Kate and Sue McBeth, Missionary Teachers to the Nez Perce

1858

The peace was more of an armed truce and lasted less than two years, from October 1856 until May 1858. . . .[T]he pro-treaty Indians waited restlessly for their promised payments and services while their anti-treaty opponents scoffed and jeered at them, saying that they would never get them. Meanwhile large numbers of whites, many of them miners on their way to and from the Colville Valley gold mines, continued to enter the lands of the . . . northern tribes. The rough-hewn California miners thought nothing of pillaging and killing Indians. The Indians retaliated and, despite the presence of the military, the murders of Indians and whites increased. . . .

In May 1858, Steptoe set out for the north with 150 soldiers and two howitzers to try to check the unrest. Timothy and some of his people helped ferry the command across the Snake River at Alpowa and then joined the expedition. Near present-day Rosalia, Washington, the column was attacked and surrounded on a high hill by a large body of Coeur d’Alenes, Palouses, Spokans, and Yakimas, who thought the troops had come to make war on them. The troops escaped during the night and retreated in disorder to the Snake, where Timothy’s people ferried them back to safety. During the fighting, Steptoe sent a messenger to Lawyer, and the head chief and more than 200 Nez Perce warriors now met the bedraggled troops and accompanied them back to their fort.

The rout of the regulars proved to be the final undoing of all the tribes save the Nez Perces. In retaliation, a determined army swept through the Yakimas’ country, killing many people, scattering the bands, and breaking the last trace of power of the Yakimas and allied tribes of the Columbia River. Colonel Wright led another force to Fort Walla Walla, and, meeting with Lawyer and chiefs of his faction, bound them to his side with a new treaty of friendship, which required them to aid the United States in his war against other tribes and promised them arms for their defense. Twenty-one Nez Perces signed the compact, after which Wright formed a unit of thirty Nez Perce scouts, put them in the blue uniforms of the regular army, and placed them under the command of Lt. John Mullan. The force of 700 men then set out, with the Nez Perces to be employed as a formal regular army unit riding in the advance.

In a stern, whirlwind campaign, Wright shattered a combined force of Spokans, Coeur d’Alenes, Palouses, and a few Yakimas at two battles near the present city of Spokane on September 1 and 5, 1858. The Nez Perces scouted and skirmished for the Americans at both battles, and Mullan cited one chief, U-tsin-ma-likh-kin from Kamiah, for particular bravery. The Yakima chief, Kamiakin, was wounded and escaped to Canada. The other surviving leaders appealed for peace, but Wright hanged some of them and then scoured their countries, seizing others on the slightest pretext and hanging them, too.

By October 5, Wright was back at Fort Walla Walla, having broken forever the military power of all the tribes he had beaten. A permanent peace was established on the lands that Stevens had tried to clear of Indians, but the Nez Perces would never forget how the Americans had hanged the chiefs who had surrendered. On October 31, although the Senate had still not ratified the treaties, the Walla Walla Valley was finally deemed safe and was formally opened to white settlement. By the following April, some 2,000 whites had poured into the valley and begun to spread across eastern Washington. When the treaties, were ratified, the defeated tribes went quietly onto their reservations, and their ceded lands, too, passed into white ownership. The Nez Perces had so far safeguarded their country, but they were now alone—and divided. (pp. 95-96)