... A miserably inadequate supply of worn-out agricultural implements. A group of eight or ten dilapidated shanties used for the agency buildings. The physician promised has never resided upon the reservation, but lives and practices his profession at Pendleton. The hospital promised (fifteen years ago) has not yet been erected.
Of their ever-living grievance Colonel Ross, superintendent of the Washington agencies, says:
Their only troubles arise from the attempts of white men to encroach upon the reservations. A mania prevails among a certain class of citizens in this direction. I verily believe that were the snow-crowned summits of Mount Rainier set apart as an Indian reservation, white men would immediately commence jumping them. ([Comr.], 14.)
JOSEPH AND THE NEZ PERCÉ WAR
We first hear officially of Smohalla and his people from A. B. Meacham, superintendent of Indian affairs in Oregon, who states, in September, 1870, that—
... One serious drawback [to the adoption of the white man’s road] is the existence among the Indians of Oregon of a peculiar religion called Smokeller or Dreamers, the chief doctrine of which is that the red man is again to rule the country, and this sometimes leads to rebellion against lawful authority.
A few pages farther on we learn the nature of this rebellion:
The next largest band (not on a reservation) is Smokeller’s, at Priest rapids, Washington territory. They also refused to obey my order to come in, made to them during the month of February last, of which full report was made. I would also recommend that they be removed to Umatilla by the military. ([Comr.], 15.)
Three months before this report Congress had passed a bill appointing commissioners to negotiate with the tribes of Umatilla reservation “to ascertain upon what terms they would be willing to sell their lands and remove elsewhere,” and Meacham himself was the principal member of this commission. ([Comr.], 15.)
In 1872 Smohalla’s followers along the Columbia were reported to number 2,000, and his apostles were represented as constantly traveling from one reservation to another to win over new converts to his teachings. Repeated efforts had been made to induce them to go on the reservations in eastern Oregon and Washington, but without success. We are told now that—