The western settlers, the treaty party, and the eastern Cherokees
were represented in Washington for the treaty signed on 6 August 1846.
Fugitives were promised amnesty if they returned to the nation by December 1,
and the members of the treaty party were to
receive $115,000 to compensate for their losses.
Dr. Worcester had a printing business at Park Hill from July 1845 for 13 months
and printed school books and tracts with 276,000 pages in Cherokee,
386,000 in Choctaw, and 18,000 in Creek.
In 1846 the National Council and the U. S. Government funded two seminaries—
one for men and the other for women, and they opened in May 1851.
In the next six years the Park Hill seminaries were called the
“Athens of the Cherokee Nation.”
By 1857 they had 30 schools with 1,500 students,
and all but two of the teachers were Cherokees.
In 1859 the Cherokee agent George Butler reported that the Cherokee Nation had
21,000 people with 1,000 whites and 4,000 Negroes including some slaves,
and 4,000 Cherokees could vote.
They farmed 102,000 acres and had 240,000 cattle,
20,000 horses and mules, 16,000 hogs, and 5,000 sheep.
In March 1861 the Confederacy set up a Bureau of Indian Affairs
with David L. Hubbard as Indian Commissioner.
Cherokee Chief John Ross declared that their nation was neutral.
A better equipped Union army defeated more Confederates in Indian Territory
at Honey Springs on 17 July 1863 as Indians fought on both sides.
Chief Minko Ishtehotopa favored the old customs, and agent Upshaw opposed
his influence and supported wealthy and educated Chickasaws who preferred elections.
Members of the traditional Chickasaw Commission resigned in 1845
and accepted elections, and the two factions were united against the Choctaws.
Starting in the fall of 1848 the Choctaw Daniel Folsom
edited The Choctaw Telegraph for a while.
Then the Choctaw Intelligencer began publishing in the summer of 1850.
In the autumn 1852 Choctaw boys suffered from measles, and then
whooping-cough, pneumonia, and the flux took the life of 15 students.
In 1853 Choctaw immigrants brought cholera that killed 14 people on the Arkansas River.
A drought started in 1854 and lasted 14 months.
A great council of Chickasaws in July 1845
divided the nation into four companies to distribute annuities.
In 1847 Peter Pitchlynn won a suit for $5,000 against the Chickasaw government.
Methodist missionaries began building the Chickasaw Academy
in January 1848, the year Minko Ishtehotopa died.
A Chickasaw delegation went to Washington to lobby for an independent government.
The Chickasaws had adopted a constitution in 1846 and improved it in November 1848.
At the end of 1849 the tribe was about $20,000 in debt.
Edmund Pickens became the first constitutional chief.
In November 1849 the Council appealed to President Taylor for help against intruding
Tonqueways, Caddoes, Keechies, Kickapoos, Quappaws, Boluxies, Cherokees,
Shawnees, Iron-eyes, and Wichitas,
and Pickens led a delegation to Washington.
Most of the Chickasaws moved from Choctaw country to their own country by 1851,
the year the Chickasaw Academy opened with 60 students.
Fort Arbuckle was established in 1852.
The Chickasaw Council approved $6,000 for the Wapanucka Female Institute
that began in October for 100 girls.
Chickasaw chiefs gave refuge to Delawares
who had been driven out of Texas in the winter of 1853.
That year there were more than 3,000 soldiers on the Texas frontier.
Separation of the Chickasaws from the Choctaws
was worked out in treaties in 1854 and 1855, and in August 1856
the Chickasaws established an independent nation
under a constitution based on the U. S. model.
The Chickasaw and Choctah Herald began at Tishomingo City in January 1858.
By 1847 more Creeks were interested in education,
and they found that boarding schools were more effective than day schools.
The Creeks began meeting with prairie Indians in peace councils,
and they and the Seminoles often advised the Comanches.
In the spring of 1853 the Comanches invited Creeks to a grand council at the Salt Plains,
and 1,500 Creeks joined them in June.
Before removal to the West the Creeks had about 25,000 people,
and the migration and early years in the Indian Territory took a toll that reduced their
population to the 14,888 counted in the 1857 census.
The 1859 census found 13,550 in the tribe, and that year the Creek Council
recognized all persons born free except Negroes and those more than half Negro.
In 1861 slaves were prohibited from carrying weapons,
engaging in business, or owning property.
On March 1 free Negroes in the Creek Nation were given ten days
to choose a Creek master or be sold to the highest bidder.
The Civil War divided the Creeks into two hostile factions.
On 4 January 1845 a treaty between the Creeks, Seminoles, and the United States
promised a home for the Seminoles independent of the Creeks.
By 1847 the Seminoles were raising corn, rice, potatoes, pumpkins, peanuts, and beans.
General Arbuckle arranged for 286 slaves to be returned to their Seminole “owners”
at Fort Gibson in January 1849.
A mission school began in October that lasted ten years.
The Indian agent Washbourne called for the separation of the tribes in the summer of 1855,
and finally on 7 August 1856 in a treaty at Washington the United States
ceded 2,169,000 acres of land for the Seminoles next to land
secured to the Creeks in the Indian Territory.
In 1846 and 1847 cholera and bilious fever ravaged
river villages of the Sioux (Dakota or Lakota).
The Indian agency was reduced to a sub-agency to save money in 1848
when Robert Murphy became sub-agent.
He managed to reduce drunkenness by persuading Indians to take temperance pledges.
The United States established the Minnesota Territory in 1849
under Alexander Ramsey of Pennsylvania.
The lawyer James Goodhue brought a printing press to St. Paul in April
and started the Minnesota Pioneer newspaper.
Negotiations with the Sioux in the fall of 1849 failed.
Difficult bargaining for another treaty made at Traverse des Sioux on 23 July 1851
resulted in the upper Sioux ceding all their land in the Minnesota area for $1,665,000
of which $275,000 went to chiefs to help them pay their debts to traders.
The 5% interest on the rest provided a $40,000 annuity, $10,000 for provisions,
$12,000 for agriculture and civilization, and $6,000 for schools.
An article for a reservation around the upper Minnesota was removed by the U. S. Senate.
A new treaty was also made at Mendota with the Mdewakantons and the Wahpekutes.
That summer they missed their hunting, and the corn was flooded,
causing destitution in the winter of 1851-52.
The treaties were not proclaimed until 24 February 1853.
The emigration did not begin until August and was slow.
The Sisseton reservation was a triangle north of Lake Kampesha
and west of the Minnesota River.
The Santee reservation was on the south bank of the Missouri River
just east of the Niobrara mouth.
Plowing began in 1854 and by September 1855 met the needs of the people.
On 18 May 1854 the Sauk and Fox ceded land to the United States.
That summer in a fight over buffalo hunting about one hundred Sauks and Foxes
with rifles defeated a thousand Comanches, Kiowas, Cheyennes,
and Osages using bows and arrows.
In 1845 Col. Kearney urged the Indians to let the emigrants
on the Oregon Trail pass by unmolested.
In the 1840s small groups of Indians stole animals from whites,
and organized warfare did not emerge until 1847 when Kiowa, Apaches, and Comanches
asked the Cheyenne and Arapaho to join them;
and Lt. Col. Gilpin led two companies of cavalry to the Cheyenne and Arapaho villages
and persuaded them to stay out of the Indian alliance.
Fort Laramie and Fort Kearney were established by 1849,
the year cholera brought by emigrating wagon trains killed many Indians.
The western Indian wars began in 1849 and continued for more than 40 years.
The Indian Agent Thomas Fitzpatrick arranged the great council at Horse Creek
near Fort Laramie that included Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ogalalah and Brulé Sioux,
Apaches, Kiowa, Crow, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara but no Pawnees.
Territories were assigned to each tribe to promote peace,
and they signed the treaty on 17 September 1851.
They were promised 122,500 square miles in the Upper Platte agency.
The tribal leaders agreed to stay in this territory, avoid wars with other tribes,
and not rob travelers, and in exchange they were to receive annuities at Fort Laramie.
A small conflict between the Cheyenne and Delaware escalate
after a Cheyenne chief’s son, Alights on the Cloud, was killed by Pawnees.
Then 230 Cheyenne with Arapaho, Sioux, Apaches, and Kiowas
attacked the Pawnees in 1852.
The Plains tribes often referred to the eastern Delawares, Shawnees, Potawatomis,
Sauks and Foxes, and Iroquois as Savane (Shawnee),
and the Cheyenne fought the Potawatomi and the Pawnees in 1853.
In May 1853 the agent Fitzpatrick was authorized
to negotiate with the Indians in the Arkansas River region,
and the U. S. Congress approved $20,000 for presents and the treaty.
In July 280 lodges of Comanches, Kiowas, and Apaches gathered by Fort Atkinson.
On July 27 the treaty was signed by Fitzpatrick, 8 chiefs,
and 7 headmen of the Comanches, Kiowas, and Apaches.
The main concerns were the fighting in Mexico and the keeping of captives,
and article 1 declared perpetual peace and friendship between the United States
and the tribes who recognized the right of the U. S. to have roads, depots,
and military posts in their territories.
Fitzpatrick went to Washington and lobbied for the treaty,
and he died of pneumonia on 7 February 1854.
He was replaced by John Whitfield who signed
for the amendments to the treaty on July 21.
These diverted some of the annuities in order to establish farms to benefit the Indians,
and only five Comanches and three Kiowas signed the amended treaty.
The Kiowas and Comanches organized an alliance in the summer of 1854
with Sioux, Apaches, Osages, and a few Cheyenne and Arapaho.
They fought near the Kansas River about a hundred Sauk
and Foxes who had superior guns.
Lt. Grattan at Fort Laramie wanted to fight the Cheyenne
and led thirty volunteers against them.
The War Department and eastern newspapers believed that
Chief Bear That Scatters led Grattan into an ambush.
Col. William Harney led a punitive expedition from Fort Leavenworth and attacked
Brulé Lakota north of the North Platte at Ash Hollow on 3 September 1855.
Harney reported that they killed 86 Indians and captured 70 women and children
plus horses, mules, and other property.
Harney was acclaimed in the East,
and General Winfield Scott criticized the killing of women and children.
U. S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis ordered a campaign against
the Cheyenne in the spring of 1857, and Bull-head Sumner’s cavalry
could not engage the Cheyenne who asked for peace the next winter.
In June 1860 the United States Congress authorized $35,000 for making treaties
with the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowas, and Comanches,
and in February 1861 special agent A. G. Boone negotiated a treaty
with the Cheyenne and Arapaho who ceded one-third of their territory
to the United States between the south fork of the Platte and Arkansas rivers.
In Minnesota the Santee Sioux (Dakota or Lakota) tribes were poorly treated
by the U. S. Government and soldiers, and delays in payment of annuities and
providing food in the summer of 1862 provoked the Santee uprising that began
on
August 17 when four young Mdewakanton hunters killed
three white men and two women.
Young Taoyateduta called “Little Crow” had become chief of the Mdewakantons in 1834.
He ceded land in treaties in 1837 and 1851, and in 1857 he cooperated with whites
in a campaign against renegade Whapekutes in Iowa.
He reprimanded the youths and led warriors who attacked a store the next day.
Other war parties caused refugees to flee to Fort Ridgely
where Captain Marsh had 78 men.
He led 46, and an ambush killed 25 of them.
On August 19 Little Crow, Mankato, and Big Eagle led an attack on Fort Ridgely,
and with a hundred men they attacked settlers at New Ulm instead
the next day, killing 17 people.
Little Crow’s war party gained 400 braves and attacked Fort Ridgely on the 21st.
Joined by 400 more warriors the next day they still faced howitzers,
and rain doused their flaming arrows.
They attacked New Ulm again on August 23, killing 36 and burning 90 buildings.
The 2,000 citizens left and went to Mankato.
Other Sioux tribes rose up, and by the 27th they had killed about 500 settlers,
making half of Minnesota’s settlers fugitives.
President Lincoln extended the deadline for the state’s draft enlistments.
On September 2 Big Eagle and Mankato led an attack
that killed 22 soldiers at Grant’s camp.
In a memoir later Big Eagle wrote,
Many of the whites always seemed to say by their manner
when they saw an Indian, “I am much better than you,”
and the Indians did not like this.
There was excuse for this,
but the Dakotas did not believe
there were better men in the world than they.
Then some of the white men abused the Indian women
in a certain way and disgraced them,
and surely there was no excuse for that.1
Lincoln created the Military Department of the Northwest and sent General John Pope.
By September 19 General Henry Hopkins Sibley had 1,619 soldiers, and four days later
738 warriors led by Chief Little Crow and Big Eagle attacked them at Wood Lake.
Little Crow’s army dispersed, and about 2,000 warriors surrendered.
On November 3 a military tribunal sentenced 303 Santee Sioux to death by hanging,
and 1,700 other prisoners were marched to Fort Snelling while being stoned by angry settlers.
Lincoln reviewed the 303 cases and approved 39 executions on December 6.
One man was reprieved, and the 38 hangings on the 26th
were the largest execution in the history of the United States.
In the spring of 1863 General Pope sent generals Sibley and Sully with 4,200 soldiers
against the Santee and Yanktonai Sioux, and Little Crow fled to Canada in June.
On July 24 Standing Bear met to parley with Sibley near Big Mound (North Dakota),
and an Ikpaduta warrior killed the Minnesota Rangers’ surgeon.
Sibley’s army attacked Indians and burned villages until 150 Indians were killed.
In the same region on September 3 Iowa cavalry
killed about 300 warriors and had 22 men killed.
Sibley’s and Sully’s armies fought more battles that summer.
In January and February 1865 war parties of
Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho raided the Platte River area.
At Bear River (Idaho) on January 27 U. S. troops killed 224
Shoshonis.
During the Mexican War the U. S. Army led by General Stephen Kearny
captured Santa Fé on 15 August 1846.
He was Military Governor of New Mexico for a month and then appointed Charles Bent.
A conspiracy at Santa Fé was plotting to kill Governor Bent and Col. Sterling Price
in December; women informed them, and they arrested some of the alleged leaders.
Bent and Sheriff Stephen Lee went home to Taos on 14 January 1847.
However, on the 19th an uprising of Indians and Mexicans in Taos killed Bent, Lee,
and four others, and Donaciano Vigil became Governor.
Col. Price and Captain Céran St. Vrain led 353 men from Santa Fé and were joined
by 126 men from Albuquerque, and on the 24th they defeated a Mexican army
of 1,500 men in the battle of La Cañada, killing 36.
After another battle five days later at Embudo Pass, where they killed 20 and wounded 60,
the Mexican force fled to Taos which 478 U. S. troops besieged on February 3
for three days, killing a reported 150 Indians and Mexicans before the others surrendered.
Other minor battles took place in New Mexico.
General Alexander Doniphan made a peace treaty with the wealthy Navaho Chief Narbona
on November 21 at Bear Spring, and it was not ratified by the U. S. Senate.
After the Mexican War the territory between Texas and California
became part of the United States.
Texas sent Spruce Baird who arrived in Santa Fé in November 1848,
and the U. S. Army sided with the New Mexicans.
The U. S. Indian agent James Calhoun reached Santa Fé in July 1849.
That year he and Col. John MacRae Washington made a treaty with the
Navaho chiefs Mariano Martinez and Chapitone who recognized
the jurisdiction of the U. S. to build forts and trading posts.
In early August the Navaho attacked the Zunis,
and in late September the Zunis killed about thirty Navahos.
Calhoun reported that the Navaho were going to attack again,
and Col. Munro sent 60 flintlock muskets with flints and 6,000 cartridges to the Zuni.
Col. John Monroe became military governor
of the New Mexico Territory in October 1849.
He called for a constitutional convention in the spring of 1850,
and the Texas delegate R. S. Neighbors reported this to Austin.
After Fillmore became President in July, he sent 750 more troops to New Mexico
with $350,000 that reached Santa Fé on August 6.
Donaciano Vigil became Governor.
An election on June 20 had approved the constitution 8,371 to 39,
and Henry Connolly was elected Governor.
The legislature met at Santa Fé in early July.
In the Great Compromise of 1850 the United States made New Mexico a Territory
on August 15, and in the organic act on September 9
an annual salary of $1,500 was provided for the Governor.
In August 1851 Col. Edwin Sumner led four companies against the Navaho
and saw the Zuni and Laguna on the way back to Santa Fé.
He reported that they killed and wounded some Navahos.
On August 31 Col. John M. Washington’s force
killed Chief Narbona in a dispute over stolen property.
The Navaho negotiated with the U. S. Army and
agreed to a peace treaty on September 9.
Expenses and salaries went unpaid, and by 1851 New Mexico’s debt was $31,562.
The commissioner John Bartlett arrived in November 1850
and published a report of his explorations in 1854.
The U. S. Census in 1850 reported a population of 61,547,
and they noted that 25,085 adults could not read or write.
They did not count Indians who have been estimated at 7,000 peaceful Pueblos,
10,000 Navajos in the northwest, 2,000 Utes in the north, and 5,000 Apaches spread out.
There were only 32,977 cattle and 377,271 sheep.
In 1853 Kit Carson bought about 6,000 sheep and drove the herd
to the gold country of California and made a profit of some $7,000.
In March 1851 President Fillmore appointed James Calhoun
governor of the New Mexico Territory.
In June the Legislature met at Santa Fé, and a majority were native New Mexicans.
Indian Superintendent William Lane promised $20,000 to Apaches settling on a farm.
He became Governor of the New Mexico Territory in 1852; and in the summer of 1853
the Indian Affairs Commissioner George Manypenny persuaded Lane to suspend rations.
After the promises were not kept, the wilder tribes went on the war path.
General John Garland commanded the U. S. Army and authorized military action.
Jicarilla Apaches and Utes rustled cattle near Fort Union from the army’s beef contractor,
Lt. Col. St. George Cooke, who sent out 30 dragoons.
On 5 March 1854 they defeated the Jicarilla
and killed Chief White Wolf by the Canadian River.
On the 30th about 250 of Chief Chacon’s Jicarilla ambushed 60 U. S. Cavalry
at Cieneguilla near Santa Fé, killing 22 soldiers and wounding 36 while 50 Apaches died.
Garland sent out Cooke with 300 dragoons guided by Kit Carson with 32 native scouts.
Carson believed that most Indian troubles were caused by aggressive whites,
and he was concerned that the white settlers were increasing and that the game
of the Utes and Jicarilla Apaches was becoming scarce.
On April 8 they dispersed the Jicarilla, killing five.
Then on June 4 they surprised their camp, forcing the Apaches to flee.
About 100 Ute and Jicarilla warriors attacked Pueblo on December 25
and killed 15 settlers and stole 200 horses.
These raids continued, and General Garland sent 500 volunteers
led by trapper Céran St. Vrain and soldiers.
They searched and killed 8 Utes on 19 March 1855 and 40 on April 28.
Dragoons fought against raiding Mescalero Apaches in 1854 and in January 1855.
The Mescaleros asked for peace, and Garland sent out 300 troopers
under Lt. Col. Dixon Miles, and they forced 400 Mescaleros
to surrender, ending that conflict in May.
Gila Apaches led by Mangas Coloradas raided in 1855.
In 1856 about 200 dragoons attacked them in the Mogollon Mountains.
The Mogollon Apaches stole sheep by the Rio Grande in the summer and fall.
Governor David Meriwether (1853-55) made treaties with various tribes,
and the U. S. Government rejected them.
The Commissioner of Indian Affairs George Manypenny
in his annual report of 1854 wrote,
Our citizens ought to have protection
from Indian depredations, but in the present state of things
in these two Territories, this is impossible.
All the military force that could be sent there
could not prevent such depredations
otherwise than by extermination of the Indians.
Without implements or stock,
and untaught and unassisted in the art of husbandry
they cannot support themselves other than they do….
That the obligations of Christian duty,
as well as the dictates of humanity,
demand the efficient action of the government,
must be too obvious to require discussion.2
Jicarillas were subdued and made a treaty in July 1854,
and the Utes were defeated in May 1855.
That year the Mimbres made a treaty with Meriwether.
They planted crops and were peaceful like the Mescaleros,
and they were spoiled by alcohol and cheated by citizens.
The first U. S. military installation in what became Arizona was Fort Defiance
in September 1851 that was built on Navajo (Diné) grazing land.
Col. Sumner transferred military forces there from the fort at Santa Fé,
and soldiers tried to stop raids between Navahos and settlers.
In May 1852 Sumner wrote to Secretary of War Charles Conrad
that the U. S. Government was wasting money in New Mexico,
and he advised withdrawing all troops and civil officers.
He suggested that the New Mexicans could be given
guns and ammunition to defend themselves against Indians.
The Yuma (Quechan) tribe lived by the western Gila River
and the southern Colorado River.
During the gold rush a ferry was established by the confluence of these rivers.
The Texan John Glanton led a gang of Scalphunters to gain rewards.
They took over the ferry and robbed those returning from the gold country.
After they killed Yuma and destroyed their boat,
a band killed Glanton and most of his gang on 23 April 1850.
The California government sent out the Gila Expedition against the Yuma;
but it ended when they were besieged on September 16, costing California $113,000.
In November 1851 William Ankrim arrived with about 1,500 animals,
and about 400 Yuma surrounded their camp.
Lt. Tom Sweeney gathered about 100 soldiers, and they withdrew on December 6.
Yuma controlled the Colorado River there until February 1852 when Major Heintzelman
led 500 troops from San Diego and raided Yuma villages in March and April.
Sweeney went to Baja California where his army burned two Cocopa villages
and persuaded 150 warriors to join his effort against the Yuma.
He arranged talks with the Yuma, and Heintzelman led three companies in an attack.
The Yuma retreated and asked to talk and got a 10-day truce on August 27.
Heintzelman attacked them again on September 29, and they fled.
On October 2 the Yuma met with the army in a grand council
and asked for a permanent peace.
In June 1854 Indian Agent E. A. Graves reported that the Jicarilla Apaches
were roaming the area hunting and stealing, and the Utes were similar.
He found the Navaho to be warlike and more wealthy than all other wild tribes.
He suggested that they needed to settle down to farm and raise livestock.
He considered the Apaches most hostile and cruel.
He observed that Comanches, Arapaho, and Cheyenne survived on the plains
because of the buffalo; and the number of those “noble animals” was diminishing.
Graves urged the Indians of New Mexico to cultivate the soil,
and he
recommended reducing their territory.
On 30 December 1853 James Gadsden had signed a treaty
by which the United States purchased 29,670 square miles
south of the Gila River from Mexico for $10 million.
The treaty went into effect in June 1854,
and Mexican troops did not leave Tucson until March 1856.
Henry L. Dodge was an esteemed Indian agent at Fort Defiance
and lived among the Navahos until Apaches killed him in November 1856.
In 1858 the Navaho (Diné) Chief Manuelito, who had married Chief Narbona’s daughter,
complained to Major W. T. H. Brooks that soldiers at Fort Defiance
were interfering with their livestock’s grazing land.
Brooks in May sent soldiers who killed 60 of Manuelito’s livestock and drove off the others.
Col. Benjamin Bonneville made a treaty that promised the Navajo $14,000 for damages
and the release of white captives, and neither side fulfilled this completely.
In 1859 Utes began raiding Navajos who retaliated and stole New Mexico’s sheep.
The Territory’s Indian Superintendent Collins ordered punishment.
In October soldiers aided by 160 Zuni mercenaries
set fire to Manuelito’s village and fields.
Navaho raids became common in 1860, and on April 30 Manuelito
and medicine man Barboncito led a thousand Navajos in a brief attack
on Fort Defiance which was abandoned four days later.
Col. Edward Canby led a force of 500 regulars and 470 volunteers
who killed some Navahos, burned crops, and captured cattle.
Canby then made a treaty with 54 Navaho leaders.
In 1863 the new forts Wingate and Canby were used against the Navaho,
and during the next winter hundreds of hungry Navaho
were forced to surrender and were imprisoned in those two forts.
General James Carleton believed that Bosque Redondo was a good place
for the Navajo and offered rewards to those who moved there by July 20.
When they did not comply, Col. Christopher (Kit) Carson was sent against them
to destroy crops and livestock with 736 men who established Fort Canby
where 126 Navajos died of dysentery.
On 10-12 January 1864 Carson led 389 Union soldiers into Canyon de Chelly
and defeated a few thousand Navahos led by Manuelito and Barvoncito,
killing 23 and capturing 234.
On March 6 about 2,400 Navahos began their 300-mile “Long Walk”
to the Bosque Redondo reservation near Fort Sumner in eastern New Mexico.
By the end of April three more groups added 3,500 more people,
and by late 1864 three-quarters of the Navaho had moved to Bosque Redondo.
Carleton asked for 2 million pounds of food, 13,000 yards of cloth, 7,000 blankets,
50 mills for grinding corn, and 20 spinning wheels,
and by the spring of 1865 there would be about 9,000 Navahos there.
The Pike’s Peak gold rush began when the precious metal
was found at Cherry Creek in late July of 1858.
About 50,000 miners came to central Colorado in 1859.
Some organized a constitutional convention in June to create the state of Jefferson,
and by then the gold rush was over.
Union soldiers in the Colorado Territory with the Fort Wise treaty on 18 February 1861
tried to force Cheyenne and Arapaho on to a barren reservation in southeast Colorado
that greatly reduced what they had arranged ten years earlier at Fort Laramie.
Chiefs Black Kettle and White Antelope traveled to Washington
and met with President Lincoln who signed the amended treaty in December.
The U. S. promised to provide livestock and farm tools, construct a sawmill
and useful
buildings, and give Indians 40 acres and advice on farming,
and the only provision fulfilled was the taking away of Cheyenne and Arapaho hunting lands.
In April 1864 a report accused Indians
of stealing cattle and driving whites from their homes.
Some Indians raided wagon trains by the Platte River,
and Colorado volunteers became more aggressive.
The two chiefs asking for peace met with Col. John Chivington
and the new Governor John Evans, who was Lincoln’s friend.
They were told they would be safe near Fort Wise renamed “Fort Lyon,”
and at least 650 went there.
On November 29 Chivington ordered his men to take no prisoners in the attack
on their village which was about 50 miles north of Fort Lyon and in the Cheyenne
and Arapaho Reservation on the west side of the Great Sandy Creek.
He later reported that they left between 500 and 600 dead.
According to the Cheyenne George Bent
more than three-quarters of the slain were women and children.
This massacre provoked more raiding by Cheyenne and Arapaho
through the winter in the Platte Valley.
In the western portion of the New Mexico Territory that would become Arizona
the Chiricahua Apache Chief Cochise made a contract with the Butterfield Overland Mail
station at Apache Pass that was mutually beneficial in the 1850s.
In 1860 Pinal Apaches had conflicts with John Ward and his family.
After they recaptured his wife’s son born when she was their captive,
Cochise intervened to prevent Lt. George Bascom from trying to take back the boy.
Cochise and his warriors captured 8 Mexicans and two Americans in February 1861.
He burned the Mexicans and tried to trade the Americans for Bascom’s captives.
Soldiers from Fort Buchanan on February 14 found three American captives dead,
and Bascom killed his prisoners.
Cochise vowed that he would fight Americans.
When the Civil War began, 313 officers, about one-third of those in the West,
left to fight for the Confederacy.
Col. Fauntleroy joined the Confederacy on August 9 at Ojo del Oso with 210 men.
Col. Canby was in command of the New Mexico Territory and distributed rations
to Navajos in August and September.
After a controversial horse race, troops from Fort Lyon attacked about 500 Navajos
outside the fort, killing about 35.
Canby then sent Kit Carson with New Mexico’s Volunteer Cavalry
with orders to take no prisoners.
Confederate soldiers used Arizona Rangers to punish raiding Indians.
Lt. Col. John Baylor led a Confederate force
of about 300 men who took over Fort Bliss in El Paso,
and in the Mesilla valley on 25 July 1861 they defeated 380 Union soldiers.
Then he went west and took over the forts Fillmore and Stanton.
On August 1 he claimed the southern portion of the New Mexico Territory
as the Confederate Territory of Arizona, and the convention at Tucson
elected Granville H. Oury as their delegate to the Confederacy.
In January 1862 Confederate General Henry Hastings Sibley sent 54 men
to protect Confederate miners in Tucson from Apaches,
and Captain Hunter took control of the town in February.
On the 21st Sibley’s army of 1,100 men battled
his brother-in-law Canby’s 1,300 Union forces at Valverde.
Sibley took over Santa Fé, and the Confederates were defeated at Apache Canyon
and Glorieta Pass on March 26-28 by a Union force led by Col. John Slough.
Major John Chivington heard the guns from a distance and ordered his men
to kill every one of their Confederate prisoners.
He was also responsible for burning 85 wagons loaded with ammunition,
food, and clothing and for killing about 500 horses and mules,
though in his memoirs he bragged that he had 1,100 killed.
Sibley’s army retreated to the east.
Col. James Henry Carleton’s California Column arrived and defeated Confederates
at Picacho Peak on 15 April 1862, and by the end of the year
the entire New Mexico Territory would be back under Union control.
About 2,000 Union forces peacefully took over Tucson
from ten Confederates on May 20.
Confederate Captain Hunter was retreating to the Rio Grande
and lost several men to Apache attacks.
Col. Carleton arrived at Tucson in early June and announced that
it was a U. S. Territory and declared martial law.
He arrested 20 political prisoners and sent them to California including Sylvester Mowry
whose Patagonia mine was confiscated because he had aided the Confederacy.
On July 15 Chief Cochise led 700 warriors
who defeated 119 men from the California Column at Apache Pass.
Promoted to Brigadier General, Carleton became the commander of the
New Mexico Department on September 18,
and he sent the Volunteer Cavalry after the Mescalero Apaches
who either fled to Mexico or agreed to go to the Bosque Redondo reservation.
Fort Wingate was built near Mount Taylor in Navajo country.
The US Congress created the Arizona Territory on 24 February 1863, and Lincoln named
John Goodwin of Maine its first governor. He arrived in Arizona on December 27 escorted by troops from Missouri and
New Mexico.
General Carleton ordered the Navahos in New Mexico
to move to Bosque Redondo by July 20.
When they did not comply, Kit Carson was sent against them to destroy crops and livestock
with 736 men who established Fort Canby where 126 Navajos died of dysentery.
Carleton believed that Bosque Redondo was a good place for the Navajo
and offered rewards to those who moved there.
On 10-12 January 1864 Carson led 389 Union soldiers into Canyon de Chelly
and defeated
a few thousand Navahos led by Manuelito and Barvoncito, killing 23 and capturing 234.
By late 1864 three-quarters of the Navaho had moved to Bosque Redondo.
Carleton asked for 2 million pounds of food, 13,000 yards of cloth,
7,000 blankets, 50 mills for grinding corn, and 20 spinning wheels.
The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains,
From Facts Narrated by Himself published in 1859 was the first biography of the man
who admitted that some of the exaggerated accounts in the book he could not remember.
On 24 January 1848 while building a sawmill for John Sutter,
James Marshall discovered gold nuggets at the American River.
A newspaper article in San Francisco on March 15 got little attention.
Samuel Brannan had led 200 Mormons to San Francisco in July 1846,
and their population quickly tripled.
Brannan started a general store at Sutter’s Fort and purchased
all the mine equipment and provisions in the area.
Then on May 12 he went to San Francisco and ran down the streets with a vial of gold,
shouting, “Gold! Gold! Gold on the American River!”
Brannan became the first millionaire of the gold rush.
By June three-quarters of the men in San Francisco had left for the gold fields,
and that summer two-thirds of the whites in Oregon left for California.
People also came from the west coast of Mexico,
South America, Hawaii, Australia, and China.
On April 18 the Pacific Mail Steamship Company was established in New York
to use their contract to transport mail across the Isthmus of Panama to California.
In May 1848 the U. S. Congress provided $500,000 to pay off
most of the debts General John C. Frémont acquired on behalf of the
U. S. government while he was in Los Angeles.
In his Geographical Memoir upon Upper California in Illustration of His Map
of Oregon and California he extolled the value of California
as the route to Asia, better than Italy and with gold.
Frémont’s fifth expedition left Westport on November 2 and followed the Arkansas River
and then the Rio Grande before heading west for Los Angeles.
He was reunited with his wife Jessie in San Francisco in June 1849.
Frémont’s friend Larkin had bought land for him at Mariposa in the High Sierra foothills,
and gold discovered there made the Frémonts rich.
Brigadier General Bennett Riley replaced Col. Richard Mason as military governor
in April 1849, any many soldiers deserted to search for gold.
The first California constitutional convention with elected delegates met
in September 1849 at Monterey, and voters approved it on November 13.
Indians were not allowed to vote.
The legislature met on December 15,
and Peter Burnett became California’s first elected governor.
In 1849 the gold rush attracted over 80,000 people to California
including about 30,000 Australians, some of whom formed gangs and broke laws.
On August 1 the city of San Francisco elected John Geary president and twelve councilmen,
and Geary and six councilmen were re-elected in January 1850.
The estimated gold production was $10 million in 1848, $40 million in 1849,
and $50 million in 1850.
In the years 1850-56 it would average nearly $59 million per year.
The population of California according to the 1850 census was 92,597.
This increased to 260,949 in the 1852 census,
and only about ten percent of them were female.
By 1850 the gold-mining county of Tuolumne had 8,000 people
and more than 16,000 by 1852.
From 1850 to 1863 about 10,000 California Indians, mostly children, were sold
or indentured for cheap labor in the United States and Mexico.
The Foreign Miners’ Tax Act of 1850 imposed a tax of $20 per month on foreign miners,
and Governor Burnett’s signed it into law on April 13.
The tax collector kept 15%, and native Americans were exempted.
On May 19 two exiled French miners led a protest in Sonora by about 4,000 “foreigners”
who were mostly Mexican and Peruvian, and about 500 tax collectors and white miners
formed a militia and fired rifles on the protestors to disperse them.
Most Mexican and Chinese miners quit, and the Chinese moved into cities.
Senator Philip A. Roach, who had been born in Ireland and became the first mayor
of Monterey, criticized the law as “unjust, unconstitutional, and discriminating”
and as an attempt to introduce bondage in California to give capital control over labor.
Roach also wrote the law that authorized married women to do business in their own names.
Governor John McDougal would repeal the Foreign Miners’ Tax Act in 1851.
On 9 September 1850 California became a state,
and Frémont attended the constitutional convention in Monterey.
The California legislature met at San José, and on December 20 they selected him
and the proslavery physician William Gwin from Mississippi as U. S. Senators,
and Frémont drew the shorter straw and got the short term.
The California legislature met in February 1851
and allowed only white male citizens to act as attorneys.
These laws violated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ended the
Mexican-American War and guaranteed citizenship
to former citizens of Mexico and included Indians.
During his annual message on 7 January 1851 California Governor Peter Burnett said,
“A war of extermination will continue to be waged
between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct.”3
Federal Treaty Commissioners Redick McKee, George Barbour, and Oliver Wozencraft
negotiated 18 treaties between March 1851 and January 1852 in which native tribes
ceded their land for promises of protection and supplies on 19 reservations.
California senators began criticizing the treaties in February,
and on July 18 the United States Senate secretly and unanimously repudiated the treaties.
The injunction keeping this secrecy lasted until January 1905.
On 3 March 1853 the U. S. Congress approved 5 military reservations
and $250,000 for expenses to maintain the Indians and move them to reservations
with no compensation for the land they ceded.
Many homicides occurred during the gold rush.
During the 1850s in Tuolumne, Calaveras and the two counties between them
and San Francisco, Sacramento and San Joaquin, there were 276 homicides compared
to 62 in San Diego, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara counties.
In 1852 about 20,000 Chinese immigrants arrived in California.
From 1849 to 1857 there arrived by sea at San Francisco 268,713 people
while only 144,100 departed the same way.
As its population quickly grew, San Francisco had several fires.
A two-day fire began burning on 3 May 1851 and destroyed the entire business district
and three-quarters of the city as dozens of people died.
These fires destroyed the Frémonts’ neighborhood and then their house.
The family went on an extended tour of Europe in 1852 and into 1853.
In 1851 the California legislature had 27 Democrats, 18 Whigs, and 5 independents.
California Senator William Gwin proposed the Land Act
that the U. S. Congress made the law on March 3.
The President was to appoint the Board of Land Commissioners,
and all those with Spanish and Mexican land grants
were required to confirm them before the commission.
Grants not supported by evidence within two years were to go into the public domain.
Yet this violated Article 8 of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo made to end the Mexican War.
California leaders had learned that Mexico had given several grants
to Californios during the war.
Many cases were appealed and took years to decide.
During the gold rush concern about crime in San Francisco led to a popular tribunal
being organized on 19 February 1851; doubt about the guilt of two suspected robbers
persuaded the citizen court to hand them over
to the regular judges despite feelings of the crowd.
Crime increased, and merchants formed a patrol and agitated for a popular tribunal.
Sam Brannan became president of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance
which was organized on June 9.
The next day a bell alerted people that a robber had been caught,
and he was hanged on the 11th at 2 a.m.
Enrollment of the Vigilance Committee increased to 716,
and about a fifth of them were on duty as police.
Three more associates of the “Sydney brood” of thieves were hanged on July 11.
From 1849 through 1854 there were 4,200 murders in California,
and in 1855 San Francisco with 110,223 voters had 538 killed.
The Vigilance Committee was reorganized in May 1856
and revised their 1851 constitution to include this article 8:
“That no persons accused before this body shall be punished until
after fair and impartial trial and conviction.”4
The Committee was dissolved on August 11.
San Francisco’s example of a vigilance committee was imitated in other towns
such as Sacramento, Stockton, Marysville, Sonora, San Jose, and Los Angeles.
These actions reduced robberies,
and people’s attention turned to political corruption.
Governor Burnett resigned in January 1851 and was succeeded by
Lt. Governor John McDougal who governed for one year.
Democrats had made John Bigler the Speaker of the Assembly in February 1850.
He was elected governor in a close election over the Whig Pierson Reading,
and he served for four years starting in January 1852.
He protected California’s mining industry from leases and external monopolies.
In May he approved bonds to raise $500,000 to fund expeditions against Indians.
He wanted to limit Chinese immigration and backed a $3 monthly tax
on Chinese workers which was later increased.
In 1852 of the 670,000 who arrived by sea about 20,000 of them were Chinese.
The value of church property was $267,000 in 1850,
and it increased to $1,853,340 in 1860.
During the 1853 elections proslavery Democrats in southern California
promoted the division of the state; and this split the party as Free Soilers
challenged the Chivalry faction.
Yet Governor Bigler managed to defeat the Whig William Waldo for a second two-year term.
In February 1854 a law made Sacramento the capital.
In 1854 John Rollin Ridge published the first Native American novel,
The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta: The Celebrated California Bandit
based on his legendary life (1829-53).
He was called the “Robin Hood of El Dorado.”
Murieta was from southeast Sonora and joined the California gold rush in 1849.
He and his wife were attacked by American miners.
He led a gang of bandidos to get revenge against the criminals,
and he became one of the five Joaquins wanted as outlaws.
California Rangers led by Captain Harry Love claimed they killed Murieta
and two other Mexicans on 25 July 1853,
and they were paid the $1,000 reward.
Murieta‘s gang had robbed and killed many Chinese
and Anglo-American miners and settlers.
Ridge’s novel was very popular and was translated into several European languages.
His story may have inspired the fictional Zorro.
In the 1855 election the anti-immigrant nativists of the American Party
(a.k.a. Know Nothings) nominated the former Democrat J. Neely Johnson,
and he defeated Governor Bigler who had failed to reduce corruption.
That year San Francisco suffered a banking crisis
which put hundreds of companies out of business.
As prices dropped and workers became unemployed, millions of dollars disappeared.
Johnson governed 1856-58 and did not run for re-election,
and the Democrat John D. Weller was elected governor.
Negroes in California held a convention November 20-22 at Sacramento
and noted that they were 6,000 people with nearly $3 million.
They objected to the California law which excluded their testimony in law courts
when white persons were parties in a case, and they urged its repeal.
James Casey was a former convict who had become a member
of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and had been exposed as a corrupt politician.
On 14 May 1856 in the street he shot the supervisor James King,
who was the editor of the Evening Bulletin.
The old Vigilance Committee was revived as 1,500 people enrolled in one day
with 6,000 on the list by July.
Subscriptions raised $75,000 for weapons and other expenses.
On Sunday May 18 the vigilantes took from the jail Casey and Charles Cora,
who had killed a federal marshal.
King had died on May 20.
The Second Vigilance Committee tried Casey and Cora before hanging them on May 22.
In the 1856 Presidential election Californians gave the Democrat Buchanan
more than twice as many votes as the Republican Frémont.
David Broderick was a Stephen Douglas Democrat and opposed proslavery Kansas policy,
and he was elected a U. S. Senator in 1856.
The state legislature still endorsed Buchanan’s Kansas policy in 1858,
and that year Indian slavery was revived in southern California.
California Chief Justice David S. Terry resigned on 12 September 1859.
Because he wanted slavery extended into California, he challenged Broderick
to a duel and mortally wounded him the next day.
Before he died three days later, Broderick said, “They have killed me because
I was opposed to the extension of slavery and a corrupt administration.”5
On December 12 William Gwin made a speech in the U. S. Senate in support of the
slave-holding Confederacy as an independent government,
and he even suggested that California might join the South.
In the late 1850s the Butterfield Overland Mail used improved stagecoaches
to connect Kansas City to Stockton, California
and San Antonio, Texas to San Diego, California.
By 1859 California farmers were producing 316 bushels of wheat per acre
while the previously leading wheat state of Illinois was producing 166 per acre.
Before leaving office on 9 January 1860 Governor Weller ordered Walter S. Jarboe
to disband his rangers after they had made sure that troublesome Indians
were either on reservations, dispersed, or dead.
Jarboe reported on February 18 to Governor John G. Downey that in their brief campaign
they had killed 283 warriors and captured 292 prisoners,
and he included a bill for $11,143.
Between 1848 and 1880 the population of California Indians was greatly reduced
mostly by diseases and also by military operations.
A few tribes became extinct, and many tribes were left with a fraction of their people.
The California legislature of 1860 was the last one to favor slavery.
Milton Latham became Governor in January; and after five days
the legislature elected him to replace Senator Broderick.
Latham told the U. S. Senate that California would never leave the Union.
The Irish Lt. Governor John G. Downey became the first governor from southern California.
In the 1860 election California voters gave Lincoln a plurality over Douglas by 700 votes.
After that election the California Senate still had only 4 Republicans,
and in the Assembly 38 Douglas Democrats and 22 Breckinridge Democrats
out-numbered the 19 Republicans.
In 1861 the cities and counties of California owed about $10 million,
and in 1863 the state debt was still around $5 million.
All the parties in California
supported a transcontinental railroad.
In 1845 about 150,000 Indians lived in California,
and by 1860 only about 35,000 had survived.
In historian Hubert Bancroft’s chapter “Extermination of the Indians” in his
History of California he described the condition of the Digger Indians.
They were without houses or dress,
with hardly any knowledge of agriculture,
and almost devoid of religious ideas,
roaming through forest and plain
in search of roots and berries, small game and fish,
improvident and dependent wholly
on the products of the seasons.
Split into petty bands, they were kept apart
by a confusing multiplicity of tongues.6
Bancroft also wrote that there was not one respectable Indian war in California.
The number of Native Americans (Indians) in California
has been estimated at 300,000 in 1769 and 150,000 in 1848.
Conflicts and diseases during the gold rush reduced them to 75,000 by 1853.
In the two gold-mining counties the 1850 census counted 1,982 Indians in Calaveras
and 590 in Tuolumne, and the 1860 census would not even count the few who were left.
On 22 April 1850 the California legislature passed laws to bind Indians
to labor contracts approved by the justice of the peace
and authorized flogging of Indians for stealing.
Indians were barred from testifying against whites or to be on a jury.
Indians could be kept in bondage by inducing workers
to spend their small allowance on alcohol, a violation of law,
and then jailing them for being irresponsible.
Laws allowed white men to pay fines for jailed Indians
so that they could use their labor until their wages paid for the fines.
In December 1849 Pomo and Wappo natives murdered
Andrew Kelsey and Charles Stone for having enslaved their people on the Big Valley Ranch.
In retaliation the U. S. 1st Dragoons led by Captain Nathaniel Lyon
slaughtered about 175 Pomos on Bloody Island at Clear Lake on 15 May 1850.
During the summer Indians killed some settlers near Placerville,
and El Dorado County Sheriff William Rogers asked for 200 militiamen
which increased to 352.
They searched and killed one Indian.
They were called out again in 1851, and the state authorized $100,000 for the expeditions.
In December 1850 a conflict had erupted between the miners
and the Ahwahneechees and the Chowchillas in Mariposa County.
On 11 January 1851 Sheriff James Birney led the local militia against the natives.
An appeal to Governor McDougal led to the forming of the Mariposa Battalion.
However, U. S. Commissioners negotiated a treaty with six tribes on March 19.
Nonetheless three brief military campaigns went forward.
In the first two the Chowchillas were attacked and were returned to their reservation.
In the third one the Ahwahneechees’ chief Tenieya was captured on May 22
and the battalion was disbanded on July 1.
On 6 April 1852 state senators from the northern counties of Klamath, Shasta, Siskiyou,
and Trinity claimed that Indians had murdered 130 whites and taken or destroyed $240,000
in property, and the Shasta Courier estimated that no more than 30 whites had been killed.
One week later the Sacramento Daily Union reported that 40 Indians had been killed
near the Trinity River.
On the 22nd the Trinity County Sheriff Dixon led a squad that massacred
about 200 or more Nor-rel-muk Wintus.
On May 3 the California legislature authorized $600,000
for the expenses of expeditions against Indians.
In the summer miners in Shasta organized and killed Indians
including 14 Shastas in Scott Valley.
Commissioner George Maypenny later recalled that 28 Indians,
who were helping to unload cargo from a ship in San Francisco, were killed.
On August 30 Senator Gwin noted that while California was exporting
about $60 million a year in gold, the $120,000 the government provided to feed
and protect Indians had been reduced to $20,000.
That summer Modocs battled whites, and the Siskiyou Volunteer Rangers Expedition
claimed they killed 73 Modocs; and the Modoc chief said it was nearly 200.
In 1853 vigilantes killed more Indians than the army which did not restrain Indian killers.
On May 6 miners massacred 30 Nisenens.
The Rogue River War in Oregon affected northernmost California
In August the Marysville Daily Evening Herald reported that Yreka citizens
killed 25 “thieving Indians.”
The Yreka Mountain Herald printed, “Let extermination be our motto!”
On September 3 Arcata vigilantes killed about 20 Redwood Indians.
That month whites killed about 70 Tolowas near the mouth of the Smith River,
and in the late fall 450 or more Tolowas were massacred near Yontocket Slough.
The U. S. Army in 1851-54 had killed fewer Indians
than the vigilantes and militiamen did later.
In 1854 militiamen from Pittsburgh, California organized the Shasta Expedition
that killed Indians in the McCloud River Valley, and the state paid the 35 men $4,069.
On March 24 the Act to Prevent the Sale of Fire-arms
and Ammunition to Indians limited hunting.
On May 15 just six Missourian explorers killed about 40 Yukis in Round Valley.
At an Indian Council in Nevada County in the fall the Grass Valley Chief Weimah
opposed being moved to a reservation while the Chinese were allowed to be free.
At the end of 1851 California’s civil debt was $796,964,
and the war debt was $1,445,376.
In 1852 the state legislature issued bonds for at least $600,000 at 7% interest.
By the close of 1853 the entire state debt had increased to $3,001,456,
and by the end of 1854 it grew to $4,461,716.
On August 5 the U. S. Congress directed War Secretary Jefferson Davis
to spend up to $924,260 to pay down California’s war debt.
In January 1855 the Coast and Klamath Mounted Rangers killed many
Tolowas and Yuroks in what local newspapers called a “war of extermination.”
That month Humboldt and Siskiyou counties raised 234 men for five volunteer companies.
On March 3 the U. S. Congress expanded the Bounty Land laws of 1850 and 1852
to provide 160 acres to regulars, militiamen, and volunteers who served for at least 14 days
in operations the United States funded.
War Secretary Davis, Governor Bigler (1852-56),
and General Kibbe provided military manuals.
Davis denied a request for U. S. soldiers to arrest California slave raiders.
At least 433 Indian killings were reported in 1855.
In the spring of 1856 the Klamath Expedition killed Yokuts.
In the summer state senator General John Cosby led 237 ranger militiamen
on an expedition that killed about 185 Modocs, Klamaths, Shastas, and others.
By November the U. S. Government had paid California $814,457
to reimburse Indian killers.
In October 1856 by the Humboldt River in what would become the Nevada Territory
ten men led by Levi Hutton of Missouri were attacked by 60 Indians with rifles and revolvers.
The fighting went on for two days. Hutton and a Frenchman were killed as were 13 Indians.
On 12 May 1859 a bill was introduced into the U. S. Congress
to organize the territory of Nevada.
Henry Comstock in June publicized the discovery of silver near Virginia City, Nevada
which was then in the western portion of the Utah Territory.
They found $15 million worth of ore, and Virginia City soon had five newspapers.
Southern Paiutes came into conflict with the miners,
and in an ambush at Truckee River Valley on 12 May 1860 they used poisoned arrows
that killed 46 miners and volunteers sent against them.
California Governor John Downey sent a force of about 800 troops
who chased Paiutes to Pinnacle Mountain and killed 25 warriors.
The U. S. Army built Fort Churchill by Buckland Station to keep the California Trail safe.
The U. S. Congress created the Nevada Territory on 2 March 1861.
Their Governor James W. Nye of New York hired young Orin Clemens as his secretary,
and his brother Samuel came and later wrote Roughing It by Mark Twain
about his experience in the mining towns.
In September a telegraph line connected Denver to Sacramento, California.
Nevada was admitted as a state on 31 October 1864
so that they could contribute to the Republican victory in the election eight days later.
Shoshone, Ute, and Paiute tribes lived in the Rocky Mountain region for centuries
before fur trappers starting with James Bridger in the winter of 1824-25
became aware of the Great Salt Lake.
In 1843 explorer John Frémont began mapping the area.
After the murder of Joseph Smith in June 1844
Brigham Young became the leader of most Mormons.
The learned James Strang led another group to Voree, Wisconsin and set up a
Mormon kingdom on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan.
He published his Book of the Law of the Lord,
and he was crowned King Strang on 8 July 1850.
He collected tithes, banned gambling, and required women to wear bloomers.
Two men were whipped for refusing to make their wives wear bloomers,
and they murdered King Strang in July 1856.
By then his church had about 12,000 members.
Joseph Smith’s brother William made himself trustee for 11-year-old Joseph Smith III.
Many of these Josephites became the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints (RLDS)
and opposed polygamy and the leadership of Brigham Young.
Jason Briggs became the leader of the RLDS.
Many people in Illinois wanted the Mormons to leave, and at Lima a mob
burned 175 houses and fought Mormons in the fall of 1845.
Mormon boys in Nauvoo brandished bowie knives before suspicious strangers
while whistling to persuade them to leave.
In the winter of 1845-46 the Mormons prepared to leave Nauvoo
by trading property for wagons and animals while they worked on finishing the
Nauvoo Temple by October.
Compared to Joseph Smith, Young offered few revelations,
and his first public revelation was on 14 January 1846.
In early February the Twelve Apostles led about 2,000 Mormons across the
frozen Mississippi River and camped at Sugar Creek.
On the same day 238 Mormons left New York on a ship
to go around Cape Horn to California.
They were led by elder Samuel Brannan who would be instrumental in promoting
the early gold rush.
In January 1847 he started publishing the Yerba Buena California Star
in the town that was renamed San Francisco.
The Nauvoo Temple was completed and dedicated on 30 April 1846.
Rev. Thomas Brockman led about 800 anti-Mormons in an attack
on 150 Mormons defending Nauvoo in September.
Brigham Young led the western migration “to get away from the Christians.”
He was President of the Israel Camp, and on 17 February 1846 he organized
the Mormons there into companies of tens, fifties, and hundreds with captains.
The long trek began on March 1, and at first they made only about five miles per day.
Hunters provided food.
In April it rained every day causing floods and making rivers hard to cross.
Cold rain made their camps miserable.
Grass could not grow, and oxen and horses had to eat tree limbs and bark,
and many were bitten by rattlesnakes.
Those who had been expelled from Nauvoo were starving at Sugar Creek
until flocks of quail offered themselves for capture.
As Young’s Camp of Israel passed through Iowa,
some became discouraged and turned back.
The rain stopped in June, and then they were attacked
by swarms of mosquitoes that caused many deaths.
They reached Council Bluffs by the Missouri River during the summer,
established winter quarters there and began building the Kanesville Tabernacle.
Young sent gifts to Omaha Chief Big Elk who came and promised to stop the stealing.
Young’s bodyguard Bill Hickman killed a mixed-race Indian
who had threatened the leader.
Captain Allen in June brought a request from President Polk for 500 Mormons
to join the U. S. Army fighting Mexico.
They agreed on the condition they would not fight in Mexico.
The Mormon Battalion was sent to California by way of New Mexico,
and Young ordered the men to take the Bible and the Book of Mormon.
They reached Fort Leavenworth on August 1,
and the United States advanced $42 to each man.
They sent $5,835 to their families at the camp with Parley Pratt on his way back to England.
The Battalion arrived at Santa Fé in October,
and they reached San Diego in January 1847.
They were discharged at Los Angeles on July 16
and during their year of service 22 had died, mostly of disease.
About 80 men re-enlisted for six months.
About 400 Mormons died at the Winter Quarters in 1846-47.
On April 7 Young led an advance party of 143 men, 3 women, and 2 children
across the prairies where they had to avoid fires.
They saw herds of tens of thousands of buffalo,
and he ordered his men not to kill more than they could eat.
On May 29 Young gave a sermon to discourage gambling, cards, checkers, and dominoes.
He promised to protect the rights of those who were not in the Mormon church.
On the next day, a Sunday, they fasted and prayed.
They met few Indians until they passed beyond the Platte River
where they entered the Oregon Trail.
In July mountain fever infected Young and others.
Young had read Col. Frémont’s reports of his explorations
and he was attracted to the Salt Lake valley.
On July 24 they saw the Great Salt Lake.
Young had seen it in a vision, and he declared, “This is the right place.”
On the first day Wilford Woodruff planted a few potatoes, and that night it rained.
They found hot springs and mountain streams and began plowing in the valley.
Young organized the city with wide streets and houses built back from the streets
with fruit trees in front.
They selected a site for the Temple.
On August 26 Young with other leaders and some from the Mormon Battalion
left to return to the Winter Quarters in Iowa.
A roadometer measured the distance as 1,031 miles.
Half way they met 2,000 Mormons on their way to the Salt Lake valley.
Young at the end of May 1848 led an exodus of 2,417 Mormons,
and they reached Salt Lake City on September 20.
They established an irrigation system to benefit all the farmers who built their own furrows.
They had to contend with wolves, mice, and bugs from timber that became bedbugs.
Massive swarms of grasshoppers and crickets attacked the crop.
They swept them into bags and buried them which helped little.
Then white gulls arrived and began eating the insects (shield-backed katydids),
and several times in the next ten years the birds came
during the infestation to do the same thing.
In 1849 Brigham Young decided that
no one with any African blood could be a Mormon priest.
Joseph Smith had ordained a few black men, and this rule would stand until 1978.
Young urged the Mormons to feed and teach the native tribes
because they were considered descendants of the Lamanites.
He told them not to kill one Indian for the sin of another,
and they asked the tribe to turn over those who committed crimes.
The Utes tried to sell them boys and girls.
When the Utes said they would kill them, Young advised buying them to save them.
Every Mormon settlement built a fort for protection.
Young became friends with the Ute chief Walkara (a.k.a. Walker)
who knew English and Spanish and wanted the Mormons
as allies against the Shoshoni and other enemies.
In March 1850 Walkara and his brother Arapeen were baptized,
followed by 126 others by summer.
When a war broke out in 1853, Young sent a letter to Walkara on July 25
with a gift of tobacco and an offer of food.
Young wrote in a November letter to John Bernhisel,
the Mormon diplomat in Washington, that they tried
to teach the Indians to farm, and they preferred “idleness and theft.”
The Mormon Battalion brought gold from California to Salt Lake City,
and gold seekers traveling west sold and bartered cumbersome property
to the Mormons at low prices.
In late 1848 the Council of Fifty petitioned the U. S. Congress
to establish a territory called “Deseret.”
On 10 March 1849 a convention ratified the constitution of the state of Deseret
and held elections claiming almost all of what became Utah and Nevada
with half of Arizona and much of southern California.
They presented a petition with 2,270 signatures in Washington,
and Brigham Young founded the University of Deseret in February 1850.
In July U. S. Senator William Seward criticized the Mormons
for bringing more than 50 slaves into Deseret.
The United States by the Great Compromise in September created the Utah Territory
containing about 210,000 square miles.
Young was made its Governor and superintendent of American Indian affairs
in February 1851 and served until April 1858.
At a council meeting on 31 January 1850 the Utah Valley Bishop Isaac Higbee
advised Young that settlers would support a campaign against wild Indians.
Young ordered the militia to give the Indians no quarter.
In the second week of February the Nauvoo Legion
killed about 100 Timpanogos near Utah Lake.
In 1851 Young sent Mormons to found by the Cajon Pass in southern California
a colony which would become San Bernardino.
In a June sermon he criticized slavery, and he also opposed abolitionists.
In the fall the territorial legislature accepted the Deseret laws,
and Mormon settlers founded eight towns in Utah Valley,
The census of 1850 had counted 11,354 people in Utah.
Young set up the Emigration Fund to encourage Mormon converts to come to Utah,
and it soon ran out of funds and left emigrants to their own resources.
The U. S. Congress provided a library of 2,000 books that was brought by oxen in 1852.
From 1848 to 1852 about 12,000 people
went from Kanesville (Council Bluffs) to the Salt Lake Valley.
In 1852 the Utah legislature approved the Act for the Relief of Indian Slaves
and Prisoners which permitted settlers to indenture Indian children
for as much as twenty years.
On August 29 Brigham Young called a general conference, and Orson Pratt,
who had written the Divine Authority of the Book of Mormon by then,
gave a sermon for several hours on scriptural interpretations of marriage.
Then Young explained how jealous Emma Smith had burned
a copy of Joseph’s revelation on plural marriage, and Bishop Whitney had saved a copy.
Young took his first plural wife in June 1842, two more in November 1843, 11 in 1844,
5 in 1845, 20 in one month early in 1846, 2 in March 1847, one in April 1848, 2 in 1852,
and one in each of the years 1853, 1855 and 1856;
and he would take only six more between 1863 and 1871 for a grand total of 55 wives.
He had 59 children by 16 of his wives, and 46 lived to be adults.
He married 21 who had not been married before and 16 widows.
After the polygamy became public,
2,134 Mormons left the church in the last six months of 1852 and 3,189 in 1853.
During the period of the Walkara raids Young suspected Jim Bridger of selling arms
and whiskey to Indians, and he sent 150 militiamen
who captured Fort Bridger; and Bridger was not there.
Captain Howard Stansbury and Lt. John Gunnison, who both had criticized
Mormon polygamy in 1852, led an expedition to find a route for a Pacific railroad.
They reached Utah Territory in October 1853, and on the 26th near Sevier Lake
a band of Pahvants (Utes) attacked them and killed Gunnison and seven of his eleven men.
Walkara’s brother Amwon came to Parowan to negotiate in November,
and in May 1854 Young, Walkara, and other chiefs made peace.
Lt. Col. Edward Steptoe led 325 U. S. soldiers to Salt Lake City in August
and spent the winter in Utah investigating the Gunnison massacre.
On 18 February 1855 Brigham Young gave an angry sermon objecting to
the U. S. judges and soldiers who had been sent to help him govern Utah.
In April a general conference at the Great Salt Lake sent out 160 missionaries
to establish five missions to the Lamanites (Indians) at Elk Mountain (Utah),
White Mountain, Fort Limni in the Salmon River valley in Oregon Territory
(Bannocks, Shoshonis, Flatheads, and Nez Perce), to the north, and in Indian Territory.
They were encouraged to take Indian wives.
Thirty men set up an Indian mission at the Las Vegas Springs.
Also in 1855 a serious crop failure occurred.
The U. S. Congress three times denied Utah’s request to hold a constitutional
convention in 1852-54, and they held one anyway in February 1856.
They claimed their population was 76,335, while the 1860 U. S. census counted
only 40,273 people in the Utah Territory.
Mormons in Utah founded many towns such as Ogden, Manti, and Provo.
Hand-carts were used by 1,300 emigrants from Liverpool in five companies in 1856.
The last two groups left Iowa City on July 15 and 28
and Florence, Nebraska on August 17 and 27.
They lost more than 200 people before reaching Salt Lake City on November 9 and 30;
this was concealed so as not to discourage more emigrants.
A spiritual cleansing created a catechism with a list of intrusive questions.
In a September sermon Young condemned many sins including not tithing.
The Utah Territory government had been transferred to Fillmore in 1855,
and
in 1856 they moved back to Salt Lake City.
Conflicts between Mormons and the U. S. Government broke out into violence
in March 1857 and continued without a major battle until July 1858.
Brigham Young opposed Alfred Cumming of Georgia whom President Buchanan
appointed as the new governor.
Captain Van Vliet left his military escort 150 miles away
and entered Salt Lake City alone on September 8.
Because their popular prophet Parley Pratt had been murdered in Arkansas
on 13 May 1857, some Mormon militia leaders believing in “blood atonement”
attacked the Baker-Fancher wagon train from Arkansas at Mountain Meadows
and on September 11 killed about a hundred people, sparing children
under the age of 8 according to their common law.
Brigham Young investigated and reported that they were killed by Indians.
Major Carleton led an investigation,
and eventually a trial led to one man being executed in March 1877.
Captain Van Vliet was impressed by the Mormons and said he would oppose a war
against them, and he returned to Washington in November.
That month an army led by General Albert Sidney Johnston arrived at Fort Bridger
and found that Mormons had burned down buildings
and destroyed grain and other provisions.
His army of 2,400 men had a difficult winter there at 7,000 feet elevation.
Governor Cummings proclaimed the Mormons in rebellion
and threatened to prosecute the leaders.
On 6 April 1858 U. S. President Buchanan sent a peace commission
and pardoned the rebels in Utah.
The U. S. Army gathered forces at Fort Leavenworth in May,
and by June they had over 6,000 soldiers in Utah or on the way.
Some troops would stay in the territory for about four years.
On June 10 the U. S. Commissioners and Governor Cummings
met with the Mormon leaders Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Daniel H. Wells
who admitted they had destroyed army supplies.
They asked for a pardon and denied other charges.
The U. S. Army of Utah entered the Great Salt Lake valley on June 26,
and Young told his people to go into the wilderness far from their persecutors.
About 30,000 Mormons left their homes
and moved about sixty miles south of Salt Lake City.
Johnston had his army stay away from the Mormons at Camp Floyd near Provo.
In July the Mormons began returning to their homes.
Aside from the civilians slaughtered at Mountain Meadows the only casualties
were 38 in the U. S. Army,
though the military expense was $15 million.
By 1860 most of the U. S. troops in Utah had been
transferred to New Mexico and Arizona.
By then the Utah Territory had 40,273 people, 3,635 farms with 77,219 cultivated acres.
The Mormon population there increased from 11,380 in 1850 to about 65,000 in 1862.
On 3 June 1845 Oregon settlers chose the Methodist missionary
George Abernethy as the first governor, and in February 1846
the Oregon Spectator became the first newspaper.
Cornelius Gilliam was made a colonel by the provisional government,
and in March 1848 he led 550 militiamen against the Cayuse,
slaughtering peaceful Indians in a camp.
A week later 250 Palouse warriors attacked his Oregon Volunteers for stealing cattle,
and Gilliam accidentally killed himself.
The coming of settlers increased the spread of measles, tuberculosis,
and venereal diseases that infected so many Native Americans.
During a measles epidemic in 1847 that killed many more natives than Europeans
the Cayuse led by chief Tiloukaikt murdered the Whitmans in their home
and 12 other settlers on November 29, destroying buildings.
The Cayuse held 53 women and children hostage for a month
until negotiations released them.
The boundary dispute between the United States and Britain was settled
in the Oregon treaty signed on 15 June 1846 by confirming the 1818 treaty
except that Vancouver island was to be British.
The Second Organic Act of 1848 replaced
a 3-man executive committee with an elected governor.
The law also provided 320 acres of land for white men and 640 acres for married couples.
The Oregon Trail and other overland routes brought
11,512 people to Oregon between 1840 to 1848.
Mountain man Joe Meek was married to President Polk’s cousin,
and on 28 May 1848 he persuaded Polk to form the Oregon Territory
which he did on August 13.
Polk appointed General Joseph Lane as the governor.
He ventured a winter journey on the Oregon Trail
and arrived on 3 March 1849 to replace Abernethy.
Samuel Thurston appealed to Methodists, opposed Catholics, and favored temperance,
and he was elected Oregon’s delegate to the U. S. Congress on June 6.
The territorial census reported a population of 8,785 U. S. citizens
and 298 from other countries.
Lane investigated the Cayuse case, and five Cayuse were turned over
for the Whitman murders, were convicted, and then hanged on 3 June 1850
before a crowd of a thousand people.
That year the U. S. Congress enacted the Willamette Treaty Commission.
Asahel Bush came to Oregon in September 1850 and quickly helped get
the Donation Land Law for American settlers passed on the 27th.
He founded the Democratic Oregon Statesman in March 1851
to oppose factions and the Whigs’ Oregonian.
In January the Assembly had voted to locate the capital in Salem,
a penitentiary in Portland, and a university in Corvallis,
though the Corvallis Academy was not founded until 1856.
U. S. President Zachary Taylor had appointed
the Whig John Gaines the next Territorial Governor.
The Democrat Joseph Lane was overwhelmingly elected
Oregon’s delegate to the U. S. Congress in June 1851.
U. S. President Taylor appointed the Whig John Gaines the next Territorial Governor.
The first territorial legislature met on July 16 at Oregon City before moving to Salem.
They confirmed a decision of a provisional legislature in 1844 to exclude Negroes,
and Judge Nelson upheld the expelling of two free blacks in September.
A meeting in Cowlitz in August urged dividing the Oregon Territory
into two parts with the Columbia River as the border.
The legislature agreed in November.
Lane persuaded the U. S. Government to do so by March 1853,
and he was re-elected delegate in June and again in 1855 and 1857.
Emigrants to Oregon who occupied and improved land from 1 December 1850
for the next five years were granted 320 acres
to married couples and 160 acres to single men.
Gold-mining spread into southwestern Oregon in 1852,
and in 1853 the discovery of gold and platinum north
of the Coquille River attracted more than a thousand miners.
The Willamette University was chartered in January 1853.
The Cayuse War in 1853 cost the lives of over a hundred whites
and several hundred Indians as well as $258,000.
In January 1854 the legislature prohibited the sale of weapons and ammunition.
The war involving 500 militia would drag on until 1855
when the Cayuse ceded their land and moved to the Umatilla Indian Reservation.
Methodists urging the abolition of slavery had founded
the Pacific Christian Advocate in 1854.
That year Indian Agent Joel Palmer made a treaty with the Tualatin tribe
which ceded 1,576 square miles for the promise
of 40 acres for each family on a future reservation.
By 1855 Donation Land Claims had given 2.5 million acres to 7,437 settlers.
From 1853 to 1857 the US Congress ratified 52 treaties
in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho by which the tribes lost 157 million acres.
In the Oregon Territory the Takelma and the
Tututni fought the Americans who called them “Rogues.”
In August 1855 drunk Rogues killed 10 miners by the Klamath River,
and the army retaliated by killing about 25 Rogues, beginning the Rogue River War.
In September the conflict began spreading to the Yakima territory
and settlers east of the Cascade mountains.
On October 15 some settlers raided a camp
and killed 23 Rogues including women and children.
The next day warriors killed 27 settlers in Rogue Valley and burned a hamlet.
Yakimas, Walla Wallas, Umatillas, and Cayuses joined the fight.
Col. James Kelley led a militia attack on the Walla Wallas.
On 23 February 1856 Umatillas and Cayuses raided 60 homes
and killed 31 settlers as 131 survivors fled and were besieged for a month.
Oregon Governor George Curry and Washington Governor Stevens
wanted a military campaign, and in early spring General John Ellis Wool,
who commanded the U. S. Army’s Department of the Pacific 1854-57,
sent reinforcements and mobilized 500 regulars
led by George Wright to fight Chief Kamiakin.
The Takelma and Tututni agreed to surrender to Captain Andrew Smith
but changed their minds and attacked his 80 men instead with 200 warriors.
The next day the reinforcements arrived and routed the Rogues who surrendered in June.
In the Rogue River War the U. S. Army with local militias and volunteers
killed about 250 Indians while 33 volunteers, 17 regulars, and 44 civilians also died.
John Beeson was so ardent in his criticism of the wars against the Indians
that he had to flee from his home in May 1856, and his
“Address to the Citizens of Rogue River Valley”
was published in the Oregon City Argus on June 28.
The Republican Party in Oregon was organized in August 1856
to support John Frémont for President.
In February 1857 the Free State Republican Party of Oregon held a convention at Albany
and announced that it favored the American Union and admitting Oregon as a free state,
construction of a Pacific railroad, and improving rivers and harbors;
they opposed slavery in territories and polygamy.
In March the U. S. Congress combined the superintendencies of Oregon and Washington,
estimated unpaid claims at $500,000, and finally approved payment.
On November 9 Oregon voters approved the proposed constitution.
Large majorities opposed slavery but also free Negroes in their state.
The legislative assembly met on December 17.
Oregon on 14 February 1859 was admitted as a free state, the 33rd in the Union.
By 1860 the state of Oregon had 52,465 people and 5,627 farms.
By the fall of 1862 about 2,000 miners and others had established the town
of Auburn in the Powder River country in eastern Oregon.
In 1863 about half of them moved to the Boise Basin mines in Idaho.
During the Civil War the U. S. Army troops left Oregon and Washington.
Oregon called up volunteers for a cavalry force in January 1863.
Conflict continued from 1864 to 1868 between immigrants and the Paiute,
Shoshone, and Bannock tribes as the Snake War or Shoshone War.
The Columbian newspaper began publishing
weekly on 11 September 1852 at Olympia.
On November 25 settlers from north of the Columbia River
met and proposed a territorial government.
On 2 March 1853 the United States Congress
approved and named it the “Washington Territory.”
On March 17 President Pierce appointed Isaac Stevens to govern it,
and he arrived at Olympia in November.
Elections were held, and the legislature began meeting on 27 February 1854.
The new territory took a census that counted 3,965 white people.
Stevens imposed martial law while he used diplomacy.
On December 26 he made a treaty at Medicine Creek with nine tribes
who ceded 3,498 square miles to the United States
and received three reservations and annuities for 20 years.
On 22 January 1855 Stevens signed a treaty with 2,500 natives led by Chief Seattle
of the Duwamish and Suquamish and with other tribes which were to receive $150,000
over ten years, and the annuities were to be paid in goods, not in cash.
Seattle made a speech to Governor Stevens which ended this way:
The White Man will never be alone.
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people,
for the dead are not powerless.
Dead—I say? There is no death.
Only a change of worlds.7
Governor Stevens convened a council and made a treaty with the Cayuse,
Nez Perce, Jmtailla, Walla Walla, and some of the Yakima on June 11.
Then on July 1 he signed a treaty with the Quinaults and Quileutes,
and on the 16th native tribes in western Montana accepted the Hellgate treaty.
He promised schools, livestock, horses, and annuities to the Nez Perce, Cayuse,
Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Yakima in exchange for 45,000 square miles of land.
They would not have to move to the reservation for two or three years,
and the U. S. Senate did not ratify it until April 1859.
A majority of the delegates agreed, and Yakima chief Kamiakin refused.
Stevens negotiated an agreement with the S’Klallam, Chimakum,
and Skokomish at Point no Point.
The Makah people also agreed to a treaty at Neah Bay that was not ratified
until 8 March 1859 and was proclaimed on April 18;
they retained the right to hunt whales and seals.
In the summer of 1855 gold had been discovered at Colville,
and Stevens opened Indian country to white settlers.
Five warriors led by Kamiakin’s nephew Qualchin killed six prospectors.
On September 20 the Indian Agent Andrew Bolon went to investigate that,
but on the 25th some Yakimas killed him.
Major Granville Haller led 84 soldiers, and about 300 warriors
led by Chief Kamiakin defeated them at Toppenish Creek on October 5.
On the 27th Nisqually Chief Leschi led 150 warriors
who ambushed 18 rangers, killing one and a farmer.
The next day they attacked and killed 9 settlers by the White River.
The survivors fled to Seattle and built a stockade.
Captain Maurice Maloney had 243 soldiers, and he sent Lt. William Slaughter
with 100 troops who forced the Yakima to abandon the siege.
Oregon Governor George Curry sent about 750 cavalry commanded by Gabriel Rains.
They entered Washington Territory and on November 10 defeated Kamiakin’s band.
Indian Agent Simmons invited friendly Indians to meet at the head of North Bay,
and Captain Maloney waged a campaign to move them on to reservations.
The U. S. Pacific Commander, General John Wool, arrived in late November,
and he wanted the army to protect the natives from the whites.
Governor Curry sent the Oregon militia to attack the
eastern tribes in the Walla Walla valley in December.
Wool blamed Curry and was so unpopular that the
Washington Territory legislature petitioned to have him removed,
and he was transferred to the Eastern Department in the fall of 1856.
On January 21 Governor Stevens had returned to the town named Seattle after the chief.
On the 26th about 200 or more native warriors attacked Seattle
killing three and losing 28 dead.
Governor Stevens suspected some farmers who had married natives
and had them arrested; Judge Edward Lander ordered them released.
Stevens declared martial law in Pierce and Thurston counties,
and on 12 May 1856 Landers held him in contempt of court.
Stevens had militia arrest Judge Landers.
On August 4 Stevens met with a council of Indians at Fox Island.
He promised them more support, and the U. S. Congress
appropriated nearly $5,000 for improvements.
In 1857 Chief Kamiakin began organizing an uprising east of the Columbia River,
and prospectors in Colville asked for protection.
Lt. Col. Edward Steptoe led 158 regulars out of Fort Walla Walla
in May 1858 and headed toward the gold camp;
over a thousand warriors stopped them and persuaded Steptoe to turn back.
The Indians followed them and on May 17 killed two officers.
Steptoe wanted to fight, but the regulars abandoned the artillery and returned to the fort.
General Newman Clarke ordered Col. George Wright to punish the Indians
using repeating rifles, and they were aided by some Nez Perce allies.
Their force defeated about 600 warriors on Spokane Plain on September 1
and at Four Lakes on the 5th, capturing many chiefs and 900 horses.
Wright sent Major Garnett to arrest Indians from their camps who had attacked Steptoe,
and they hanged 15 warriors and imprisoned others.
Kamiakin fled to Canada.
The Yakima Wars ended with a peace treaty on September 24
when the Coeur d’Alenes surrendered those who had attacked Col. George Wright’s men.
They returned seized property and made peace with Wright and the Nez Perce tribe.
Wright had threatened to hang Yakima Chief Owhi if his son Qualchan did not surrender.
When Qualchan appeared on the 24th, Wright had him hanged.
Several days later Owhi tried to escape and was shot.
The defeated tribes went to the reservation.
The U. S. Senate ratified the treaty on 8 March 1859,
and President Buchanan signed it on April 29.
The Indian agent A. J. Cain arrived on July 22.
About two-thirds of the Nez Perce people were led
by Hallalhotsoot who was called “Lawyer.”
When Col. Wright asked Lawyer what he wanted for having aided them,
he replied, “Peace, plows, and schools.”
By 1860 the Washington Territory had 11,594 people and 1,259 farms
with 81,869 improved acres.
Gold was discovered on Nez Perce land in 1860, and miners quickly
overran the reservation, cheating, bullying, and murdering the natives.
Previously Chief Joseph had supported the U. S. military at times,
and after this he would resist.
The early gold prospector Elias Pierce told the Council that Lawyer favored their mining,
and Superintendent Edward Geary offered Lawyer $50,000 for the mining grounds
with a treaty on 10 April 1861; but the U. S. Congress never appropriated the money.
By December the white population east of the Cascade Range
was two-thirds more than those on the western side.
In 1863 U. S. commissioners arrived and met with more than 3,000 Indians.
They tried to restrict the Indians to a reservation one-quarter the size of the previous one,
and only the chiefs living in the territory of the new reservation signed the treaty.
Lawyer and 51 in his faction signed the treaty on June 9.
The United States on March 3 had incorporated the Idaho Territory,
which included what became Montana and most of Wyoming,
and in July they made Lewiston the capital.
The 1863 treaty was not ratified, and funds promised never arrived;
and in August 1864 Caleb Lyon replaced William Wallace as the governor at Lewiston.
Two weeks later Lawyer met Lyon in a church and told him of their grievances.
In May 1863 gold was also discovered at Alder Gulch near the Gallatin River,
and in the next three years miners would extract $3 million in ore.
The U. S. Congress established the Montana Territory in May 1864.
The first successful dime novel about a heroic frontiersman,
Seth Jones: or, The Captives of the Frontier, by 20-year-old Edward Ellis
was published in the East in fall of 1860 and sold a half million copies.
Notes
1. “A Sioux Story of the War” in Minnesota Historical Society Collections, Vol. 6 (1894)
quoted in Great Documents in American Indian History ed. Wayne Moquin, p. 174.
2. Turmoil in New Mexico 1846-1868 by William A. Keleher, p. 76-77.
3. Race and Homicide in Nineteenth-Century California by Clare V. McKanna, p. 17.
4. The Annals of America, Volume 8, p. 384 from The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft,
Vol. XXXVII, p. 113.
5. History of California Volume 6 1848-1859 by Hubert Howe Bancroft, p. 739.
6. Ibid., Volume 7 1860-1890, p. 474-475.
7.
The Washington Historical Quarterly, October 1931
quoted in Great Documents in American Indian History ed. Wayne Moquin, p. 83.
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