There was great jealousy on the part of the settlers of the far-reaching claims of the Hudson Bay Company, and under the influence of this feeling the council requested the governor to communicate any information he had as to the manner in which Congress arrived at the estimated amount of $300,000 as the value of such claims. The attentions paid him by the officers of that company, in their open efforts to gain his goodwill and support, were well known, and, with the fact that an appropriation of the above amount for extinguishing the claims had passed the Senate, had excited some mistrust as to the governor’s action and attitude on that important question. In reply he simply gave a synopsis of his report to the State Department, which set all doubts at rest.
CHAPTER XXV
INDIAN POLICY.—TREATIES ON PUGET SOUND
Governor Stevens regarded his Indian treaties and Indian policy, and his management of the Indians of the Northwest, as among the most important, beneficial, and successful services he rendered the country. By ten treaties and many councils and talks, he extinguished the Indian title to a domain larger than New England; and by the Blackfoot council and treaty he made peace between those fierce savages and the whites and all the surrounding tribes, and permanently pacified a region equally extensive, embracing the greater part of Montana and northern Idaho; and during the four years, 1853–56, he treated and dealt with over thirty thousand Indians, divided into very numerous and independent tribes and bands, and occupying the whole vast region from the Pacific to and including the plains of the upper Missouri, and now comprising the States of Washington, part of Oregon, northern Idaho, and the greater part of Montana. Moreover, by gaining the wavering friendship and fidelity of doubtful tribes, and even many members of the disaffected, he frustrated the well-planned efforts of the hostile Indians to bring about a universal outbreak, and saved the infant settlements from complete annihilation at the hands of the treacherous savages.
His Indian policy was one of great beneficence to the Indians, jealously protected their interests, and provided for their improvement and eventual civilization, while at the same time it opened the country for settlement by the whites. The wisdom with which it was planned, and the ability and energy with which it was carried out, during this brief period, are attested by the remarkable success which attended it, and by the fact that many of these tribes are to-day living under those very treaties, and have made substantial progress towards civilized habits. It is believed that in their extent and magnitude, in their difficulties and dangers, and in the permanence and beneficence of their results, these operations are without parallel in the history of the country. Yet for several years Governor Stevens’s Indian treaties were bitterly assailed and misrepresented both by hostile Indians and by officers high in authority; their confirmation was refused by the United States Senate, and he himself was made the target for virulent abuse. It was his intention to write the history of these operations, an intention which the pressure of public duties during the few remaining years of his life, and his early death, prevented. In his final report on the Northern route he remarks, in words of manly fortitude and confidence:—
“I trust the time will come when my treaty operations of 1855,—the most extensive operations ever undertaken and carried out in these latter days of our history,—I repeat, I trust the time will come when I shall be able to vindicate them, and show that they were wise and proper, and that they accomplished a great end. They have been very much criticised and very much abused; but I have always felt that history will do those operations justice. I have not been impatient as to time, but have been willing that my vindication should come at the end of a term of years. Let short-minded men denounce and criticise ignorantly and injuriously, and let time show that the government made no mistake in the man whom it placed in the great field of duty as its commissioner to make treaties with the Indian tribes.”
And in another place he adds:—
“I intend at some future day to give a very full account of these large operations in the Indian service.”
In his journey across the plains, amid all the cares and labors of the great exploration, Governor Stevens took the utmost pains, by messages, talks, and councils to and with the Blackfeet and other tribes, to prepare them for the great council and peace treaty which he saw was necessary for the opening and settlement of the country, and on arriving in his own Territory was equally indefatigable in impressing upon the Indians there the advantages of living at peace with the white man, of adopting his better mode of livelihood, and of securing the aid and protection of the Great Father in Washington. Among his first acts was the appointment of Indian agents, and sending them to urge these views upon the tribes. It was high time for judicious and prompt action; for the Indians, especially the powerful and warlike tribes of the upper Columbia, were becoming alarmed at the way the whites were pouring into the country, and, under the invitation of Congress given by the Donation Acts, were taking up their choicest lands without asking their consent. On his recent visit in Washington he had impressed his views upon the government, obtained its sanction and authorization for the Blackfoot council, and the necessary authority and funds for treating with the Indians of his own superintendency. He now planned treating first with the tribes on Puget Sound and west of the Cascades for the cession of their lands, then with the great tribes occupying the country between the Cascades and Rocky Mountains for their lands, and then, crossing the Rockies, to proceed to Fort Benton, accompanied by delegations from the hunting tribes of Washington and Oregon, and there hold the great pre-arranged peace council with the Blackfeet, Crows, and Assiniboines of the plains east of the mountains, and the Nez Perces, Flatheads, Pend Oreilles, etc., of the western slope.
Immediately on his return to Olympia the governor sent out the agents and messengers to assemble the Sound Indians at designated points for council and treaty making, and early in January dispatched Mr. Doty with a small party east of the Cascades to make the preliminary arrangements for bringing together in council the Indians of that region.