Blazing The Way Part 36

Again at Bean's Point an Indian was shot by a white man, a Scandinavian; the charge was a liberal one of buckshot.

Some white men who went to inquire into the matter followed the Indian's trail, finding ample evidence that he had climbed the hill back of the house, where he may have been employed to work, and weak from his wounds had sat down on a log and then went back to the water; but his body was never found. It was supposed that the murderer enticed him back again and when he was dead, weighted and sunk him in the deep, cold waters of the Sound.

At one time there was quite a large camp of Indians where now runs Seneca Street, Seattle, near which was my home. It was my father's custom to hire the Indians to perform various kinds of hard labor, such as grubbing stumps, digging ditches, cutting wood, etc. For a while we employed a tall, strong, fine-looking Indian called Lachuse to cut wood; through a long summer day he industriously plied the ax and late in the twilight went down to a pool of water, near an old bridge, to bathe. As he pa.s.sed by a clump of bushes, suddenly the flash and report of a gun shattered the still air and Lachuse fell heavily to the ground with his broad chest riddled with buckshot.

There was great excitement in the camp, running and crying of the women and debate by the men, who soon carried him into the large Indian house.

He was laid down in the middle of the room and the medicine man, finding him alive, proceeded to suck the wounds while the tama.n.u.se noise went on.

A distracted, grey-haired lum-e-i, his mother, came to our house to beg for a keeler of water, all the time crying, "Mame-loose Lachuse!

Achada!"

Two of the little girls of our family, sleeping in an old-fashioned trundle bed, were so frightened at the commotion that they pulled the covers up over their heads so far that their feet protruded below.

The medicine man's treatment seems to have been effective, aided by the tama.n.u.se music, as Lachuse finally recovered.

The revengeful deed was committed by a Port Washington Indian, in retaliation for the stealing of his "klootchman" (wife) by an Indian of the Duwampsh tribe, although it was not Lachuse, this sort of revenge being in accordance with their heathen custom.

"Jim Keokuk," an Indian, killed another Indian in the marsh near the gas works; he struck him on the head with a stone. Jim worked as deck hand on a steamer for a time, but he in turn was finally murdered by other Indians, wrapped with chains and thrown overboard, which was afterward revealed by some of the tribe.

There were many cases of retaliation, but the Indians were fairly peaceable until degraded by drink.

The beginning of hostilities against the white people on the Sound, by some historians is said to have been the killing of Leander Wallace at old Fort Nesqually. One of them gives this account:

"Prior to the Whitman ma.s.sacre, Owhi and Kamiakin, the great chiefs of the upper and lower Yakima nations, while on a visit to Fort Nesqually, had observed to Dr. Tolmie that the Hudson Bay Company's posts with their white employes were a great convenience to the natives, but the American immigration had excited alarm and was the constant theme of hostile conversation among the interior tribes. The erection in 1848, at Fort Nesqually, of a stockade and blockhouse had also been the subject of angry criticism by the visiting northern tribes. So insolent and defiant had been their conduct that upon one afternoon for over an hour the officers and men of the post had guns pointed through the loop-holes at a number of Skawhumpsh Indians, who, with their weapons ready for a.s.sault, had posted themselves under cover of adjacent stumps and trees.

"Shortly before the shooting of Wallace, rumors had reached the fort that the Snoqualmies were coming in force to redress the alleged cruel treatment of Why-it, the Snoqualmie wife of the young Nesqually chief, Wyampch, a dissipated son of Lahalet.

"Dr. Tolmie treated such a pretext as a mere cloak for a marauding expedition of the Snoqualmies.

"Sheep shearing had gathered numbers of extra hands, chiefly Snohomish, who were occupying mat lodges close to the fort, besides unemployed stragglers and camp followers.

"On Tuesday, May 1, 1849, about noon, numbers of Indian women and children fled in great alarm from their lodges and sought refuge within the fort. A Snoqualmie war party, led by Pat Kanem, approached from the southwestern end of the American plains. Dr.

Tolmie having posted a party of Kanakas in the northwest bastion went out to meet them.

"Tolmie induced Pat Kanem to return with him to the fort, closing the gate after their entrance."

The following is said to be the account given by the Hudson Bay Company's officials:

"The gate nearest the mat lodges was guarded by a white man and an Indian servant. While Dr. Tolmie was engaged in attending a patient, he heard a single shot fired, speedily followed by two or three others. He hastily rushed to the bastion, whence a volley was being discharged at a number of retreating Indians who had made a stand and found cover behind the sheep washing dam of Segualitschu Creek. Through a loop-hole the bodies of an Indian and a white man were discernible at a few yards distance from the north gate where the firing had commenced.

"He hastened thither and found Wallace breathing his last, with a full charge of buckshot in his stomach. The dying man was immediately carried inside of the fort.

"The dead Indian was a young Skawhumpsh, who had accompanied the Snoqualmies.

"The Snohomish workers, as also the stragglers, had been, with the newly arrived Snoqualmies, in and out of the abandoned lodges, chatting and exchanging news. A thoughtless act of the Indian sentry posted at the water gate, in firing into the air, had occasioned a general rush of the Snohomish, who had been cool observers of all that had pa.s.sed outside.

"Walter Ross, the clerk, came to the gate armed, and seeing Kussa.s.s, a Snoqualmie, pointing his gun at him, fired but missed him. Kussa.s.s then fired at Wallace. Lewis, an American, had a narrow escape, one ball pa.s.sing through his vest and trousers and another grazing his left arm.

"Quallawowit, as soon as the firing began, shot through the pickets and wounded Tzia.s.s, an Indian, in the muscles of his shoulder, which soon after occasioned his death.

"The Snoqualmies as they retreated to the beach killed two Indian ponies and then hastily departed in their canoes.

"At the commencement of the shooting, Pat Kanem, guided by Wyampch, escaped from the fort, a fortunate occurrence, as, upon his rejoining his party the retreat at once began.

"When Dr. Tolmie stooped to raise Wallace, and the Snoqualmies levelled their guns to kill that old and revered friend, an Indian called 'the Priest' pushed aside the guns, exclaiming 'Enough mischief has already been done.'

"The four Indians of the Snoqualmie party whose names were given by Snohomish informers to Dr. Tolmie, together with Kussa.s.s and Quallawowit, were afterward tried for the murder of Wallace."

Their names were Whyik, Quallawowit, Kussa.s.s, Stahowie, Tatetum and Quilthlimkyne; the last mentioned was a Duwampsh.

Eighty blankets were offered for the giving up of these Indians.

The Snoqualmies came to Steilacoom, where they were to be tried, in war paint and parade.

The officials came from far; down the Columbia; up the Cowlitz, and across to Puget Sound, about two hundred miles in primitive style, by canoe, oxcart or cayuse.

The trial occupied two days; on the third day, the two condemned, Kussa.s.s and Quallawowit, were executed.

One shot Wallace, _two_ Indians were hung; Leschi, a leader in the subsequent war of 1855, looked on and went away resenting the injustice of taking two lives for one. Other Indians no doubt felt the same, thus preparing the way for their deadly opposition to the white race.

It certainly seems likely that the "pretext" of the Snoqualmies was a valid one as Wyampch, the young Nesqually chief, was a drunkard, and Why-it, his Snoqualmie wife, was no doubt treated much as Indian wives generally in such a case, frequently beaten and kicked into insensibility.

The Snoqualmies had been quarreling with the Nesquallies before this and it is extremely probable that, as was currently reported among old settlers, the trouble was among the Indians themselves.

There are two stories also concerning Wallace; first, that he was outside quietly looking on, which he ought to have known better than to do; second, that he was warned not to go outside but persisted in going, boasting that he could settle the difficulty with a club, paying for his temerity with his life.

A well known historian has said that the "different tribes had been successfully treated with, but the Indians had acted treacherously inasmuch as it was well known that they had long been plotting against the white race to destroy it. This being true and they having entered upon a war without cause, however, he (Gov. Stevens) might sympathize with the restlessness of an inferior race who perceived that destiny was against them, he nevertheless had high duties toward his own."

Now all this was true, yet there were other things equally true. Not all the treachery, not all the revenge, not all the cruelty were on the side of the "inferior" race. Even all the inferiority was not on one side. The garbled translation by white interpreters, the lying, deceit, nameless and numberless impositions by lawless white men must have aroused and fostered intense resentment. That there were white savages here we have ample proof.

When Col. Wright received the conquered Spokane chiefs in council with some the pipe of peace was smoked. After it was over, Owhi presented himself and was placed in irons for breaking an agreement with Col.

Wright, who bade him summon his son, Qualchin, on pain of death by hanging if his son refused to come.

The next day Qualchin appeared not knowing that the order had been given, and was seized and hung without trial. Evidently Kamiakin, the Yakima chief, had good reason to fear the white man's treachery when he refused to join in the council.

The same historian before mentioned tells how Col. Wright called together the Walla Wallas, informed them that he knew that they had taken part in recent battles and ordered those who had to stand up; thirty-five promptly rose. Four of these were selected and hung. Now these Indians fought for home and country and volunteered to be put to death for the sake of their people, as it is thought by some, those hung for the murder of Whitman and his companions, did, choosing to do so of their own free will, not having been the really guilty ones at all.

Quiemuth, an Indian, after the war, emerged from his hiding place, went to a white man on Yelm prairie requesting the latter to accompany him to Olympia that he might give himself up for trial. Several persons went with him; reached Olympia after midnight, the governor placed him in his office, locking the door. It was soon known that the Indian was in the town and several white men got in at the back door of the building. The guard may have been drowsy or their movements very quiet; a shot was fired and Quiemuth and the others made a rush for the door where a white man named Joe Brannan stabbed the Indian fatally, in revenge for the death of his brother who had been killed by Indians some time before.

Three of the Indian leaders in Western Washington were a.s.sa.s.sinated by white men for revenge. Leschi, the most noted of the hostile chiefs on the Sound, was betrayed by two of his own people, some have said.

I have good authority for saying that he gave himself up for fear of a similar fate.

He was tried three times before he was finally hung after having been kept in jail a long time. Evidently there were some obstructionists who agreed with the following just and truthful statement by Col. G. O.

Haller, a well-known Indian fighter, first published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

"The white man's aphorism 'The first blow is half the battle,' is no secret among Indians, and they practice it upon entering a war. Indeed, weak nations and Indian tribes, wrought to desperation by real or fancied grievances, inflict while able to do so horrible deeds when viewed by civilized and Christ-like men. War is simply barbarism. And when was war refined and reduced to rules and regulations that must control the Indian who fights for all that is dear to him--his native land and the graves of his sires--who finds the white man's donation claim spread over his long cultivated potato patch, his hog a trespa.s.ser on his old pasture ground and his old residence turned into a stable for stock, etc.?