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.” 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. 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. 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 19th 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.” 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.
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.” 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. (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.
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.
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.” 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.
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.” 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.” 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.”
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.
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.” 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.
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.” 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.”
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.
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. 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.” 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.
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.
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.
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. 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.” 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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