Saga of Chief Joseph

by Helen Addison Howard

  In December a company of Oregon volunteers held Chief Peu-peu-mox-mox of the Walla Wallas, and six of his warriors as hostages when they approached the militia under a flag of truce. A few days later the volunteers were attacked in the Walla Walla Valley, the prisoners tried to escape, and all were killed by the guard. There followed several days of skirmishing, which became known as the battle of Frenchtown.

  Governor Stevens returned from Montana in December after making treaties with the tribes in that area, and immediately raised two small regiments of state militia. Sixty-nine Nez Perces were organized as riflemen under Spotted Eagle as captain, while thirty others acted as horse guards. They supplied their own mounts and equipment. At first Stevens suspected Looking Glass of being hostile, but the old chief, on learning that Lawyer and his followers would remain friendly to the whites, apparently had a change of heart and threw in his lot with his people. The governor planned to wage a vigorous campaign against the disaffected Indians, but his efforts were hampered by the intense cold. He was forced to return to Olympia, after disbanding his Nez Perce auxiliaries.

  A few sharp skirmishes occurred at the Cascades in Oregon in March of 1856. The arrival of regulars under Lieutenant Phil Sheridan dispersed the siege of the blockhouses. He managed to arrest thirteen Cascade Indians, but their Yakima allies escaped. After a military trial, Colonel George Wright had nine of them hanged. The colonel then set out on an expedition into the Yakima country, but instead of fighting he parleyed with the chiefs for peace. An armed truce resulted.

  There is no evidence that Tu-eka-kas shared Looking Glass’s open hostility toward Governor Stevens, although he did repent of having signed the treaty. Distrustful and dissatisfied, he yet remained strictly neutral toward the Americans during the war, and gave aid neither to the Indians nor to the whites.1

  His policy of neutrality may have been induced in part by the outcome of the battle that took place in the Grande Ronde Valley on July 17. Lieutenant Colonel Shaw’s volunteer force, assisted by William Craig, the agent from Lapwai, and sixty Nez Perces under Spotted Eagle, defeated the hostile Cayuses and Walla Wallas with disastrous loss. This decisive victory of the Americans quelled for a time further outbreaks from the Yakimas, Spokanes, and Coeur d’Alenes. There were other Nez Perces besides Tu-eka-kas who seem to have been wavering in allegiance; but this Indian defeat convinced them of the wisdom of a neutral policy.

  The warring tribes had been receiving aid from an unexpected quarter, for the Mormons of Utah abetted the uprising. One of the volunteer officers discovered muskets and balls with Mormon brands on them among the hostiles. A. J. Splawn states that a member of the Bannock tribe who visited Kamiakin’s camp claimed he had been sent by the Mormons “to arouse the Indians against the whites. . . . He said they wanted the Indians to kill all the whites in their land, and that they would furnish arms and ammunition.”2

  Corroboration of this statement is found in the Report to the Secretary of War for 1858–59.3 The Mormons, according to this source, promised to furnish arms, ammunition, and civilian troops to the Nez Perces and Columbia River tribes, if the Indians would join them in a war of extermination against the territorial citizens. The negotiations were carried on secretly, the settlers little realizing how completely their fate hinged on the action of the Nez Perces.

  Fortunately, Lawyer and Tu-eka-kas and the majority of the chiefs decided upon a peaceful policy, realizing that a war against the United States would be long, bloody—and futile. Besides, the Americans living around Lapwai instructed the Indians in agriculture, engaged in the mutually profitable fur trade, or taught them “spirit law,” all of which redounded to their benefit. Lawyer was astute enough to realize, too, that, if the government should keep its word concerning the treaty, the Nez Perces would reap the harvest of schools, mills, and annuities.

  The Mormons, unsuccessful in their attempts to arouse the Nez Perces, well understood that the refusal of this nation, the most powerful in the Northwest, to join the proposed alliance would render the Mormon-Indian entente abortive. They therefore finally withdrew their proffered support and confined their activities to Utah and southern Idaho.

  To prevent the Yakimas from stirring up a general uprising, Stevens established Fort Walla Walla with Lieutenant Colonel Steptoe in command. By July of 1856 there were eighteen hundred regular troops in Washington and Oregon. The governor then called another council with the Nez Perces, and invited the chiefs of hostile tribes to attend in an effort to “confirm the friendship of the Nez Perces and restrain the doubtful and wavering from active hostility.”4 This conference has become known as the second Walla Walla council. Steptoe, with four companies from the new post, acted as an escort to Stevens on this occasion.

  The council opened on September 11, 1856, although the Yakima chiefs refused to attend, as did the Spokane chiefs and Looking Glass of the Nez Perces. Many other Nez Perces, however, including Tu-eka-kas, and the Cayuses and Walla Wallas were present. Kamiakin’s band bivouacked on the fringe of the encampment and proved a constant menace. The meetings continued until September 17, although the whites daily feared an attack. This was no doubt prevented by the faithful Nez Perces who closely guarded the governor’s party, as Steptoe’s troops were encamped several miles away. At this council Tu-eka-kas and other chiefs denied that they had understood the treaty of the year before, and they asked for it to be annulled. But the governor would not heed their pleas.

  Stevens could make no headway toward peace as all the Indians, except one half of the Nez Perces, remained intractable. Thus the council failed of its purpose, partly owing to the propaganda of Kamiakin, who had spread the idea that the government did not have sufficient military power to whip the Indians.

  After the governor’s party departed for The Dalles, they had a brush with the hostiles in which some of the young Nez Perce braves participated. The Indians also attacked Steptoe’s command, burning the grass and leaving the dragoon horses without fodder. When the two forces reunited, the hostiles were driven off. Losses on both sides were slight. Following Stevens’ attempts at a peaceful solution of the Indian troubles, General Wool, through Lieutenant Colonel Steptoe, issued a proclamation closing the Walla Walla Valley to white settlement. The order remained in effect for two years.

  The Indian rebellion was not completely suppressed until 1858, partly because of the lack of cooperation of General Wool, the Commander of the Department of the Pacific, who seems to have borne an old grudge against Governor Stevens. In the autumn of that year, Colonel George Wright set out from Fort Walla Walla on a punitive expedition after Steptoe’s command had been cut to pieces north of there on the Snake River by a force of Yakimas and their allies. The harsh measures of Wright’s campaign in the Spokane country against the Indians who had become sullen and defiant, brought about peace before the year was out.

  In order to retain the friendship of the Nez Perces, Colonel Wright, with the approval of General N. S. Clarke, negotiated an offensive-defensive alliance in 1858 with minor chiefs. It guaranteed mutual support to both parties in case either was attacked by hostile Indians. The agreement provided, furthermore, that the army would supply arms and ammunition in return for the services of warriors, and if any trouble arose between the allies, they would resort to arbitration.5 The names of Tu-eka-kas and Looking Glass are missing from the list of thirty-eight signatories, which does not necessarily mean that they opposed the alliance, although they may not have favored taking sides.

  A company of thirty Nez Perces was organized by Lawyer and placed in charge of Lieutenant Mullan. The warriors were outfitted in regulation blue uniforms, complete to the last detail, to distinguish them from the hostiles. They rendered invaluable service to Colonel Wright on his campaign.

  Largely because of the personal animosity between General Wool and Governor Stevens, the Indian treaties of 1855 were not ratified for four years. Wool held a long and an honorable service record, although he was finally relieved of his Pacific p
ost on charges of incompetency. “When a man with such a record,” Dr. Meany comments, “took up the cudgels against Governor Stevens and his Indian treaties, it is not surprising that a majority of the U.S. Senate hesitated a long time before consenting to the ratification of those treaties.”6

  The delayed ratification produced a harmful effect on the Indian signatories. It even led to a breach between one faction of the Nez Perces and the government. Their dissatisfaction, growing out of their distrust of the treaty provisions, was intensified by the Senate’s reluctance to ratify the agreement. The methods of a government that commissioned an official to make a treaty, and then refused to honor his promises, aroused suspicion in the minds of the Indians. They suspected a weakness in the government’s power to enforce the treaty provisions. Then the inrush of miners to Colville strengthened their fears that the whites really intended to steal the tribal lands. Their fears proved well founded when gold was discovered on the Nez Perce Reservation in 1860.

  One of the wives of Chief Tu-eka-kas was a Cayuse. Naturally, his relationship with that tribe caused him to share their doubts of the white men. The contradictory statements made by military and civil officials to the Nez Perces added to his confusion of mind. In May, 1857, J. Ross Browne, a special agent of the Treasury Department, was sent by the Indian Bureau to investigate the causes of the war in Oregon and Washington. He told Lawyer that the Treaty of 1855 would be ratified by the Senate. But Lieutenant Colonel Steptoe and other army officers informed their Indian friends that they had no way of knowing whether the treaty would ever be signed.7

  Browne’s statement was in contradiction to the specific instructions of James W. Nesmith, who had been appointed Indian superintendent for Oregon and Washington in 1857. Nesmith ordered the agents to impress upon the Indians that treaties negotiated with them in 1855 would be void and inoperative until the Senate should act favorably and the President proclaim the action.8 At the same time he recommended that Congress ratify the treaties without further delay.

  Young Joseph’s later criticism of the government illustrates the Indians’ attitude toward the ambiguities existing under a bureaucratic form of government:

  The white people have too many chiefs. They do not understand each other. They do not all talk alike. . . . I can not understand why so many chiefs are allowed to talk so many different ways, and promise so many different things.9

  Governor Stevens’ constant prodding finally moved the Senate to ratify the 1855 treaties on March 8, 1859. When, on April 29, President James Buchanan proclaimed their ratification, several things were established: The title of the tribes to their ancestral country was confirmed; certain specified lands were to be bought for definite sums by the government; and reservations were established, within the boundaries of which no settlers could live. The Wallowa Valley, beloved by Tu-eka-kas and his son, Joseph, was included in one of these reservation areas.

  The patience of the loyal Nez Perces was most remarkable and commendable during the four years between the signing and ratifying of the document. However, the damage had already been done, for the government’s procrastination had bred distrust and suspicion among a certain faction of the tribal leaders, notably Tu-eka-kas, Looking Glass, Eagle-from-the-light, Red Heart, and White Bird.

  Just prior to the ratification, Congress had admitted Oregon into the Union as a state. The Snake River marked its eastern boundary, so the lands of Tu-eka-kas were included in the new state. Because of the pending ratification of the treaty, however, jurisdiction remained jointly under the federal government and the Nez Perces, and thus completely free from Oregon authority.

  Agent A. J. Cain notified Chiefs Tu-eka-kas, Looking Glass, and White Bird of Buchanan’s proclamation at the tribal council ground on Weippe prairie in Idaho. Tu-eka-kas told the agent he was pleased that the treaty had been ratified, not for himself, but because it ensured a home for his children and their children’s children.10 The chiefs naïvely believed their homes were secure from white squatters. However, the band of Tu-eka-kas, known as the “Lower” Nez Perces, refused to accept any of the annuities sent to them after the ratification of the treaty.

  Although the Indian agent promised by the treaty was on hand to direct the Nez Perces’ welfare at Lapwai, none of the pledged annuities arrived. Only part of them came in the following year of 1860. In his report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs concerning the behavior of certain Nez Perces, Edward R. Geary, the superintendent for Oregon, accuses a faction within the tribe at Lapwai of not exhibiting cordial approval of the cession of their lands. He further complains that this faction had “evinced a spirit of insubordination and sullen opposition to the wishes of the agent, and made vigorous efforts to spread disaffection through the tribe. . . .”11 because of the long delay which attended the ratification of the treaty. Geary also adds that the degrading vice of intemperance had extended among the Indians at Lapwai, although the government expressly promised to prevent the sale of liquor to them. More concerned than the superintendent by the spread of intoxication were the chiefs, who did everything in their power to suppress this traffic in spirits.

  The lack of cordial approval by a faction of the “Upper” Nez Perces, as those on the Lapwai Reservation were known, was no doubt due to the fact that the government had not furnished the promised supplies. Besides, groups of prospectors were roaming their reserve in north Idaho. One party found large quantities of gold along Orofino Creek, a tributary of the Clearwater River. The word flashed across the Northwest, and hordes of miners rushed to the new bonanza. Five to ten thousand of them, according to estimates, had stampeded there by the fall of 1861. The eastern part of the reservation soon had more whites than the total population of the Nez Perce nation. Driven by the mad lust that knows no restraint, the miners disregarded every article of the 1855 treaty which interfered with their pursuit of treasure.

  The pleas of the Indians to the government to drive out the whites went unheeded for two years. The agent wrote: “I could fill page after page in portraying the number and nature of the outrages the Indians and their families were subjected to.”12 Indeed, he did fill several pages regarding the abuses suffered by the Nez Perces at the hands of the miners.

  B. F. Kendall, superintendent of Indian Affairs for Washington Territory, frankly stated that he was powerless to control the situation. “To attempt to restrain miners would be, to my mind, like attempting to restrain the whirlwind,”13 he admitted.

  Thus the fears of the Indians “that their country was about to be occupied by the whites without their receiving the consideration agreed upon”14 were justified. The lands reserved for tepee villages were covered by mushroom mining towns.

  Although the encroachment of miners was probably first in the list of grievances against the government, the Upper Nez Perces had many reasons to protest the administration of tribal affairs in 1860. Geary even added his complaint to that of the Indians about the supplies they received, which were “damaged in transportation. Had one half of the amount laid out in these purchases been expended in opening farms on the reservations, and the buying of stock cattle and sheep, it would have inured vastly to the benefit of the Indians.”15

  In addition, the management of reservation affairs by the Indian agent was anything but satisfactory. Superintendent Kendall’s report of 1862 concisely stated conditions:

  Not far from sixty thousand dollars have been expended by the agent heretofore in charge of this tribe [the Nez Perces], and I regret to say that the visible results of this liberal expenditure are meagre indeed.

  The buildings erected by Mr. Cain for the agency and employés were mere shells, hardly fit for human habitations, and the want of comfort displayed can only be accounted for on the ground that the agent did not make the reservation his headquarters, and consequently felt little, if any, interest in the matter.

  . . . I sought in vain to find the first foot of land fenced or broken by him or his employés; and the only product of the agricultur
al department that I could discover consisted of some three tons of oats in the straw, piled up within a rude, uncovered enclosure of rails, to raise which must have cost the government more than seven thousand dollars. Even this property was barely saved by the present agent from the hands of the departing employés, who claimed it as the result of their private labor.

  As I witnessed the withdrawal from this meagre pile of the rations for my horse, I could hardly fail to sigh to think that every movement of his jaws devoured at least a dollar’s worth of governmental bounty.16

  The promised supplies reached the long-suffering Nez Perces in 1861, but the next year they were cut off again because of the Civil War. The government’s resources were consumed in that terrific struggle to preserve the Union. The Indians demanded that the treaty obligations be fulfilled. When they learned of the great conflict, however, they realized the government’s inability to keep its promises that year.

  The deplorable mismanagement of reservation affairs at Lapwai caused Chief Tu-eka-kas and his twenty-one-year-old son, Joseph, rapidly to lose faith in the government. The old man’s distrust was justified, and he began to manifest an attitude of passive hostility toward the whites. To salve his discontent, Tu-eka-kas led his people to the plains of central Montana to hunt the buffalo. Other disaffected chiefs did the same.

  The prospects of the journey must have thrilled the heart of Young Joseph, savoring as it did of raids and battles with the Sioux, as well as the dangers of the chase.17 Preceding such an expedition, the Nez Perces never celebrated any “medicine” ceremonies.18 When all preparations of packing and food-gathering were completed, the tribe followed their ancient trail across the Bitterroot Mountains and down the Lolo Canyon. They made a leisurely trek, pausing to visit friends and relatives among the Flatheads. After they crossed the main divide of the Rocky Mountains, their route led to the Judith Basin, favored by the Nez Perces for their buffalo-hunting grounds.