Kate and Sue McBeth, Missionary Teachers to the Nez Perce

1865

The announcement of the new agreement made the situation more chaotic than before. Despite Hale's promises, preoccupation with the Civil War and other matters held up the Senate's ratification of the treaty, and it was not until April 20, 1867, four years after the Lapwai council, that President Andrew Johnson signed the document. In the meantime, numerous whites, unwilling to wait for ratification, invaded many parts of the country that were going to be ceded, squatting among the non-treaties and pressing in around the borders of what would become the new reservation. Friction and conflicts increased, as did the cheating and killing of Indians. Whites seized the property of both the treaties and non-treaties, appropriated their grazing lands, timber, and sources of water, stole their livestock, and claimed their orchards, gardens, village sites, and fishing stations. In areas that settlers found particularly attractive, like the fertile Camas Prairie and grassy benches of the Snake and Salmon river valleys, the Indians' possession of the lands was seriously contested by white homeseekers, who did not wait for the formalities of a government survey that would precede an official opening of the country to settlement. They put up houses and fences and warned the Nez Perces to stay away. In other, more remote regions, like Joseph's Wallowa Valley, the Nez Perces had a longer period of grace. (pp. 107-108)