THE SCALP DANCE
“Their design,” says Colonel Kip, “was first to massacre the escort, which could have been easily done. Fifty soldiers against three thousand Indian warriors, out on the open plains, made rather too great odds. We should have had time, like Lieutenant Grattan at Fort Laramie last season, to deliver one fire, and then the contest would have been over. Their next move was to surprise the post at the Dalles, as they could also have easily done, as most of the troops were withdrawn, and the Indians in the neighborhood had recently united with them. This would have been the beginning of their war of extermination against the settlers.”
Foiled in their plot, why did they then so quickly agree to the treaties, which up to that time they had so bitterly spurned? All the circumstances and evidence go to show that, with the exception of Steachus, the friendly Cuyuse, they all—Young Chief, Five Crows, Pu-pu-mox-mox, Kam-i-ah-kan, and their sub-chiefs—all signed the treaties as a deliberate act of treachery, in order to lull the whites into fancied security, give time for Governor Stevens to depart to the distant Blackfoot country, where he would probably be “wiped out” by those truculent savages, and for the Nez Perces to return home, and also for completing their preparations for a widespread and simultaneous onslaught on all the settlements. Scarcely had they reached home from the council when they resumed such preparations, buying extra stores of ammunition, and sending emissaries to the Spokanes, Cœur d’Alenes, and even to some of the Nez Perces and to other tribes, to incite them to war, actually held a council of the disaffected at a point in the Palouse country the following month, and, within three months of accepting ostensibly the protection of the Great Father, precipitated the conflict. Agent Bolon and many white miners and settlers in the upper country were massacred, and settlements as widespread as Puget Sound and southern Oregon, six hundred miles apart, were attacked on the same day. In this conspiracy and contest Kam-i-ah-kan was the moving spirit, the organizer, the instigator, whose crafty wiles never slept, and whose stubborn resolution no disaster could break. But in the end, after protracted and stubborn resistance, they were defeated and compelled to move on their reservations, and live under the very treaties they so treacherously agreed to, and under which they still live and have greatly prospered.
Whether or not the Walla Walla council precipitated the outbreak, as has been claimed, it is certain that it confirmed the Nez Perces in their friendship, neutralized the Spokanes for two years, kept even some of the Cuyuses friendly all through the war, namely, Steachus and his band, extinguished the Indian title, and permanently settled the status of the Indian and his relation with the white man, without which peace was an impossibility. The outbreak itself could have been suppressed in a single season, had Governor Stevens’s firm policy and sagacious views been sustained.
Over sixty thousand square miles were ceded by these treaties. The Nez Perce reservation contained five thousand square miles, including mountain and forest as well as good land, and provision was made for moving other tribes upon it. The payment for the Nez Perce lands comprised $200,000 in the usual annuities, and $60,000 for improving the reservation, saw and grist mills, schools, shops, teachers, farmers, mechanics, etc. Ardent spirits were excluded; the right to hunt, fish, gather roots and berries, and pasture stock on vacant land was secured, and provision was made for ultimately allotting the land in severalty. An annuity of $500 for twenty years was given the head chief, and a house was to be built for him, and ten acres of land fenced and broken up the first year. At the special request of the Indians, the claim and homestead of William Craig was confirmed to him, and was not to be considered part of the reservation, although within its boundaries.
Besides Lawyer and Looking Glass, fifty-six chiefs signed this treaty, and among them were Joseph (the father of the chief Joseph, who in 1877 fought the brilliant campaign against Generals Howard, Gibbon, and Miles, the only conflict that has ever occurred between the Nez Perces and the whites), James, Red Wolf, Timothy, Spotted Eagle, and Eagle-from-the-Light.
The Umatilla reservation contained eight hundred square miles. $100,000 to be given for annuities in goods, etc., for twenty years; $50,000 for improving the reservation; $10,000 for moving the emigrant road, which passed through it, around its borders; a sawmill, a flour-mill; two schoolhouses; a blacksmith’s shop, a wagon and plough making shop, a carpenter and joiner shop; tools and equipments; and teachers, farmers, and mechanics to instruct them for twenty years,—were the very liberal payments for their lands. Moreover, the head chief of each tribe was to have his annuity of $500 for twenty years, a house built, and ten acres fenced and ploughed. Pu-pu-mox-mox, in addition, was to be allowed to maintain a trading-post at the mouth of the Yakima; his first year’s salary was to be paid him on signing the treaty; he was also to receive three yoke of oxen, three yokes and four chains, a wagon, two ploughs, twelve axes, two shovels, twelve hoes, one saddle and bridle, a set of wagon harness and one of plough harness; and his son was to have an annuity of $100 for twenty years, and have a house built, and five acres of land ploughed and fenced.
The wily old chief had certainly gotten all he could.
The other provisions were similar to those of the Nez Perce treaty. It was signed by the three head chiefs and thirty-two sub-chiefs.
The Yakima treaty contained the same general provisions. A large reservation on the Simcoe, a southern branch of the Yakima, and a smaller one on the Wenatchee, including the fishery there, were set apart for them. The payments include $200,000 in annuities, $60,000 for improving the reservations, the annuity, house and field for the chief, etc. In all the treaties provision is made for finally dividing the land among the Indians in severalty.