly dispatched Colonel Perry, with 90 cavalrymen. to the scene of the uprising.
Richard Devine a retired English sailor living alone on a ranch on the Salmon river was the first victim, it is thought of the Nez Perce uprising. Some pioneers hold that the first sacrifice was made on John Day creek, six or seven miles from the Devine ranch. Devine possessed a fine new rifle, coveting which three Indian youths, the oldest not more than 21. fell suddenly upon their victim on the evening of June 13. These Indians went the following day to the Elfers ranch and massa- cred I1. Elfers, Henry Beckroge and R. S. Bland, who were working in a hay field. They next went to the Elfers house and seized a rifle, but made no effort to molest Mrs. Elfers.
Passing down the Salmon, they shot and wounded Samuel Benedict near the month of White Bird creek. That afternoon they returned to the Indian rendez- vons at the head of Rocky canyon, reported their bloody deeds, and exclaimed, gleefully, "Now you have to fight!" Here they were joined by twelve or fifteen recruits, and led by Mox-Mox (Yellow Bull) returned immediately to the Salmon. and attacked a party of refugees who were on their way to seek cover in the stone cellar of James Baker. Mrs. Manuel and her baby were mounted on one horse, Mr. Manuel and his seven-year-old daughter Maggie were on another. and Baker rode a third. Mrs. Manuel's father, George Popham, and Patrick Price remained at the Manuel place, hidden in the brush. The hostiles fired on this party, wounding Manuel and his daughter, who fell from their horse. Mrs. Manuel and the baby fell from their plunging mount, and Baker was mortally wounded by arrows.
Mrs. Manuel and her baby were taken back to the house by the Indians and promised immunity if she would deliver up a riffe and ammunition. Acquiring these the band rode off. and Price and Popham came out from their thicket and learned
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from Mrs. Manuel that her husband and little daughter had been wounded and had crawled into the brush. Popham brought the little girl into the house, but as Manuel was wounded and could not walk, blankets, food and water were carried to him.
Another band came to this house the next afternoon, and one of them drove a knife into Mrs. Manuel's breast. The last words of the dying mother, twice re- peated, were "Don't kill my children."
"After this," said Maggie, in a signed statement made at Grangeville April 1, 1903, "the Indians took me to an adjoining room and shut me in. Of course I cried, and one of the White Bird Indians slapped me. Being sick and exhausted, I fell asleep, and didn't wake up until nearly dark. Then I went into the other room where mother had been killed. I was barefooted, and even now I can reeall the hor- rible feeling that came over me as the blood oozed between my toes. The body was naked and lying in a pool of her life blood. At her head lay baby Johnnie, also dead."
That night the little girl and Price lay in the brush, but were attacked by Indians at daylight. Baring his breast, Price resolved on a bold ruse. Advancing into the open, he showed the Indians a cross tattooed upon his skin, and proposed that if they would permit him to take the child to Mt. Idaho, he would return and surrender to them, and to this strange offer the Indians assented.
"After we had gone into the house and seen mother's and baby's bodies," con- tinues this narrative, "we left for Camas prairie. I was barefooted and in my night elothes. We traveled all day, Mr. Price carrying me a part of the way, and stayed that night at Harris' place near the head of Rocky canyon. There Mr. Price made me a chair, fashioned out of a dry-goods box. With a rope he fastened it on his back. At this place he found an old white shirt and put it on me. During all this time, and until I reached Mt. Idaho, my left arm, which had been broken in the fall from the horse, hung limp by my side, the old people in the excitement not even fixing me a sling. In this box chair I rode into Mt. Idaho, reaching there about noon.
"The day we left the house the Indians burned it, together with the bodies of mother and baby. From his place of concealment in the brush grandfather wit- nessed the destruction of the buildings. Father remained in the brush and small ontbuildings on the ranch for thirteen days, living on berries and vegetables from the little garden. After suffering for five days from the arrow in his neck, he cut it out with his knife and dressed the wound, using horseradish leaves and cold water from the creek. His hip wounds had crippled him so seriously that he could not travel. The soldiers found him and brought him to Mt. Idaho, where he eventually recovered. Grandfather came into Mt. Idaho several days after Mr. Price and I arrived."
The hand that first attacked the Manuels found Benedict (previously wounded) in his store and saloon, with August Bacon and killed them. After the war they said they offered Bacon his life if he would leave Benediet and come out, but he refused to desert his wounded comrade.
Meanwhile scenes more tragic yet, more horrible than death. were unfolding among the feeble and scattered settlements on Camas prairie. Warned by the menacing demeanor of the Indians, settlers far and wide hastened towards Mount Idaho, and by nightfall of the 14th nearly all had gained that place of refuge.
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Warned by Lew Day of the imminent peril that beset them, the people at Cotton- wood house, conducted by B. B. Norton, made hasty preparations to flee. and a party including Norton. his wife and son Hill, Miss Linn Bowers, John Chamber- lain, wife and two children, and Joseph Moore, started by wagon and saddle about 10 o'clock at night. When ten miles upon their way, a band of Indians attacked them in the rear, firing and yelling like demons. Almost instantly the horses ridden by Norton and Moore were down, but the men escaped to the wagon, and the wild race was renewed. Presently the team was shot, and instantly the savages were upon the terrified fugitives. Miss Bowers and little Hill Norton slipped away under cover of darkness and escaped unharmed to Mount Idaho. Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain and their two children made a like effort, but were discovered, and Chamberlain and the boy were killed before the horrified eyes of the frantic mother, and the other child torn from her arms, stabbed in the neck and a part of its tongue eut out. Lew Wilmot, now a resident of Keller, Wash., a member of a rescue party that went out the following day and gathered up the wounded and the dead, informed the writer of this volume that when his party came upon the mutilated child strong men broke into curses while tears coursed down their checks. Mrs. Chamberlain was tortured and subjected to outrages more terrible than death.
"Norton, Day, Moore and Mrs. Norton had remained near the wagon," says a writer in a local history of North Idaho. "Norton was shot just after he sprang from the wagon, and Mrs. Norton as she stood on a wheel, but she crawled out and sought refuge behind the dead horses. The bullet which struck Norton severed an artery and resulted in his death fifteen minutes later. Moore was shot through both hips; Day received two bullets in the shoulders and one through the leg; and Mrs. Norton was wounded in both lower limbs. At daylight. for some unaccount- able reason, the Indians withdrew.
"Meanwhile Miss Bowers and the little Norton boy had become separated in their flight for life. but both managed to keep on the right course. The child was picked up about daylight. four miles northwest of Mount Idaho. by F. A. Fenn, who was scouting. Mr. Fenn took the boy on his horse to Crook's ranch (now Grange- ville) where a general alarm was given. Miss Bowers was found about nine o'clock by J. A. Bowers, about two miles north of Mount Idaho, and taken to that town.
"At the Crook's ranch a party consisting of Frank A. Fenn, C. L. Rice and James Atkinson set out for the scene of the encounter. About three miles north- west of Grangeville they found the wagon, and to it Rice and Fenn hitched their saddle horses, Mrs. Norton was placed in the wagon, when the redskins suddenly appeared on a nearby hill. At once Fenn and Rice mounted the horses, and the party commeneed another race for life. Fortunately a second and larger party came to their relief and the Indians drew off. Peter Ready, Lew Wilmot, E. W. Robic. Mac Williams and others went out later the same day and picked up Mrs. Chamber- lain and others, living and dead. Mr. Chamberlain's body was found about a quarter of a mile from the wagon. His two children, one of whom was also dead. were lying in his arms. Half a mile away Mrs. Chamberlain was picked up. All were placed in the wagon and brought to Mt. Idaho, where every attention was given them. Day died the following afternoon, and six weeks later Moore succumbed. but Mrs. Norton, Mrs. Chamberlain and the child eventually recovered."
Attempts to hold accountable the Nez Perees as a tribe for these and other
CIFFER JOSEPH
SKETCHED BY HOMER DAVENPORT
ARY
BILDEN FOUNDATIONS
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atrocities of the war arc unwarranted and unjust. They were perpetrated by two or three small bands, made up of lawless and desperate spirits who had gone entirely beyond all responsible control. Had Joseph and his warriors been so disposed, they could easily have inflicted a general massacre, for the settlers were poorly armed and incapable of serious resistance.
Chief Joseph himself has been aceused of personally participating in some of these atrocities. Mrs. Maggie Bowman, whose mother, Mrs. Manuel, was stabbed to death by an Indian before her then childish eyes, has asserted that Joseph committed the shocking deed. "Joseph was dressed as a chief and told us that he was chief Joseph. The Indians ealled him Joseph and I am positive that it was he." But Maggie was then a child of seven, and this statement is a recollection made twenty-six years after. That Joseph, burdened with the exacting cares of leadership and the multitude of details involved in his preparation for war, should have abandoned the council tent and gone off on a foray of this character, must strike the reader as the very height of improbability. Joseph well knew that his bold step would bring the army upon his trail; that he would have soldiers to fight; and all his thought and all his activities, by night and by day, were centered then on prepara- tions for that serions work.
The scope of this history will not permit an extended review of the Nez Perce war. Briefly it may be said that Captain Perry's troop of cavalry, hurriedly sent from Lapwai by General Howard, came upon the savages in force at White Bird ereek and suffered a disastrous repulse, leaving more than thirty per cent of his little command of 110 men dead upon the field. Joseph then made a number of skilful maneuvers, evading the pursuing troops, and escaped up the Clearwater. On that stream he fought a successful battle, and took to the Lolo trail. Crossing into Montana, he encountered a force under General Gibbon, which he repulsed on Ruby creek, and after swinging back into the Lemhi valley of Idaho, struck aeross into Wyoming and the Yellowstone park region, all the while impeded by women, children and camp impedimenta.
Six companies of the Seventh cavalry and five of the Fifth were now hot in pursuit, but after several skirmishes he eluded them all. and crossed the Yellow- stone on September 10 and headed for the Canadian boundary. General Miles, who had been on the lower Yellowstone, hastened north to intercept him, and on September 30 began an attack at Bear Paw mountain. Five days later Joseph surrendered. He and his band were deported to Indian territory, but after seven years, reduced by disease from 150 to 280, they were returned to the north and placed on the Colville reservation.
In this fierce running campaign Howard's forees marched nearly 1,500 miles; the United States lost 105 officers and men killed and 120 wounded ; thirteen volun- teers were killed and fifty settlers massacred.
Throughout the Salmon river region and around Camas prairie, pioncers still cherish deep hatred for Chief Joseph. Many of them resent the suggestion that hic was endowed with admirable or heroic qualities. They regard him as a treach- erous. bloodthirsty savage, and contend that his campaign was characterized by cowardice, and make up of ambuscades and sneaking retreats before forces numeri- cally no stronger than his own. But Howard, Miles and other army officers dis- sent from this harsh judgment, and credit Joseph with remarkable military ability.
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