SMOHALLA

About the time that the Paiute were preparing for the millennial dawn, we begin to hear of a “dreamer prophet” on the Columbia, called Smohalla, who was becoming a thorn in the flesh of the Indian agents in that quarter, and was reported to be organizing among the Indians a new religion which taught the destruction of the whites and resistance to the government, and made moral virtues of all the crimes in the catalog. One agent, in disregard of grammar if not of veracity, gravely reported that “the main object is to allow a plurality of wives, immunity from punishment for lawbreaking, and allowance of all the vices—especially drinking and gambling—are chief virtues in the believers of this religion.” (Comr., 8.)

This was bad enough, but worse was behind it. It appeared that Smohalla and his followers, numbering perhaps about 2,000 Indians of various tribes along the Columbia in eastern Washington and Oregon, had never made treaties giving up any of their lands, and consequently claimed the right to take salmon in the streams and dig kamas in the prairies of their ancestral country undisturbed and unmolested, and stoutly objected to going on any of the neighboring reservations at Yakima, Umatilla, or Warmspring. There is no doubt that justice and common sense were on the side of the Indians, for by the reports of the agents themselves it is shown that the dwellers on the reservations were generally neglected, poor, and miserable, and subjected to constant encroachments by the whites in spite of treaties and treaty lines, while at the same time that agents and superintendents were invoking the aid of the military to compel Smohalla’s followers to go on a reservation these same men were moving heaven and earth to force the Indians already on a reservation to give up their treaty rights and remove to another and less valuable location—to begin life anew under the fostering care of the government until such time as the white man should want them to move on again.

These matters are treated at length in the annual reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, with the accompanying reports of superintendents and agents in charge of the reservations concerned, from 1870 to 1875. With regard to the Umatilla reservation, to which most strenuous efforts were made to remove the “renegades,” as they were called, Agent Boyle reports in 1870 (Comr., 9) that the Indians are “dispirited ... in consequence of the oft-repeated theme that their farms are to be taken from them and given to the white settlers.” He continues, “It is hardly to be expected that the Indians can retain this reservation much longer unless the strong arm of the government protects them. Daily I am called upon to notify the white settlers that they are encroaching upon the Indian lands.” He advises their removal to a permanent reservation, “knowing as I do that they must go sooner or later.” Again, “The agency has been established for the space of ten years, and I regret exceedingly that I have been most completely disappointed with what I see about me.” In discussing the removal of the Indians to a new reservation, Superintendent Meacham says of a considerable portion of them that it “would suit them better to be turned loose to look out for themselves.” (Comr., 10.)

In 1873 Agent Cornoyer reported that the Indians numbered 837, by the census of 1870, which he believes was as correct as could then be taken, but “this number I think is now too high.” He continues:

Of the appropriation of $4,000 per annum for beneficial objects, not one single dollar of that fund has been turned over to me since September, 1871; and of the appropriation for incidental expenses of $40,000 per annum for the Indian service in this state, only $200 of that appropriation has been turned over to me during the same period of two years.... I would also beg leave to call your attention to that portion of my last annual report wherein I called the attention of the Department to the unfulfilled stipulations of the treaty of June 9, 1855, with these Indians. (Comr., 11.)

Commissioner Brunot, in 1871, stated that the estimated number of Indians coming under the provisions of the treaty at the time it was made in 1855 was 3,500, and “by the census taken in 1870 the number was 1,622”—a decrease of nearly one-half in fifteen years. Of these only about half were on the reservation, the rest being on Columbia river, “never having partaken of the benefits of the treaty.” On the next page he tells us what some of these benefits are: “Maladministration of agents, and the misapplication of funds, the failure of the government to perform the promises of the treaty, and the fact that the Indians have been constantly agitated by assertions that the government intended their removal, and that their removal was urged for several years in succession in the reports of a former agent, thus taking away from them all incentives to improve their lands.” (Comr., 12.)

In 1871 a commission was sent to Umatilla and other reservations, which gave the Indians a chance to speak for themselves. The Cayuse chief, described as a Catholic Indian, in dress, personal appearance, and bearing superior to the average American farmer, said:

This reservation is marked out for us. We see it with our eyes and our hearts. We all hold it with our bodies and our souls. Right out here are my father and mother, and brothers and sisters and children, all buried. I am guarding their graves. My friend, this reservation, this small piece of land, we look upon it as our mother, as if she were raising us. You come to ask me for my land. It is like as if we who are Indians were to be sent away and get lost.... What is the reason you white men who live near the reservation like my land and want to get it? You must not think so. My friends, you must not talk too strong about getting my land. I like my land and will not let it go.

The Wallawalla chief said:

I have tied all the reservation in my heart and it can not be loosened. It is dear as our bodies to us.

The Umatilla chief said:

Our red people were brought up here.... When my father and mother died, I was left here. They gave me rules and gave me their land to live upon. They left me to take care of them after they were buried. I was to watch over their graves. I do not wish to part with my land. I have felt tired working on my land, so tired that the sweat dropped off me on the ground. Where is all that Governor Stevens or General Palmer said [i. e., that it was to be a reservation for the Indians forever]? I am very fond of this land that is marked out for me.... Should I take only a small piece of ground and a white man sit down beside me, I fear there would be trouble all the time.

An old man said:

I am getting old now, and I want to die where my father and mother and children have died. I do not wish to leave this land and go off to some other land.... I see where I have sweat and worked in trying to get food. I love my church, my mills, my farm, the graves of my parents and children. I do not wish to leave my land. That is all my heart, and I show it to you.

A young chief said:

I have only one heart, one tongue. Although you say, Go to another country, my heart is not that way. I do not wish for any money for my land. I am here, and here is where I am going to be.... I will not part with lands, and if you come again I will say the same thing. I will not part with my lands.

The commissioner who was conducting the negotiations, after enumerating the promises made to the Indians in return for the lands which they had surrendered under the original treaty of 1855, tells how some of these promises have been fulfilled:

... A miserably inadequate supply of worn-out agricultural implements. A group of eight or ten dilapidated shanties used for the agency buildings. The physician promised has never resided upon the reservation, but lives and practices his profession at Pendleton. The hospital promised (fifteen years ago) has not yet been erected.

Of their ever-living grievance Colonel Ross, superintendent of the Washington agencies, says:

Their only troubles arise from the attempts of white men to encroach upon the reservations. A mania prevails among a certain class of citizens in this direction. I verily believe that were the snow-crowned summits of Mount Rainier set apart as an Indian reservation, white men would immediately commence jumping them. (Comr., 14.)

JOSEPH AND THE NEZ PERCÉ WAR

We first hear officially of Smohalla and his people from A. B. Meacham, superintendent of Indian affairs in Oregon, who states, in September, 1870, that—

... One serious drawback [to the adoption of the white man’s road] is the existence among the Indians of Oregon of a peculiar religion called Smokeller or Dreamers, the chief doctrine of which is that the red man is again to rule the country, and this sometimes leads to rebellion against lawful authority.

A few pages farther on we learn the nature of this rebellion:

The next largest band (not on a reservation) is Smokeller’s, at Priest rapids, Washington territory. They also refused to obey my order to come in, made to them during the month of February last, of which full report was made. I would also recommend that they be removed to Umatilla by the military. (Comr., 15.)

Three months before this report Congress had passed a bill appointing commissioners to negotiate with the tribes of Umatilla reservation “to ascertain upon what terms they would be willing to sell their lands and remove elsewhere,” and Meacham himself was the principal member of this commission. (Comr., 15.)

In 1872 Smohalla’s followers along the Columbia were reported to number 2,000, and his apostles were represented as constantly traveling from one reservation to another to win over new converts to his teachings. Repeated efforts had been made to induce them to go on the reservations in eastern Oregon and Washington, but without success. We are told now that—

They have a new and peculiar religion, by the doctrines of which they are taught that a new god is coming to their rescue; that all the Indians who have died heretofore, and who shall die hereafter, are to be resurrected; that as they will then be very numerous and powerful, they will be able to conquer the whites, recover their lands, and live as free and unrestrained as their fathers lived in olden times. Their model of a man is an Indian. They aspire to be Indians and nothing else.... It is thought by those who know them best that they can not be made to go upon their reservations without at least being intimidated by the presence of a military force. (Comr., 17.)

We hear but little more of Smohalla and his doctrines for several years, until attention was again attracted to Indian affairs in the northwest by the growing dissatisfaction which culminated in the Nez Percé war of 1877. The Nez Percés, especially those who acknowledged the leadership of Chief Joseph, were largely under the influence of the Dreamer prophets, and there was reason to believe that an uprising inaugurated by so prominent a tribe would involve all the smaller tribes in sympathy with the general Indian belief. As soon therefore as it became evident that matters were approaching a crisis, a commission, of which General O. O. Howard was chief, was appointed to make some peaceable arrangement with the so-called “renegades” on the upper Columbia. The commissioners met Smohalla and his principal men at Wallula, Washington territory, on April 23, 1877, and as a result of the council then held these non-treaty tribes, although insisting as strongly as ever on their right to live undisturbed in their own country, yet refrained from taking part in the war which broke out a few weeks later.

It is foreign to our purpose to recount the history of the Nez Percé war of 1877. As is generally the case with Indian wars, it originated in the unauthorized intrusion of lawless whites on lands which the Indians claimed as theirs by virtue of occupancy from time immemorial. The Nez Percés, whom all authorities agree in representing as a superior tribe of Indians, originally inhabited the valleys of Clearwater and Salmon rivers in Idaho, with the country extending west of Snake river into Washington and Oregon as far as the Blue mountains. They are first officially noticed in the report of the Indian Commissioner for 1843, where they are described as “noble, industrious, sensible,” and well disposed toward the whites, while “though brave as Cæsar, the whites have nothing to dread at their hands in case of their dealing out to them what they conceive to be right and equitable.” (Comr., 18.) It being deemed advisable to bring them into more direct relations with the United States, the agent who made the report called the chiefs together in this year and “assured them of the kind intentions of our government, and of the sad consequences that would ensue to any white man, from this time, who should invade their rights.” (Comr., 19.) On the strength of these fair promises a portion of the tribe, in 1855, entered into a treaty by which they ceded a large part of their territory, and were guaranteed possession of the rest. In 1860, however, gold was discovered in the country, and the usual result followed. “In defiance of law, and despite the protestations of the Indian agent, a townsite was laid off in October, 1861, on the reservation, and Lewiston, with a population of 1,200, sprung into existence.” (Comr., 20.) A new treaty was then made in 1863, by which the intruders were secured in possession of what they had thus seized, and the Nez Percés were restricted within much narrower limits. By this treaty the Wallowa valley, in northeastern Oregon, the ancestral home of that part of the tribe under the leadership of Chief Joseph, was taken from the Indians. This portion of the tribe, however, had refused to have part in the negotiations, and “Chief Joseph and his band, utterly ignoring the treaty of 1863, continued to claim the Wallowa valley, where he was tacitly permitted to roam without restraint, until the encroachments of white settlers induced the government to take some definite action respecting this band of non-treaty Nez Percés.” (Comr., 21.) At this time the tribe numbered about 2,800, of whom about 500 acknowledged Joseph as their chief.

Collisions between the whites and Indians in the valley became more frequent, and one of Joseph’s band had been killed, when a commission was appointed in 1876 to induce the Indians to give up the Wallowa valley and remove to Lapwai reservation in Idaho. Joseph still refusing to remove, the matter was turned over to General Howard. On May 3, 1877, he held the first council with Joseph and his followers at Fort Lapwai. Their ceremonial approach, which was probably in accord with the ritual teachings of the Dreamer religion, is thus described by the general:

A long rank of men, followed by women and children, with faces painted, the red paint extending back into the partings of the hair—the men’s hair braided and tied up with showy strings—ornamented in dress, in hats, in blankets with variegated colors, in leggings of buckskin and moccasins beaded and plain; women with bright shawls or blankets, and skirts to the ankle and top moccasins. All were mounted on Indian ponies as various in color as the dress of the riders. These picturesque people, after keeping us waiting long enough for effect, came in sight from up the valley from the direction of their temporary camp just above the company gardens. They drew near to the hollow square of the post and in front of the small company to be interviewed. Then they struck up their song. They were not armed except with a few tomahawk pipes that could be smoked with the peaceful tobacco or penetrate the skull bone of an enemy, at the will of the holder. Yet somehow this wild sound produced a strange effect. It made one feel glad that there were but fifty of them, and not five hundred. It was shrill and searching; sad, like a wail, and yet defiant in its close. The Indians swept around outside the fence and made the entire circuit, still keeping up the song as they rode. The buildings broke the refrain into irregular bubblings of sound until the ceremony was completed. (Howard, 1.)

At this conference Toohulhulsote, the principal Dreamer priest of Joseph’s band, acted as spokesman for the Indians, and insisted, according to the Smohalla doctrine, that the earth was his mother, that she should not be disturbed by hoe or plow, that men should subsist by the spontaneous productions of nature, and that the sovereignty of the earth could not be sold or given away. Continuing, he asserted, “We never have made any trade. Part of the Indians gave up their land. I never did. The earth is part of my body, and I never gave up the earth. So long as the earth keeps me I want to be left alone.” General Howard finally ordered him under arrest, after which the Indians at last agreed to go on a reservation by June 14. (Howard, 2.) A few days later, councils were held with Smohalla and his people, and with Moses, another noted “renegade” chief with a considerable following farther up the Columbia. Both chiefs, representing at least 500 warriors, disclaimed any hostile intentions and agreed to go on reservations. Smohalla said, “Your law is my law. I say to you, yes. I will be on a reservation by September.” (Howard, 3.) Parties under Joseph and other leading chiefs then went out to select suitable locations for reservations, Joseph and his band deciding in favor of Lapwai valley. Everything was moving smoothly toward a speedy and peaceful settlement of all difficulties, and the commission had already reported the successful accomplishment of the work, when a single act of lawless violence undid the labor of weeks and precipitated a bloody war. (Comr., 22.)

One of Joseph’s band had been murdered by whites some time before, but the Indians had remained quiet. (Comr., 23.) Now, while the Nez Percés were gathering up their stock to remove to the reservation selected, a band of white robbers attacked them, ran off the cattle, and killed one of the party in charge. Joseph could no longer restrain his warriors, and on June 13, 1877—one day before the date that had been appointed for going on the reservation—the enraged Nez Percés attacked the neighboring settlement on White Bird creek, Idaho, and killed 21 persons.[4] The war was begun. The troops under Howard were ordered out. The first fight occurred on June 17 at Hangman’s creek and resulted in the loss of 34 soldiers. Then came another on July 4 with a loss of 13 more. Then on July 12 another encounter by troops under General Howard himself, in which 11 soldiers were killed and 26 wounded. (Comr., 24.)

Then began one of the most remarkable exhibitions of generalship in the history of our Indian wars, a retreat worthy to be remembered with that of the storied ten thousand. With hardly a hundred warriors, and impeded by more than 350 helpless women and children—with General Howard behind, with Colonel (General) Miles in front, and with Colonel Sturgis and the Crow scouts coming down upon his flank—Chief Joseph led his little band up the Clearwater and across the mountains into Montana, turning at Big Hole pass long enough to beat back his pursuers with a loss of 60 men; then on by devious mountain trails southeast into Yellowstone park, where he again turned on Howard and drove him back with additional loss of men and horses; then out of Wyoming and north into Montana again, hoping to find safety on Canadian soil, until intercepted in the neighborhood of the Yellowstone by Colonel Sturgis in front with fresh troops and a detachment of Crow scouts, with whom they sustained two more encounters, this time with heavy loss of men and horses to themselves; then again eluding their pursuers, this handful of starving and worn-out warriors, now reduced to scarcely fifty able men, carrying their wounded and their helpless families, crossed the Missouri and entered the Bearpaw mountains. But new enemies were on their trail, and at last, when within 50 miles of the land of refuge, Miles, with a fresh army, cut off their retreat by a decisive blow, capturing more than half their horses, killing a number of the band, including Joseph’s brother and the noted chief Looking Glass, and wounding 40 others. (Comr., 25.)

Forced either to surrender or to abandon the helpless wounded, the women, and children, Joseph chose to surrender to Colonel Miles, on October 5, 1877, after a masterly retreat of more than a thousand miles. He claimed that this was “a conditional surrender, with a distinct promise that he should go back to Idaho in the spring.” (Comr., 26.) The statement of General Howard’s aid-de-camp is explicit on this point:

It was promised Joseph that he would be taken to Tongue river and kept there till spring, and then be returned to Idaho. General Sheridan, ignoring the promises made on the battlefield, ostensibly on account of the difficulty of getting supplies there from Fort Buford, ordered the hostiles to Leavenworth, ... but different treatment was promised them when they held rifles in their hands. (Sutherland, 1.)

Seven years passed before the promise was kept, and in the meantime the band had been reduced by disease and death in Indian Territory from about 450 to about 280.

This strong testimony to the high character of Joseph, and his people and the justice of their cause comes from the commissioner at the head of Indian affairs during and immediately after the outbreak:

I traveled with him in Kansas and the Indian Territory for nearly a week and found him to be one of the most gentlemanly and well-behaved Indians that I ever met. He is bright and intelligent, and is anxious for the welfare of his people.... The Nez Percés are very much superior to the Osages and Pawnees in the Indian Territory; they are even brighter than the Poncas, and care should be taken to place them where they will thrive.... It will be borne in mind that Joseph has never made a treaty with the United States, and that he has never surrendered to the government the lands he claimed to own in Idaho.... I had occasion in my last annual report to say that “Joseph and his followers have shown themselves to be brave men and skilled soldiers, who, with one exception, have observed the rules of civilized warfare, and have not mutilated their dead enemies.” These Indians were encroached upon by white settlers on soil they believed to be their own, and when these encroachments became intolerable they were compelled, in their own estimation, to take up arms. (Comr., 27a.)

In all our sad Indian history there is nothing to exceed in pathetic eloquence the surrender speech of the Nez Percé chief:

I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohulhulsote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led the young men is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are—perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever. (Sec. War, 3.)