Homli (chief of the Walla-Wallas): My cattle and stock are running on this reservation, and they need it all. It is not the white man who has helped me: I have made all the improvements on my own land myself.
Wenap-Snoot (chief of the Umatillas): When my father and mother died, they gave me rules and gave me their land to live on. They left me to take care of them after they were buried. I was to watch over their graves. I will not part from them. I cultivate my land and I love it.
Pierre (a young chief): I do not wish money for my land; I am here, and I will stay here. I will not part with lands, and if you come again I will say the same thing.
Wal-che-te-ma-ne (another Catholic chief, as, indeed, were the three last named): You white chiefs listen to me: you, Father Vermeerch, are the one who rules my heart. I am old now, and I want to die where my father and mother and children have died. I see the church there; I am glad to see it; I will stay beside it and die by the teachings of the father. I love my church, my mills, my farm, the graves of my parents and children. I do not wish to leave them. (Happily, the firmness of these Catholic Indians, the Umatilla, Cayuse, and Walla-Walla tribes, carried the day, and they were permitted to remain on their little reservation).
Tenale Temane (another Catholic Indian): We cannot cheat our own bodies and our own souls. If we deceive ourselves we shall be miserable; only from the truth can we grow ourselves, and make our children grow. Of all that was promised to me by Gov. Stevens I have seen nothing; it must have been lost.
The Young Chief: What you promised was not done; it was as if you had taken the treaty as soon as it was made, and torn it up. The treaties made with the Indians on all the reservations have never been kept; they have all been broken. I do not want to teach you anything about God; you are wise and know all about him. (The irony of this is exquisite.)
Tasenick (a Wascoe chief): The people who are put over me teach me worse things than I knew before. You can see what we were promised by the treaty: we have never got anything; all we have we bought with our own money. Our Great Father may have sent the things promised, but they never got here.
Chinook: When we made the treaty they promised us schoolmasters and a great many other things, but they forget them. We never had any of them. They told us we were to have $8,000 a year; we never saw a cent of it.
Mack (a Deschutes chief): It is not right to starve us; it is better to kill us.
Jancust: I cannot look you in the face; I am ashamed: white men have carried away our women. What do you think? White men do these things and say it is right.