Coyote Warrior

by Paul Van Develder

  37 After completing a three-year round-trip to Japan: Each of the native salmon stocks makes its own journey. Some spend a full year in the river before heading for the ocean, where they will spend as many as six years growing to full size before returning to their stream of origin.

  37 Millions of dollars and decades later, marine biologists: By 2003, two decades on salmon restoration had cost more than $3.5 billion. Annually, the BPA spends $12 million on rearing Redfish Lake sockeye, only to see fewer than a dozen return to the Sawtooth Mountains. Wendy Wilson, founder of Idaho Rivers, calculates that every sockeye returning to Redfish Lake costs American taxpayers and electricity rate payers more than $1 million. Also see Barcott, “Blow Up.”

  37 But as soon as the Army Corps of Engineers: Ice Harbor, 1962; Lower Monumental, 1969; Little Goose, 1970; Lower Granite, 1975. Salmonid populations in the Snake River drainage “crashed” dramatically when Lower Granite was completed. The trip that once took salmon four days from lake to ocean now took five to six weeks. Each dam accounted for 8 percent mortality of the descending smolts. A 2 percent return is needed to maintain existing populations, a figure that has not been reached since the Snake River dams were built.

  37 The Snake was also the main corridor: Marine biologist Scott Bosse testified before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on September 14, 2000: “While most tributary habitat in the Columbia has been severely degraded by logging, mining, grazing, urbanization, and agricultural development, the Snake River stocks still have available to them nearly four thousand miles of prime spawning and rearing habitat . . . capable of producing millions of wild smolts.” Bosse told the panel that with five dams in the way, the fish have no access to their prime spawning ground.

  37 The moment these stocks: Most of the treaties affected by this declaration were negotiated in 1855 by future Washington governor Isaac Stevens, who spent two years in the region negotiating treaties with dozens of tribes. Most recently, these treaties came into play in the famous Boldt Decision in 1974. Boldt awarded West Coast tribes 50 percent of the catch of all native salmon stocks, from northern California rivers to Puget Sound. The ruling has weathered many challenges.

  38 This supremacy clause, relating specifically to treaties: The supremacy clause was brought to the floor of the Constitutional Convention on June 1, 1787, by James Madison and Benjamin Franklin. This principle, which would eventually be built into Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, was a subtle way of finessing the states’ rights position being advanced by Patrick Henry of Virginia, who wanted nothing to do with a central government. The supremacy clause accorded to the central government the exclusive right to make treaties, a power that indirectly suborned the states’ rights argument calling for “equal footing” with the federal government. Ketcham, James Madison, pp. 196- 206.

  39 By September 2002, seventy thousand young Indians: Boyer, Tribal Colleges.

  40 Barring a dramatic and unforeseeable turnabout: From biologist Scott Bosse’s testimony in the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works: Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, and Water. On September 14, 2000, Bosse told senators that the National Marine and Fisheries Service extinction models showed several of the endangered stocks going extinct by 2017.

  40 Author David James Duncan: Duncan, “Salmon’s Second Coming,” p. 39.

  42 this case, now a textbook study in water law: United States v. Adair, 478 Fed. Supp. 336, and United States v. Adair II, 723 Fed. 2nd 1394.

  42 Their challenge proved: United States v. Adair [also known as Adair II], Fed. Supp. 2nd 1273.

  42 formally terminated by the U.S. Congress: An excellent overview of the Termination Era is included in Josephy, Now That the Buffalo’s Gone, and Tyler, A History of Indian Policy, pp. 172- 181.

  45 In 1800, the young republic had grown to sixteen states: Carruth, The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates.

  45 In Adams’s view, the Marshall nomination: Henry, The Lives and Times of the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court, pp. 404- 407. The praise for Marshall in his own time, and since, is perhaps without equal among the nation’s founders.

  45 The great lawyer and orator: Ibid., p. 410. Marshall’s biographer and future Supreme Court associate justice Joseph Storey wrote:

  If we except Washington, it may be safely asserted that no American citizen, either in public or private life, has been so universally beloved and esteemed. He occupied the post of chief justice during the long period of thirty-four years, and thirty-two volumes of reports, in which his decisions are collected and preserved, attest the extent, variety, and importance of his labors. In all coming time, the student of international and constitutional jurisprudence will there discover that intellectual power, that depth of investigation, and wisdom of decision . . . a mind which no sophistry or subtlety could mislead; a firmness that nothing could shake, untiring patience, and spotless integrity (Ibid., p. 411).

  46 To the end of his life: Thayer, John Marshall, pp. 151- 155.

  48 this was the same “natural law” justification: Williams, The American Indian in Western Legal Thought, pp. 315- 317. Williams explains that “The Doctrine of Discovery assumed that the European discoverer would eventually establish its feudal prerogative rights of conquest over the infidel-held lands, either by wars of expulsion or by treaties of cession contracting the limits of the tribes” (p. 315). This meant that within the body of federal Indian policy, “the primordial mythic icon of Europe’s medieval, feudal past, had been preserved and brought to readability in a modern form that spoke with reassuring continuity to a nation that was about to embark on its own colonizing crusade against the American Indians. . . .” (p. 317). By incorporating the Doctrine of Discovery into foundational law, Williams concludes that the chief justice inadvertently “ensured that future acts of genocide would proceed on a rationalized, legal basis” (p. 317.)

  48 on the native people of North America: Each academic inquiry into this subject contributes important information to the story of the decline of the native populations in the Americas. Dobyns, in Their Number Become Thinned, speculated that the native population in the western hemisphere reached 100 million by the time Columbus landed in the Bahamas. Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution have documented ninety-three widespread epidemics among native peoples in the post-Columbian Americas. Smallpox is believed to have come ashore in the Americas in 1519, carried by a sailor in the Cortés expedition. See Verano and Ubelaker, Disease and Demography in the Americas.

  48 Law of Nations: Modern legal scholars credit the seventeenth-century Swiss jurist Emmerich de Vattel as the first to codify international law. By then, the earlier work of the Spanish scholastics, notably Victoria and Suarez, and Elizabethan-era lawyers had formalized discovery-era laws governing nations.

  48 In 1776, John Adams commented: Williams, The American Indian in Western Legal Thought, p. 290.

  49 In his examination of Revolutionary War-era: Ibid., p. 288.

  51 The American people, wrote William Gilpin: Reisner, Cadillac Desert, pp. 39- 41.

  51 “So long as a tribe exists and remains”: Prucha, American Indian Treaties, pp. 165- 166. Attorney General Wirt’s uncompromising counsel to Congress on the constitutionally derived power of Indian treaties is a landmark in the history of American federalism.

  52 Fitzpatrick’s wagon tracks: There are numerous accounts of Fitzpatrick’s contributions to the “opening” of the West to white settlement. Hafen, Broken Hand. Also see Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest.

  52 When gold was discovered: Authoritative accounts of James Marshall’s discovery of gold at the sawmill that he and his compatriots had built for Mr. Sutter on the American River fill entire shelves in libraries. Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest, p. 105.

  52 a region of prairie and plains: Webb, “The American West,” pp. 25- 31.

  53 The second era of treaty making: Prucha, American Indian Treaties, p. 236.

  54 “If you can find one man in Washin
gton”: Miller, From the Heart, p. 243.

  55 As long as Congress secured: Brown, Letters to the Missouri Republican. Not long after Mitchell’s wagon train departed St. Joseph, Missouri, his secretary and future governor of the state B. Gratz Brown made an entry in his journal that bordered on clairvoyance:

  Even now, along her whole southern boundary, [the Missouri River] is a pent-up crowd, impatiently awaiting the action of the United States government to let them pass the barrier of the state line into the territory of Nebraska, now occupied by a large number of Indians. How long the restraint of law and the guardianship of the general government may be able to keep the whites from the occupancy of these lands, remains to be seen. It cannot be long . . . and with it will arise questions of deep import, both of policy and humanity, as to the rights and disposition of the Indians now occupying these lands (Ibid., p. 3).

  55 With visions of white women’s scalps dangling: Wischmann, Frontier Diplomats, p. 191.

  55 Fortunately for David Mitchell: Margaret, Father DeSmet, pp. 225- 228. In his dispatch of September 26, 1951, Brown writes of Fitzpatrick:

  He is a real mountain man, and adapts himself completely to the habits and mode of life of the Indians. I have seen no man in the country who seems to have so entirely and implicitly the confidence of the various tribes. What he says passes for law with them, and even where they may not agree with him, they respect him and pay great deference to his opinion.

  56 DeSmet had recently returned to the city: Ibid., pp. 20- 24.

  CHAPTER III: MIRACLE AT HORSE CREEK

  Interviews: Mike Cross, Susan Dingle, Marilyn Hudson, Luther Grinnell.

  57 two weeks into the voyage: Wischmann, Frontier Diplomats, pp. 188- 190, and Margaret, Father DeSmet, pp. 232- 236. Helene Margaret’s account is written like a travelogue, compiled from DeSmet’s journals and a variety of other contemporary sources.

  58 word of the cholera:Brown, Letters to the Missouri Republican. A dispatch printed by the Missouri Republican newspaper on October 14 begins: “We regret to learn that the cholera is again raging among some tribes of the Rocky Mountain Indians . . . to wit: Fort Berthold and Fort Clark, the former situated about two hundred and twenty-five miles, and the latter about three hundred miles, below the mouth of the Yellowstone” (Ibid., p. 29).

  58 By 1851, the Mandan: Meyer, The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri, pp. 101- 104.

  58 leaders such as Cherry Necklace: By the midpoint of the nineteenth century, the Village Indians had learned bitter lessons resulting from their associations with whites. Their societies had suffered great losses, while the more bellicose Sioux and Cheyenne seemed to flourish around them. Ibid., pp. 105- 106.

  58 Though the origin: Chardon, Chardon’s Journal at Fort Clark, pp. xiv- xlvi.

  58 On July 14, the white trader: Ibid., p. 121.

  59 “killed her two children, one a fine boy of eight”: Ibid., p. 133.

  59 “My youngest son died today”: Ibid., p. 137.

  59 the epidemic of 1837: Meyer, The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri, pp. 94- 97. Fearing that a new outbreak of the pox would devastate the western tribes, William Clark sent a doctor up the Missouri to inoculate as many Indians as he could find. Clark’s humanitarian act was quickly undone by Congress’ refusal to appropriate the funds necessary to accomplish the task. The doctor ran out of inoculations before he reached the tribes of the Middle and Upper Missouri.

  59 claimed half a million Indian lives: Ibid., pp. 97- 98. Though Chardon’s account of the 1837 epidemic at the Mandan Villages is the only eyewitness record known to exist, enough traders and trappers were working in remote western settlements at the time to piece together a larger picture of how this epidemic struck the western tribes. Fragments have filtered down through the diaries of traders, such as that of Alexander Culbertson and James Audubon, and that of artist George Catlin.

  59 A previous outbreak, in 1781: Schlesier, Plains Indians. Most information about the first epidemic of smallpox is anecdotal and derived from the stories that accumulated around the adventures of early explorers such as David Thompson, McKay, and others. Professor W. Raymond Wood believes the scourge broke out among southwestern tribes in 1780 and traveled north to the Mandan Villages with a party of Comanche in 1781. The following summer, in 1782, it swept through Canada.

  None of the deadly European diseases, such as bubonic plague, smallpox, measles, influenza, diphtheria, scarlet fever, typhus, malaria, and cholera, had existed on the North American continent prior to the age of discovery. Disease swirled around the Spaniards wherever they went. By the time La Salle laid claim to the territory of Louisiana in the 1650s, much of the continent had been swept clear of inhabitants by diseases that ran before them.

  60 “We get no help at all”: Meyer, The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri, pp.105- 106.

  60 Culbertson translated: Wischmann, Frontier Diplomats, pp. 192- 194.

  60 After a journey of eight hundred miles: Ibid., pp. 194- 195.

  61 Mitchell’s promise: Ibid., pp. 191- 192.

  61 Fifty thousand Indian ponies ranged loose: Hill, “The Great Indian Treaty Council of 1851,” pp. 90- 95. Hill provides a richly detailed description of the scene at Fort Laramie when Mitchell arrived. The actual number of horses present was an estimate, though likely an accurate one. When traveling, tribes of the West always made a great show of their horses, which were their most prized form of personal wealth. A nomadic band of a thousand Sioux or Cheyenne would often have six to seven thousand horses. A herd of fifty thousand would have quickly reduced to dust the grassland surrounding the fort.

  63 news awaited them that the Apache: Wischmann, Frontier Diplomats, p. 196.

  63 both had identified: Brown, Letters to the Missouri Republican, and Wischmann, Frontier Diplomats, pp. 195- 196. Brown makes numerous references to the Crow in his dispatches while en route to Fort Laramie. When Mitchell first hears of the cholera outbreak, he begins preparing himself for the fact that the Crow and other tribes in the North and West will not make the trip.

  63 surrounded on every side by fierce enemies: For an excellent oral history of the Crow, as told to Frank Linderman by the Crow’s last hereditary chief, Plenty Coups, see Linderman, American.

  63 The council’s secretary: Hill, “The Great Indian Treaty Council of 1851,” p. 90.

  63 “the cannon gave forth its thunder”: Brown, Letters to the Missouri Republican, p. 36.

  64 As he surveyed the faces: Margaret, Father DeSmet, p.235.

  64 “For quietness, decorum”: Brown, Letters to the Missouri Republican, p. 36. In his dispatch to the Missouri Republican newspaper printed on October 24, 1851, Brown describes a remarkable scene that took place shortly after the council convened. A Shoshone woman entered the circle, leading a horse with a boy on its back. She approached a Cheyenne chief who had killed her husband in battle years earlier, and now presented the boy to the Cheyenne chief as his new son. By Indian custom, it now fell to him to raise the boy as though he were his own. After this delay, the treaty proceedings resumed.

  64 “The Great Spirit sees it all and knows it all”: Ibid., pp. 39- 43.

  65 “I am glad we have all smoked together like brothers”: Ibid.

  65 “I have heard you were coming”: Ibid.

  66 “The ears of my people have not been on the ground”: Ibid.

  66 Shortly before noon on September 11: Ibid., p. 55.

  67 “The Crow were all mounted and their horses”: Ibid., pp. 49- 50. When the artist George Catlin traveled in this country in the 1830s, he, like B. Gratz Brown, noted that the Crow were the most “resplendent horsemen on the plains,” a reputation they maintain to this day.

  67 “The White Father does not understand”: Ibid., p. 50.

  67 “We have moved around”: Ibid., p. 51.

  68 “I thank the Great Spirit”: Ibid., p. 56. The Crow’s spokesman, Big Robber, told the commissioners that he was a stand-in for the tribe’s next chief, who was then
only a boy. He was referring to Plenty Coups, who was only eight at the time of the Treaty of Horse Creek. The boy would grow up to be the last hereditary chief of the Crow people and would live well into the twentieth century.

  68 “Father,” he began, “we live a great way off”: Ibid.

  69 “Tomorrow begins the most important task”: Ibid.

  69 “There is no man living so extensively and correctly”: Ibid., p. 57.

  70 After devising a new strategy over lunch: Wischmann, Frontier Diplomats, pp. 204- 206.

  71 The text of the final agreement: Prucha, American Indian Treaties, pp. 238- 239.

  72 Since they were now living as one tribal people: Brown, Letters to the Missouri Republican, p. 65.

  72 After the official treaty signing concluded: Eighteen handwritten copies of the treaty were made. One returned to Like-a-Fishhook with Four Bears. Four Bears was killed by a Sioux raiding party in 1861, when he was swimming in the river, undefended and unarmed.

  72 “Glad or satisfied, but always so quiet”: Wischmann, Frontier Diplomats, p. 208.

  73 Less than two years later, it would: Prucha, American Indian Treaties, pp. 239- 240.

  73 Tribal leaders expressed bitter resignation: Meyer, The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri, pp. 108- 110. Wischmann makes a very interesting observation regarding Culbertson’s postconference change of heart, noting that he came around to sharing DeSmet’s preconference reservations: “What will become of the aborigines, who have possessed this land from time immemorial? This is indeed a thorny question awakening gloomy ideas in the observer’s mind, if he has followed the encroaching policy of the States in regard to the Indians.” Killoren, Come Blackrobe, pp. 179- 193.

  74 While Fitzpatrick was circulating the revised treaty: Prucha, American Indian Treaties, pp. 239- 240. Also, a rare account of the treaty council can be found in Hafen, Broken Hand, pp. 281- 301.