Native Americans in Court for Murder; 1860s Walla Walla

Native Americans in Court for Murder in 1860s Walla Walla
By Dale Raugust

The Cases

Sha-poon-Mash was said to be stoically indifferent when the finding of guilty was called out by the jury of 12 white men in Walla Walla County. When asked what he had to say to the finding that he had killed a white man named Varble, Sha-poon-Mash looked up at the judge and said in a voice without fear: “Varble laid with his feet towards where the sun rises, his head towards where it sets, and his blood lay upon the ground where it ought to be. The judge then sentenced Sha-poon-Mash to die by hanging. The Judge declared in his written opinion that Sha-poon-Mash was to die sometime between sunrise and sunset on November 20, 1863, and was to be taken by the Marshall to “some suitable place and there to be hanged by the neck until you are dead and may the Great Spirit have mercy on your soul.” Sha-poon-Mash had been found guilty of the murder of Varble upon a complaint filed by his tribal leaders, John and James Lawyer, Chiefs of the Nez Perce, before Robert Newell, Indian Commissioner for the first Judicial District. (William H. Newell, perhaps a relative, was the publisher of the Walla Walla Statesman). Robert Newell signed a document on April 3, 1863 declaring that Sha-poon-Mash had pleaded guilty to the charge and remanding him over to the First Judicial District court “to be dealt with according to law.” On April 30, 1863, Subpoenas were issued for John and James Lawyer, two other Indians and a Thomas Hughes to testify on May 4, 1863.
At the trial Thomas Hughes was sworn to act as the interpreter for the Nez Perce witnesses. James Lawyer testified that he was camping with his brother John Lawyer, when they decided to go to the Indian Agency to get some food. On their way back their horses had gotten frightened by the smell of blood in the road so they stopped and investigated. They found a hat by the road with a bullet hole in it. They decided to investigate further and found the body of the white man later identified as Varble. Then they saw an Indian over a hill racing away on his horse so they took off after him. They had their best ponies so they were able to catch the Indian who they knew as Sha-poon-Mash. When they caught him they saw that his hands were bloody. Lawyer testified that they accused him of killing the white man but that Sha-poon-Mash denied it, claiming that an Indian named Charley had done so and that he, Sha-poon-Mash, had only taken the dead white man’s bloody clothing. Lawyer said that he and his brother sat with Sha-poon-Mash and smoked a pipe to decide what to do. They discovered that Sha-poon-Mash had a pistol under his belt and believed him to be guilty of the crime. They told Sha-poon-Mash to go to the Agency and file a complaint against Charley for killing the white man but Sha-poon-Mash would not do so as he did not believe that the Indian Agent would believe him.
Thomas Hughes had visited Sha-poon-Mash in jail and was asked by the court if he had had any conversations with Sha-poon-Mash about the incident. He said that he had and reported that Sha-poon-Mash had told him that he had lost a horse and that he spotted the horse through a spy-glass. He went up to the white man on the horse and accused him of stealing his horse. The white man accused him of stealing the spy-glass and took the spy-glass from him. When Sha-poon-Mash demanded it back Varble drew his gun. Sha-poon-Mash and the white man fought over the gun which went off. Sha-poon-Mash ended up with the gun and the white man, Varble, had the spy-glass. Hughes testified that Sha-poon-Mash told him he stepped back from the man and offered to give him back his gun if the man returned the spy-glass to him. Instead the man pulled a knife. Sha-poon-Mash said he got mad and fired two shots at the white man hitting him twice in the head. Hughes said that Sha-poon-Mash took $20.00 from the body and dragged the body to a less traveled low place off the road so that the body would not be found.
After Sha-poon-Mash was found guilty by the jury of first degree murder the foreman of the jury signed a statement indicating that they did not believe that the crime was one of first degree murder but that it should have been manslaughter instead, but that they believed to have no option other than to find him guilty of murder or acquit him. They did not want to acquit him so they found him guilty. A motion for a new trial was filed by the defendants’ attorneys on May 11, 1863. At the same time a motion to dismiss was filed based upon lack of jurisdiction as the crime had occurred on the Nez Perce Reservation and allegedly outside the jurisdiction of the District Court of the First Judicial District. Other errors were also assigned by defense counsel including the absence of a member of the jury during crucial testimony. Meanwhile the defendant was sentenced to be hung. The lower court denied the motion and an appeal was filed to the Supreme Court of the Territory of Washington which reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial. The Mandate from the Supreme Court filed in the lower court does not indicate the reasons for the decision dated March 10, 1864, nor does the file indicate what became of Sha-poon-Mash. There was limited newspaper coverage of the trial. The Washington Statesman reported of Sha-poon-Mash’s “stoical indifference” to the charge and his description of how Varble laid in death, the filing of the appeal to the Supreme Court a few days before the November 20, 1863, scheduled execution, and the fact that Sha-poon-Mash remained confined in jail after he was given a new trial. . The trial itself went uncovered. We do not know the relationship between Indian Commissioner Robert Newell and Washington Statesman publisher William Newell or whether the lack of coverage had anything to do with the relationship.
The following year two other Indians were charged with the murder of a white man. On April 4, 1864, Stanislaus and Puk-el-peet-se, (also spelled Pet-al-Pesa in some pleadings), members of the Okanogan Tribe, were charged with the murder of a white man “whose name is unknown to the grand jurors”. This unknown white man was alleged to have been killed on August 15, 1863, by Stanislaus using a pistol, which caused a “mortal wound of the depth of ten inches” and a knife “commonly called a sheath knife to the front of the neck of him…which caused a mortal wound of the depth of five inches.” The killing was alleged to have been committed by Stanislaus. Puk-el-peet-sa was not charged with actually killing anyone but with inciting Stanislaus to do so. Testifying against the defendants were Lieutenant Max Weisendoff and Henry Shettleworth. Both defendants had court appointed counsel. Apparently the jury concluded that Stanislaus did the killing, which the record does not indicate was vigorously contested and that Puk-el-peet-se’s role was limited to the encouragement of the crime which occurred sometime before the crime took place and that he could not be held accountable as an accessory to the crime. Stanislaus was convicted and sentenced to death and Puk-el-peet-se was acquitted.
The only newspaper coverage was on June 3, 1864 in the Washington Statesman. It was reported that on May 20, 1864, Stanislaus was executed and that he declared on the scaffold that the “other Indian” had nothing to do with the killing. The Statesman reported that Stanislaus “manifested no fear and asked that his blanket be left in his cell as he would need it when he returned.” From the April 4th charging of the crime to the May 20th execution of Stanislaus there passed only 6 weeks, an indication perhaps of how swift justice was in the frontier days.
The “Common Theme”
It seems clear that under the federal Indian Intercourse Act of 1834, the United States District Court had proper authority to file charges against Sha-poon-Mash. It was alleged that he had killed a white man and whether or not it allegedly occurred on the reservation, the fact that it was an interracial crime gave the federal government jurisdiction. The conviction was probably overturned on the basis that the trial judge failed to give a lesser included offense instruction which would have allowed the jury to find the defendant guilty of manslaughter instead of first degree murder.
A common theme in both the Sha-poon-Mash and the Stanislaus case is that counsel was appointed to represent the defendants, at a time before the Supreme Court declared this to be the right of citizens in Gideon vs. Wainwright. In the Sha-poon-Mash case counsel took the case to the Territorial Supreme Court and won a reversal. Apparently the defendants were also given interpreters, although in the Sha-poon-Mash case the interpreter was used as a witness against the defendant. There also seemed to be a genuine respect for the law by the jury and a desire to do what was right irrespective of the color of the defendant’s skin. The jury cared enough about the law and it’s application to the facts to convict Sha-poon-Mash of murder but to sign a note to the judge indicating that they believed him to be not guilty of first degree murder, but instead to be guilty of only manslaughter. This set up the appeal. Defense counsel cared enough about their client and the application of principles of justice to appeal the conviction to the highest court in the Territory in order to insure that justice was done. This was court appointed counsel and likely not well paid counsel.
In the Stanislaus and Puk-el-peet-sa case, the jury was able to differentiate between the roles played by two Indian defendants and to apply the facts and the law separately to the two defendants, finding one guilty and acquitting the other, when it would have been easy and convenient to have found both guilty.
From a review of these two cases, it is clear that within the 1860s cultural and sociological environment in which the justice system operated, most of the time justice was done and the jury members took their responsibilities seriously and tried to do what they believed to be the right thing. From the perspective of the Native American the entire process must have been confusing and intimidating, however, it appears that within the limited review of these cases they were treated fairly within the system.
Dated: October 15, 2008
___________________________
Dale L. Raugust, History 590


References

Territory of Washington vs. Stanislaus and Puk-el-pett-sa, United States District Court, First Judicial District, County of Walla
Walla, WAL 119

United States vs. Sha-poon-Mash, United States District Court, First Judicial District, County of Walla Walla, WAL 23

Washington Statesman October 24, 1863, 3:1
Washington Statesman, 10-24-1863 3:1
Washington Statesman, 11-14-1863
Washington Statesman, 4-9-1864
Washington Statesman, 6-3-1864 2:2
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Walla Walla in the 1860s

Walla Walla in the 1860s
By Dale Raugust

After the death of Marcus Whitman in 1847, the Walla Walla Valley was not regarded as a suitable place for settlement. Following the massacre the military waged a campaign against the Cayuse Tribe which was followed in 1855-56 by the Yakima war and the vigilante reprisals by the civilian militia, and then in 1857 the Steptoe and Wright battles for control of the northern Inland Empire. These conflicts were not conducive to settlement anywhere in Eastern Washington. It was not until 1859 that the area was considered pacified enough to allow settlement. The only non Indians north of the Snake River prior to 1859 were fur trappers of the Hudson Bay Company and missionaries. The soldiers at Fort Walla Walla which numbered about 270 in the 1860 census were in need of supplies, services and entertainment. The suppliers of these services were to form the nucleus of the new community of Walla Walla. William McQuirk set up the first store selling general merchandise in a tent in 1857. By the fall of 1857 he had competition. “By 1859 a mongrel collection of tents, cabins, and shacks of various descriptions dotted the landscape adjacent to the fort.” There was no planning for this community. Buildings were built where they could be located without a great deal of trouble, in breaks of the trees or along Mill Creek. The town was almost exclusively male and rowdy with the favorite pastime being horse racing and gambling. It was no more than a “trading camp, to supply the needs and demands of the soldiers and officers at the army post….” The town did not yet have a name. In 1859 the newly elected Walla Walla County Commissioners met to discuss their first order of business. Within the minutes of these meetings the town we now know as Walla Walla was first called Steptoeville. On July 2, 1859, by motion made and passed the name of the town was changed to Wieletpu, however at the next regular session of the commissioners the town was still referred to as Steptoeville. At the meeting held on November 7, 1859, another motion was made and passed which changed the name to Walla Walla.
“In January, 1859, the territorial legislature passed a measure providing for the organization of government in Wala Walla County, now reduced to include only the area south of the Snake and east of the Columbia.” That same year the government of Walla Walla County was established and Walla Walla was chosen in an election as the county seat. “On December 20, 1959, the territorial legislature…granted a charter for an institution of higher learning to be located at Walla Walla and called Whitman Seminary.” The town was not officially incorporated until January 11, 1862.
When gold was discovered near the Clearwater River in Idaho in 1859, Walla Walla became the jumping off and supply point for the minors. Within a year the town had grown from a supply post for the military to a community of several hundred people. Steamship navigation from Portland to the Fort was established in 1858, and in1859, a four mill was built which allowed the farmers to process their gain locally and supply the farmers and townspeople with flour. The first orchards were also planted in 1859. “The gold rush created a tremendous demand for grains of all kinds.” Gold also created tremendous inflation. “In 1861, wheat sold for $2.50 a bushel, and flour was $1.00 a pound at the mines. Hay sold for $125.00 a ton in the winter of 1861-62, butter at $3.00 a pound and eggs at $1.00 a dozen and bacon and lard at $1.25 a pound.” These prices subsided once the gold rush was over but by that time a second industry had been established in the Walla Walla Valley as hundreds of homesteaders had claimed parcels or land and were now making a good living farming.
Walla Walla in the 1860s was like most frontier towns, overwhelmingly male. Not counting the soldiers and the minors and other temporary visitors to the town the population of the town itself was over 70 percent male in 1860. When the troopers and minors came to town many of them wanted whiskey, gambling and women. Individuals who were able to provide these services made money.
By 1861, the town’s first newspaper, the Washington Statesman, began publication. This newspaper started out as independent politically but by the time the Civil War was over and the paper had changed its name to the Walla Walla Statesman it was solidly democratic and “vociferous in its defense of President Johnson in his quarrels with the radical Republicans of Congress.” The articles which follow this introduction focus on different aspect of frontier justice as revealed through original court pleadings from the 1860s and the coverage of these cases and similar cases within the pages of the Washington Statesman Beall, Thomas “Pioneer Reminiscences” ed. William S. Lewis, Washington Historical Quarterly, VIII, No 2. April 1917, pp 86
( HYPERLINK "Http://ftp.us-census.org/pub/usgenweb/census/wa/wallawalla/1860/pg00018.txt" Http://ftp.us.census.org/pub/usgenweb/census/wa/wallawalla/1860/pg00018.txt)
Maxey, Chester C., “The Historical Walla Walla Valley”, The Walla Walla Story, McVay, Alfred, ed., Published by the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin in 1953. p11. Maxey’s article was first written in 1932. He was the President of Whitman College.
Ibid, Maxey, p.11
(T. C. Elliot, “The Mullan Road: Its local History and Significance,” The Washington Historical Quarterly, XIV, July 1923, p.208.)
Orchard, Vance, “The Name ‘Walla Walla’ and What it Means”, The Walla Walla Story, McVay, Alfred, ed., p.26. There is a second Walla Walla located in New South Wales, Australia, also from an aborigine’s source. Whitman College’s distinguished alumnus, Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas put together a collection of the meaning of Walla Walla in different languages. In Arabic, Walla means “By God” and in the Urde language it means “man’. In Chinese a man who is full of Walla Walla is full of hot air. In Tagalog, the language of the Philippines, Walla Walla means gossip or unreliable talk.
Ibid. Maxey, p 11.
Ibid, Maxey, p. 11.
Ibid, Maxey, p 12.
Ibid, Maxey, p. 12.
HYPERLINK "Http://ftp.us-census.org/pub/usgenweb/census/wa/wallawalla/ 1860/pg00001.txt" Http://ftp.us-census.org/pub/usgenweb/census/wa/wallawalla/ 1860/pg00001.txt).
Lyman, W. D. Lyman’s History of Old Walla Walla County, Chicago: S. J. Clark Publishing Company, 1918, p.131 and Whitman, S. E. The Troopers. New York: Hasting House Publishers, 1962, p.79 as cited in Hussey Lawrence L., Fort Walla Walla: Its Battles to Free the Inland Empire, Its Partner in the Valley, and Recent Excavations at the Fort Site. EWU MA Thesis in History, August, 1977 pp.54-55.
Available online at the Washington State Digital Achieves.
Ibid, Maxey, p. 14. Walla Walla’s second newspaper, the Walla Walla Union, a Republican paper appeared on April 17, 1869.


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Indian/White relations in Southeastern Washington prior to 1860

Introduction

Prior to the arrival of the “white man” the Nez Perce moved their camp every autumn to the Weippe Prairie near the present day town of Weippe, Idaho, to gather berries and camas root for the winter. The gathering of the food was an activity that the women and older children did while the men hunted or fished for the protein element of their diet. It was September 20, 1805, when two boys came running into camp and told a strange story of men they had seen, men with pale faces covered with hair. The older boys wanted to paint their faces with the colors of war and meet these strange men. They had not yet proven their value to the village as warriors and were eager to become recognized as men. As they prepared for battle a young woman named Wat-ku-ese cried out from her lodge, where she lay dying, and said: “No. No. Do not do it. They are the Su-i-yap-po (white people) of whom I have told you. Be kind to them and they will teach you many things.”[1] Wat-ku-ese had been captured some time ago when she was a girl and had been passed around and traded as a slave between tribes until eventually she ended up with white fur traders. She became pregnant and delivered a baby but then caught an unknown disease and asked permission to go home. As she traveled westward towards her childhood home her baby died and she buried her in Flathead territory.[2] Eventually she returned to her village. Her admonition to the Nez Perce boys not to attack the strange pale-faced men perhaps changed the course of history and allowed the Lewis and Clark Expedition to reach their goal of the Pacific Ocean.

Instead of a war party the Nez Perce sent a peace or trading delegation to greet Lewis and Clark and invited them to stop for a while and rest. Lewis and Clark were eager to continue on their journey, as they were close to its completion, and promised that on their return the following spring they would spend some time and engage in trading. Continuing down the Snake River the Expedition entered the Columbia River. At the mouth of the Walla Walla River, near the present day unincorporated town of Wallula, Washington, they met Yelleppi, principle chief of the Walla Walla Tribe. They also promised to spend some time with Yelleppit and his people on their return trip.[3] The following spring, in April of 1806, members of the Lewis and Clark expedition spent significant time with the Nez Perce tribe at Kamiah and the Walla Walla tribe at Wallula. William Clark wrote in his journal: “…while here the principle chief of the WallahWallahs joined us with six men of his nation. This chief, by name Yel-Lept, had visited us on the morning of the 19^th of October, (1805), at our encampment a little below this place; we gave him at that time a small medal and promised him a larger one upon our return.” The medal had Thomas Jefferson’s image on it. The chief was also given a small American flag. Clark described Yelleppit as “a bold handsom Indian, with a dignified contenance about 35 years of age, about 5 feet 8 inches high and well perpotioned.”[4] Clark reported that they went to Yelleppit’s village located “about 12 miles below entrance of Lewis’s River”. (Walla Walla River) The village consisted of about 15 large mat lodges. The meeting was very productive as Yelleppit had a Shoshone captive who spoke the language of Sacagawea, also a member of the Shoshone tribe. When Lewis left the village he was given an elegant white horse by Yelleppit who wanted a copper kettle in return. Lewis had none left he could spare so instead he gave Yelleppit his sword.[5]

Five years after this productive meeting, fur trapper and map maker David Thompson, of the Northwest Company, passed through the region. He also met with Chief Yelleppit, a man he described as “of a mild manly countenance (with) good features and every way a handsome man, clean and well dressed; we found him an intelligent friendly man, he made no speeches, but discoursed with us as man with man.”[6] Thompson saw that Yellepit had an American medal and flag and felt compelled to erect a British flag and a small sign on a post which claimed the area for the British Empire.[7] (Thompson 490). Thompson knew that the American fur company owned by John Jacob Astor was making its way up the Columbia River so he gave Yellepit presents and instructed him not to allow the Americans to pass. When the American fur traders arrived a few days later they learned of Thompson’s instructions but were able to give Yellepit gifts greater that that which Thompson had presented. Yellepit allowed their passage.[8]

David Thompson selected a site several miles south of present day Wallula, Washington to erect a fort for protection and the promotion of the fur trade. Thompson picked Donald MacKenzie, an imposing man of 320 pounds and a former partner of John Jacob Astor, to build the fort which was completed in 1818. At that time there were perhaps twenty five American and twenty-five British living throughout the lower Columbia Basin, most of them fur traders.[9]

In 1831, four Nez Perce and Flathead Indians traveled to St Louis looking for William Clark to ask him for the “white man’s book of heaven.”[10] The publicity that this trip generated resulted in the organization of several missionary groups intended to bring Christianity to the Indians. In 1835, Dr. Marcus Whitman, a medical doctor and a missionary with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, traveled with another missionary, Samuel Parker to meet with the Nez Perce. He then returned to New York to put together an expedition. The expedition included missionary Henry Spalding and his wife, Eliza Spalding, three Nez Perce guides, William Gray, Dr Whitman’s wife, Narcissa, and two hired men. In 1836, The Spaldings settled on the Clearwater River to minister to the Nez Perce while the Whitmans choose to settle among the Cayuse on the Walla Walla River about twenty-five miles from Fort Walla Walla and six miles from present day Walla Walla, Washington.[11]

Over the next eleven years Whitman’s Mission became the meeting place for thousands of settlers who needed to rest and refurbish their supplies before continuing the final leg of their journey down the Columbia and up the Willamette River to the Willamette Valley. An estimated 53,000 settlers came to Oregon between 1840 and 1860. Most of these arrived by traveling the 2000 mile Oregon Trail. The trip was hard. About ten percent of “the travelers perished along the way, mainly from disease and accident.”[12] They came for a number of reasons, but a common theme was to start over. James Glover, often called the father of Spokane, wrote in the opening paragraph of his autobiography that “It was a desire to get a foothold in a new country that decided me, nearly half a century ago, to leave my home at Salem, Oregon and strike out into what was then the wilds of the interior.”[13] No doubt this was also a strong motivation to those who left the east and headed to Oregon country. Others moved west for their health, or to escape elements of life back home including the pending conflict over slavery. Economic depression, floods or other calamities that could wipe out a family’s fortune also provided, in some cases, the impetus to move. “Standing out most clearly in these discussions was the desire for economic improvement.”[14]

Although the trip was hard and dangerous, the experience was one that created memories of a lifetime; both of the expectation of a new life, and the great sorrow and grief that some travelors experienced. As an example, historian Julie Jeffrey wrote of the death of the Sager parents, who headed west in the 1840s. The mother Naomi gave birth during the trip and could rest only a few days before continuing. A few days later her nine year daughter, Catherine, broke her leg under a wagon wheel. Then the father, Henry, came down with a fever and died a few days later. Naomi lasted for four months after the birth of her baby but in September, near the end of the trip, she died. Her daughter survived her broken leg but the seven Sager children were orphaned, the youngest only a few months old. They were taken in by Narcissa Whitman, who had a few years earlier lost her own daughter to drowning.[15]

Accidents took many lives, but the number one killer was disease. Measles, influenza, dysentery and cholera were common and were often caused, or spread by, the lack of sanitation on the trail. Contrary to the myths created by modern western movies, violent contact with natives did not occur that often, although a few incidents were recorded, most typically on the Snake River plain. It was more common for the local Indians to provide the travelers with “information, food, equipment, horses, survival skills, and other forms of assistance.”[16] There was so much sickness within the camps of the travelers that the Indians were often repaid for their kindness with the infections rampant among the settlers, and then they brought these diseases back to their villages.

There are several first person accounts or journals of the trip west. Narcissa Whitman’s original journal was published by Ye Gallon Press in 1982. Whitman began her journal in July, about halfway through the trip. When she got to Fort Vancouver she used her notes to write letters to her parents. Some of the original notes have survived and are located at Whitman College in Walla Walla.[17]

Initially, Indians and Whites interacted with one another on an equal basis. They each had something that the other wanted. The English and Americans wanted furs and the Indians wanted metal, whether that be in the form of guns, knives, copper, pots or pans. Trade was conducted and everyone except the fur-bearing animals benefited. The fur traders did not come to establish permanent settlements, yet their interactions with the natives, together with the Indians’ early contacts with the missionaries, would lay the ground work for the eventual dispossession by the Native Americans of their traditional homelands. It would not be guns and steel that would defeat the Indians but measles, influenza, smallpox, and malaria. Prior to the arrival of a most settlers entire native villages were wiped out, with the survivors, if any, so demoralized and filled with grief and despair that they had no will to resist the encroachment upon their traditional lands. “Various diseases commonly labeled ‘fever and ague’ (probably a virulent form of influenza) wiped out whole villages of Chinooks....between 1829 and 1833. Over a three-year period the Chinook population declined to one-tenth its former size.”[18] This was a collapse of their entire society; their gods no longer protected them; their family and societal structures were devastated. As a consequence the native population was open to “new forms of religion that might offer solace and future protection from such calamities.”[19]

Prior to the arrival of any settlers to the Spokane area, a smallpox epidemic, which had started in the mid-west around 1782, and spread west along the trader routes had decimated the Spokane Tribe. According to an oral tradition, Yureerachen (“The Circling Raven”), a prophet of the Spokane Tribe whose son died of the disease, is said to have had a vision after four days of fasting on top of Mt. Spokane of the coming of the non-Indians. Yureerachen first told his people of his vision after Mount St Helens erupted in 1790, blanketing the Inland Northwest with ash in a manner similar to the eruption of 1980. Yureerachen reportedly said that, from the direction of the rising sun there would come a “chipixa” (a white-skinned man), a man unlike any that had ever been seen, who would bring with him a book of strange symbols, and who would teach new ways.[20]

The Indians of the Columbia Plateau believed in a doctrine of resurrection and end times which would begin with the coming of the “white-skinned ones”. Versions of this legend, and other similar prophecies, were repeated among the other tribes of the Inland Northwest and are similar to the prophecies of the Aztec and Maya Indians about the bearded strangers who would arrive from the sea in the direction of the rising sun and who would initiate the beginning of the end-times. When the Nez Perce and Flathead Indians traveled to St Louis in 1832 to ask William Clark to send a religious teacher for their people, it was a legend similar to the Spokane tradition which convinced them to make the journey. It was said, within the Spokane tradition; that the white skinned ones would come in peace and were not to be afraid of.

It is within this context of the native religious beliefs in conflict with the devastating consequences that contact with the whites had already wrecked upon their society, that any discussion of the source of white-native conflict must be predicated. By the time settlers were arriving in large numbers resistance by the natives had already been reduced to token conflicts. Behind all major conflicts were two primary factors, the desire by the whites for land and precious metals, and the desire by Natives to protect their way of life.

Major Indian Wars in the Walla Walla Area

Three major wars were fought in the area of Walla Walla County which paved the way for relative calm Indian/white relations of the 1860s.

Cayuse War 1847-50: It was believed by the Cayuse Tribe that Dr. Whitman was responsible for the measles epidemic that wiped out half of the Cayuse tribe in 1847, or alternatively that he was capable of stopping the epidemic and did not do so, or even that he was deliberately poisoning the Indians.[21] The Cayuse attack was approved in tribal counsel and believed by the counsel, justified as self-defense. Yellow Bull, a Nez Perce, declared that “the head-men met in council and made an agreement that the Doctor should be killed because 200 of the people had died after taking his medicine.”[22] For the next three years the Cayuse hid in the Blue Mountains and were hunted down, until finally they surrendered five tribal leaders who they felt were responsible for promoting the attack. These five were tried and hung bringing to an end the Cayuse War.[23]

Yakima War, 1855-56: In 1855-56 Governor Isaac Stevens of Washington Territory convinced tribal leaders to sign treaties giving up most of their traditional lands and confining them to reservations. Often these tribal leaders did not have the authority to sign on behalf of their tribe, or they did not understand the terms of the treaty, or were the leader of just one small band within a tribe. Within a few months of establishing the Yakima Reservation, gold was discovered within the borders of the reservation, drawing many white minors onto the territory reserved for the tribes. This resulted in the Yakima War of 1855-56. Eventually the Walla Walla and Cayuse Indians were drawn into the conflict, after peaceful villages were attacked by white vigilantes who had been hired to kill the Yakima. The vigilantes were paid by a bounty on scalps, which resulted in many peaceful Indians being killed for their scalps, as it was difficult to distinguish from the scalp of a Walla Walla or Cayuse Indian. On December 6-9, 1955, Oregon vigilantes attacked a village of peaceful Walla Wallas and murdered Chief Peopeomoxmox and others, and on July 10, 1856, sixty old men, women and children of the Cayuse Tribe were murdered, also by vigilantes.[24]

The Coeur d’ Alene War, 1858: Also called the Spokane War or the Steptoe-Wright war; this conflict was started when Colonel Steptoe was ordered to march a contingent of troops from Fort Walla Walla to Fort Colville. His purpose was to investigate the recent killing of a settler by outlaw natives within the Spokane Tribe. He did not bother to ask permission to cross over the traditional Spokane territory or to demand that they hunt down and surrender the murderers, a request which would have likely been complied with. A group of Spokane and their allies, the Palouse, Yakima, Coeur d’Alene, and Northern Paiute surrounded Steptoe and his men at what has come to be known as the battle of Steptoe, near present day Rosalia, Washington. Chief Garry of the Spokane tribe tried to negotiate peace, but was unable to control some of the younger men within his tribe who were intent on engaging in conflict. Although Steptoe was surrounded and faced a possible massacre, he was able to slip out of his encampment and quickly make his way south, leaving behind his two small cannon and other large supply items. Colonel George Wright responded to this perceived humiliation by leading a force of about 600 men with the latest technology, long range rifles that could outshoot the older models used by the natives. The Indian alliance was defeated at the battle of Four Lakes on September 1, 1858, and then at the battle of Spokane Plains in the Airway Heights area on September 5, 1858. On September 9, 1858, Colonel Wright captured 900 horses belonging to the Palouse and slaughtered 700 of them at a spot now known as “Horse Slaughter Camp”. He did this to demonstrate to the Indians, who had traditionally waged war in order to capture horses belonging to the other tribe to increase personal and tribal wealth; that the whites did not need this wealth and further resistance would mean certain destruction. Peace terms were negotiated with all the involved tribes within the next few days. Meanwhile Wright went from camp to camp, arresting and hanging the twenty-four tribal leaders at Latah Creek near Spokane, which is still popularly known today as Hangman Creek.[25]

These three major campaigns against the Indians paved the way for relatively peaceful relations during the 1860. It would be the discovery of gold in Idaho that in 1859, started the next wave of immigrants. In 1860, only 1,339 settlers resided in the Walla Walla County. By 1870, Walla Walla County would have 11,594 white residents.[26] During the 1860s, the city of Walla Walla “became the main supply center for mining camps located on the Clearwater and Boise rivers, in western Montana, and even as far north as the diggings in British Columbia’s Kootenay region. Long trains of mules and horses laden with supplies for distant mining camps filled Walla Walla’s streets, and stagecoaches arrived and departed every day.”[27] During the winter the minors came to Walla Walla to spend their money and rest for the next season. By the mid to late part of the decade, agriculture replaced mining as the primary activity supported by the city of Walla Walla.

Walla Walla County’s legal structure was not created by the Territorial Legislature until January 19, 1859. Elections were held on November 17, 1859, selecting Walla Walla as the county seat and electing the governing body of men. Consequently, 1860 was the first year that this booming frontier town had an official government with court services provided by the United States District Court system. It is this decade that our examination of frontier justice focuses on.

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[1] Spalding, Eliza, Memoirs of the West: The Spaldings, p 6-7

[2] Ibid, Spalding, p 7

[3] Lewis and Clark Journals, April 27, 1806, p 328.

[4] Ibid, Lewis and Clark Journals, p 328.

[5] Ibid, Lewis and Clark Journal,. P 328; also see Http://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/native/wal/html for information on Ken Burn’s documentary of Lewis and Clark’s Expedition.

[6] Thompson, David, David Thompson’s Narration of his Explorations in Western America, 1784-1812, edited by Joseph Burr Tyrrell, Toronto: Champlain Society, p. 490.

[7] Ibid, Thompson, p 490

[8] Ross, Alexander, Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813, pp 138-41

[9] Ibid, Thompson, p 491; see also Gough, Barry M., The Journal of Alexander the Younger, 1799-1814, Toronto: Champlain Society, 1998-1992, pp 636-672.

[10] Ibid, Spalding, p 7.

[11] Jeffrey, Julie Roy, Converting the West, A Biography of Narcissa Whitman, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991, pp63-83; Schwantes, Carlos, The Pacific Northwest, An Interpretive History, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996, pp 83-87.

[12] Ibid, Schwantes, p 99.

[13] Glover, James, Reminiscences of James Glover, Fairfield: Ye Gallon Press, 1985, p 9.

[14] Ibid, Schwantes, p 108.

[15] Ibid, Jeffrey, p 185

[16] Ibid, Schwantes, p 104.

[17] Whitman, Narcissa, The Letters of Narcissa Whitman, Fairfield, Ye Gallow Fress, 1986

[18] Ibid, Schwantes, p 39.

[19] Ibid, Schwantes, p 40.

[20] Ruby, Robert, and Brown, John, A guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986.

[21] Sanders, Mary, The Whitman Massacre, Fairfield: Ye Gallow Press, 1977, pp 21-22

[22] Ibid, Jeffrey, 217, Jeffrey listed a number of first-hand accounts of the massacre at page 230, which included statements made by native witnesses.

[23] Fargo, Lucile, Spokane Story, Chicago: Northwestern Press, 1957, p 45.

[24] See www.narhist.ewu.edu/native_Americans/timelines/timeline_wars_ treaties.html for more information on the Yakima War of 1855-56.

[25] Maning, Benjamin, Conquest of the Coeur d’Alene, Spokanes, and Palouses, Fairfield: Ye Gallow Press, 1975.

[26] 1860 and 1870 census available at http://ftp.us.census.org/pub/usgenweb/census/wa/wallawalla/1860/index.txt and 1870/index.txt.

[27] Ibid, Schwantes, p 133.

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