But Colonel Fitzhugh was unable to induce the company to rescind the resolutions, and reported that a false sense of shame restrained them. He was then sent back to formally disband the company, which he did July 28, and they were dishonorably discharged. The governor, however, did not allow this discharge to deprive them of full pay, but in this respect presented their claims on the same footing as the other volunteers. All were finally paid by Congress.
CONTROL OF DISAFFECTED INDIANS.
Governor Stevens’s responsibilities and labors were vastly increased by the great number of Indians on the Sound who did not actively join in the outbreak, but who caused constant care and anxiety on the one hand to prevent their aiding their kindred who had taken the war-path, and on the other to protect them from retaliatory violence at the hands of infuriated settlers, whose nearest and dearest had been sacrificed in savage massacre, and from the destructive whiskey traffic with vicious and debased white men. Five thousand of such Indians were placed upon the insular reservations and supported, in large part, under the charge of reliable agents; while three thousand more remained on the Strait of Fuca and the western shore of the Sound in less strict custody, as they were more remote from the scene of hostilities. For a time these reservation Indians were in a very excited and disaffected state. It was impossible to prevent hostile emissaries from mingling among them, or some of the young braves from slipping away to help their brethren against the hated whites. The agents lived among them in constant and imminent danger of massacre; they carried their lives in their hands. The governor’s plan of enlisting them as auxiliaries, and sending them out under white officers to hunt down the enemy, although attended at first with great risk of treachery, was the most effective means of confirming their fidelity, and when the tide turned against the enemy, all were eager in their professions of friendship and offers of services. The first of these expeditions, that of Pat-ka-nim and his Snohomish warriors under Colonel Simmons, was considered a very doubtful and dangerous experiment; but heavy rewards were offered the chief for the heads of the hostiles he might slay, and one that he sent in was said to have been that of his own brother. Well might Shaw exclaim, “Blankets will turn any Indian on the side of the whites.” After this, Pat-ka-nim’s allegiance was well secured.
When Sidney Ford led a party of Chehalis Indians on a scout against the enemy, he lay one night pretending slumber, while he listened to a long discussion between his friendly Indian followers as to the expediency of killing him and joining the hostiles. Agent Wesley Gosnell had a somewhat similar experience. What iron nerves, what devoted patriotism, thus to venture into the trackless forests at the head of these uncertain and treacherous savages! There is not the slightest doubt that a few weeks of Wool’s pacific and defensive policy would have united all these disaffected Indians in the outbreak, and swept the whole country with a whirlwind of savage war. Nothing but Governor Stevens’s prompt, aggressive, and masterly measures prevented the catastrophe.
By many of the settlers the governor’s treatment of the Indians was deemed too lenient and generous. They declared that Indians who received and concealed the visits of hostile warriors, and allowed their young men to join in the raids and fights, ought themselves to be treated as hostile, and warred down without mercy. On one occasion a worthy and intelligent clergyman pleaded long and earnestly with the governor, urging him to attack and put to the sword the Indians on the Squaxon reservation, many of whom were Nisquallies, the tribe that had taken the lead in the outbreak. But the governor disregarded all such appeals, and remained as firm in protecting the friendly or merely disaffected Indians as inflexible in requiring the punishment of the murderers who first instigated the war by the wanton massacre of inoffensive settlers.
Summary measures were taken with whiskey-sellers, when caught about the reservations. The agent would arm his employees, and when necessary a few stout and trustworthy Indians, descend on the culprit, stave, smash, and destroy his poisonous stores, and drive him to instant flight. There was no fooling with legal proceedings or courts. The means were effective, if somewhat high-handed, and the only ones that could be made so. It was more difficult to prevent the Indians from obtaining liquor away from the reservations, especially about the towns, and the governor complained that the regular soldiers were among the worst offenders in this respect.
In a private letter to Colonel Nesmith, who succeeded him as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, the governor says of his Indian agents:—
“I have never known a more faithful and efficient body of men than the officers and employees connected with me in the Indian service. I have never known, all things considered, a body of men at all to be compared to them in the high qualities which fit men for duty in times of emergency. They literally for months went with their lives in their hands, and moreover in the economy of the service they were vigilant and faithful. I look upon it as the duty of all officers, without waiting for instructions, to guard the treasury. I have had some difficulties to contend with in the past, growing out of political antipathies. I have from the beginning set my face sternly against all cliques, combinations, and sinister influences in the discharge of my duty.”
On these temporary insular reservations were collected some 5000 Indians. The Snohomish and other tribes, numbering 1700, were placed on Skagit Head, the southern point of Whitby Island, under Colonel M.T. Simmons; the Lummi, Nooksahk, and Samish, 1050, at Penn’s Cove, Whitby Island, under R.C. Fay; the Duwhamish, etc., 1000, on Port Madison Bay, Dr. D.T. Maynard, H. L. Yesler, and G.A. Paige taking charge of them; the Puyallaps, and Nisquallies, 806, on Fox Island, under Sidney S. Ford; the Quaks-na-mish, 400, on Klah-shemin or Squaxon Island, under Wesley Gosnell; the Chehalis, 400, on the Chehalis River, near Judge S.S. Ford’s, and under his charge; the Cowlitz, 300, near Cowlitz, under Pierre Charles.
On the Columbia River, under general charge of agent J. Cain, 200 Chinooks were collected at Vancouver; 200 Klikitats on the White Salmon, under A. Townsend; and 300 Yakimas, opposite the Dalles, under A.H. Robie.