When I set out to write this blog about visiting each of the 150 Washington State Parks, I didn't know that my ruminations would so often return to the 1850's. I am beginning to realize, though, just how pivotal that time was in forming the underpinnings of modern Washington's geographic, social, political and economic reality. Nationally, it was a time of acrimony and polarization leading up to the Civil War.
In July 2018, we found the monument marking the battle of Spokane Plains, a forlorn stone pyramid with a bronze plaque located in a grassy field surrounded by a highway and a railroad. Three hundred yards across the highway is the security gate at the entrance to Fairchild Air Force Base, home to air refueling tankers and the largest single employer in eastern Washington. Less than two miles east along Hwy 2 is the Spokane Tribe Casino. The battle here was the last military engagement between tribal warriors and the US Army in Washington.
The precursors that led to the Yakama War began with increasing numbers of emigrants from the United States. With a few notable exceptions like Marcus and Narcissa Whitman's mission in the Walla Walla Valley, most newcomers to the Northwest were headed for the verdant valleys of western Oregon or the timberlands edging the Salish Sea. Even today, 78 % of Washington's residents live in the 19 counties that touch the sea or the estuarine reach of the Columbia River.
The interior plateau lands of eastern Washington are the domains of the Sahaptin-language nations of the Yakama, Palouse, Klickitat, Walla Walla and others, bounded on the north by the Salish-language nations of the Wenatchee, Entiat, Chelan, Methow, Moses-Columbia, Okanogan, Nespelem, San Poil and Spokane.
The people traditionally utilized the vast territory interchangeably, relying on widespread intermarriage ties to avoid conflicting use of resources as they circulated throughout the region on a seasonal cycle to hunt big game, harvest camas and cous, fish and preserve salmon and eels, and collect mountain huckleberries. Leadership was derived by the respect given to those who best exemplified the values and aspirations of their followers.
It was into this world that Kamiakin was born in 1800 to a father of the Palouse tribe and a mother of the Yakama tribe. He spent his childhood with his mother's tribe but in adolescence spent more time among the Palouse, honing his horsemanship skills and beginning to acquire wealth and prestige in the form of many horses. As a part of his coming of age, he sought a guardian spirit by climbing high on the slopes of Mount Rainier. He later said it was "the severest feat of his life." Based on Kamiakin's recounting of the experience, his relative Sluiskin famously warned Philemon Van Trump and Hazard Stevens (son of the territorial governor) before their final push to be the first to summit Washington's highest mountain that "Your plan to climb Tahoma is all foolishness. No one can do it and live. You make my heart sick when you talk of climbing Tahoma. You will perish and your people will blame me. Don't you go! Don't you go!"
At age 25, Kamiakin married Sunk-hay-ee, a Yakama chief's daughter. Travelling widely through the course of annual journeys to fishing and harvesting areas, Kamiakin and his band maintained family ties and witnessed agricultural and grazing practices of scattered newcomers from the United States. He developed irrigated gardens and kept beef cattle at his home base in the Ahtanum Valley, and acceded to the establishment of a Catholic mission there, encouraging baptisms. He had subsequently married Kem-ee-yowah, daughter of the Klickitat Chief Tenax, and according to customary sororal polygyny, also married her three younger sisters--Wal-luts-pum, Hos-ke-la-pum, and Colestah (more about her later). Unwilling to abide by the Fathers' insistence on monogamy, he declined baptism for himself.
The partitioning of Washington Territory from Oregon in 1853 and the appointment of Isaac Stevens as Territorial Governor, Superintendent of Indian Affairs and Pacific Railroad Surveyor (he was a multi-tasker) accelerated the pace of changes. The United States' expansion into Native American territories coalesced around the definition of the legal status of Native American Tribes established by Chief Justice John Marshall of the US Supreme Court writing a decision (Johnson v. McIntosh) in 1823 that "settled" the parameters of native sovereignty. Justice Marshall acknowledged that at the beginning of English colonization, Native Americans "were the sovereigns of their respective portions of the territory, and the absolute owners and proprietors of the soil; and who neither acknowledged nor owed any allegiance or obedience to any European sovereign or state whatever...." However, he further concluded that "all, or nearly all, the lands in the United States, is holden under purchases from the Indian nations." Marshall neatly legalized all previous takings of lands, saying "if the property of the great mass of the community originates in it, it becomes the law of the land." Marshall's opinion also asserted the right of the federal government, inherited from the European monarchs, of being the only authorized agent for future purchases from still-sovereign Native Americans in territories not yet settled by non-native citizens. Until 1871, the method for carrying out Marshall's doctrine was the negotiation of treaties in which tribes ceded rights to their lands in exchange for promises of reservations, payments, health care, and education. After 1871, no more treaties were concluded; relations with Native Americans are managed with executive orders and federal legislation.
Governor Stevens' arrival in Washington Territory set in motion the process of resettlement by Americans:
The US Federal Government would take legal title to the land by making treaties with sovereign Native Americans, confining them to reservations.
Lands would be surveyed by government surveyors on a uniform grid with one square mile sections organized into 36 square mile townships.
Lands would be disposed through grants by the federal government to individuals and families for farming (Donation Land Claims, Homestead Act), grants to railroads to subsidize construction and grants to states upon statehood to fund the establishment of public institutions such as public schools, universities and prisons.
A significant contingent of US military forces was dedicated to the region, reaching nearly 20% of total US military forces in 1855-1858, to assist in carrying out the policy. Officers and commanders varied in their commitment, but the stated intention was to facilitate the orderly development of the country. Governor Stevens set about his task of negotiating treaties. Lacking a depth of understanding about the leadership structures among the tribes, Stevens designated certain individuals to be treaty signers, who may or may not have had actual authority to speak for entire groups. Kamiakin was highly regarded by people for his proven leadership and was chosen by Stevens. At the June 9, 1855 Walla Walla Treaty signing, Kamiakin, foreseeing the impacts, signed the treaty under duress as observers noted that he bit his lip until it bled.
The treaty languished for years awaiting approval by the US Senate, and meanwhile a number of incidents heightened the tense detente between tribal members and US officials. Settlers trespassed through and in some cases settled on reserved tribal lands. Miners going to a gold discovery in the Colville area invited skirmishes after they sexually assaulted native women. Insensitive actions by a government agent led to his ambush and murder by angry tribal members. Major Grenville Haller, sent to arrest the perpetrators, was decisively routed by Yakama warriors at the Battle of Toppenish Creek. Kamiakin's success in this engagement encouraged more leaders to join him, but still Kamiakin and his peers alternately embraced diplomacy and resistance as they contemplated an unclear but often threatening future. A force under Major Gabriel Rains was sent to pursue Kamiakin, with a limited engagement near Union Gap. As the intervention grew, Chief Kamiakin dictated a letter to military leaders. In it, Kamiakin ennumerated the grievances that had been perpetrated on his people and stated, "If the soldiers and the Americans after having read the letter and taken knowledge of the motives which bring us to fight, want to retire or treat in a friendly [manner], we will consent to put arms down and to grant you a piece of land in every tribe, as long as you do not force us to be exiled from our native country. Otherwise we are decided to be cut to pieces." The letter was discovered when Rains' soldiers ransacked and burned the Catholic mission at Ahtanum Creek, but no response was given.
In light of the US Army's setbacks at the hands of Kamiakin's warriors, General John Wool at Fort Vancouver elaborated a policy of utilizing the Army to occupy traditional Indian hunting and fishing grounds, starving the tribes into surrender. Learning of this, in March, 1856, warriors from the Yakama and Klickitat nations attacked military and civilian targets at the Cascades of the Columbia, a primary salmon fishing site. Fourteen US civilians and three soldiers were killed.
An uneasy truce persisted for nearly two years as Army regulations closed most of eastern Washington to entry by emigrants.
On May 17, 1858 a patrol of 160 soldiers commanded by Colonel Edward Steptoe was confronted by combined forces of Yakama, Spokane, Palouse and Coeur d'Alene warriors at Pine Creek and forced to retreat back to Fort Walla Walla. The affront to the US Army prompted orders for Colonel George Wright to " attack All the hostile Indians you meet, with vigor; make their punishment severe and persevere until the submission of all is complete.."
Departing from Fort Walla Walla on August 7, 1858, Wright and his command of over 500 soldiers and more than 200 support staff marched the 150 miles to the Spokane Valley by the end of the month. On September 1, Wright's men awoke to find Kamiakin at the center of 500 warriors arrayed on a ridge above them (now known as Wright's Hill). Kamiakin planned to lure the soldiers up and over the ridge to the plains beyond, where his warriors' superior horsemanship would give them a clear advantage. Commanding the high ground, the native warriors may have expected a repetition of the engagement with Colonel Steptoe and were surprised as Wright ordered an infantry march to within 600 yards of their position.
Unbeknownst to Kamiakin and his allies, Wright's soldiers were supplied with a newly-designed weapon, the Springfield Model 1855, a rifled musket that utilized Minie ball bullets--grooved for aerodynamic stability. The deadly range of these weapons extended to nearly 1,000 yards, more than 20 times the distance of the muskets that Kamiakin had faced in the engagement with Colonel Steptoe 4 months earlier. This was the US Army's first use of the new weapon in battle. As the infantry opened fire, the deadly accuracy caught the fighters off guard. Lt. Lawrence Kip wrote that "they were panic-struck by the effect of our fire at such great distances," and they scattered northward, with more than a dozen casualties. Wright's forces suffered no losses.
Four days later, Wright moved out toward the north in pursuit. After a march of 5 miles, they encountered Kamiakin's reformed line of warriors at a site two miles northeast of today's state park monument (near the intersection of Craig and Deno Roads), setting fire to the grasslands. Using the cover of the smoke, they were able to negate the advantage of Wright's superior firearms and attempted to separate and stampede the supply wagons from the troops with musket fire and feats of horsemanship including a dash down a hill 500 feet high with a slope of 45 degrees at headlong speed. Lt Kip noted in his report that "with the wind blowing high and against us, we were nearly enveloped by the flames." Wright ordered the pack mules to the center for protection and sent his best marksmen into a skirmish line to break up the attacks, then ordered his cavalry to charge into the warriors' midst, scattering them. Kamiakin's attempts to regroup in a wooded area were met with fire from two 12 pound howitzers and two 6 pound cannons. One of the cannon shots shattered a ponderosa pine limb above Kamiakin, knocking him from his horse and wounding his shoulder. Kamiakin's youngest wife Colestah had accompanied him throughout the battle, vowing to fight to the death by his side. Armed with a stone axe and attired in her finest red-beaded buckskin dress, she picked him up and carried him to safety to treat his injury. By nightfall, Wright's entire company had reached the Spokane River and the native warriors had dispersed. In subsequent days, Wright's forces rounded up more than 800 horses belonging to tribe members and slaughtered them, as well as burning storehouses of preserved foods. Though there was no clear winner at the Battle of Spokane Plains, Kamiakin's injury combined with the horse slaughter and the urging of tribal elders to surrender brought a full stop to further organized resistance. On a peace mission, Chief Garry of the Spokanes was received by Wright and told:
"I have met you in two bloody battles; you have been badly whipped; you have lost several chiefs and many warriors killed and wounded. I have not lost a man or animal; I have a large force, and you Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes, Palouses and Pend d'Oreilles may unite, and I can beat you as badly as before. I did not come into this country to make peace; I came here to fight. Now when you are tired of the war and ask for peace, I will tell you what you must do: you must come to me with your arms, with your women and children, and every thing you have, and lay them at my feet; you must put your faith in me and trust my mercy. If you do this, I shall then dictate the terms upon which I will grant peace. If you do not do this, war will be made on you this year and next, and until your nation shall be exterminated ... Also, you must deliver to the Officer in Command at Fort Walla Walla one Chief and four warriors, with their families, from each of the three tribes who will be held as hostages for the future good conduct of their respective nations."
Colonel Wright further demonstrated his brutality with the summary hanging of Kamiakin's cousin Qualchan and the murder of his uncle Owhi (he bragged in his written report that Qualchan arrived at his camp at 9 am and was hung by 9:15 am). Kamiakin and his family fled first to Canada and later to Montana's Bitterroot Valley to avoid retribution. In 1860, with most military units reassigned to the Civil War, Kamiakin returned to live at a site along the Palouse River upstream from Palouse Falls State Park. After the death of Colestah in 1864 from complications after childbirth, he moved his family to Rock Lake and farmed an area adjacent to today's Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail until his death in 1877. To the end of his life he refused to live on a reservation or receive any gifts from the government, utilizing a provision in the 1855 treaty allowing him to stay on his land as long as he was not reimbursed for his improvements to the land.
Many of the military officers and enlisted men who fought Kamiakin died in the Civil War (of the 24 combat officers at Spokane Plains, 17 would serve as Civil War generals, 13 with the Union and 4 with the Confederacy), but not Colonel Wright, who was assigned to California for the duration of the war. At the war's end, he was promoted to Brigadier General and reassigned to take charge of Washington Territory. En route to his post, he drowned in the shipwreck of the Brother Jonathan bound to Washington with, perhaps ironically, over $50 million in gold (value in 2018), some of which was destined to be paid to Indian tribes as payment of the annuities owed in the Treaties of 1855.
Kamiakin encouraged his children toward leadership roles, and they moved to the Colville, Yakama and Couer d'Alene reservations to pursue schooling and find a supporting role. His descendant Alice Garry became a prominent spokesperson for native people and was a presenter at the dedication, attended by more than 1,500 people, of the Spokane Plains Battlefield monument in 1926, part of a series of historic monuments placed along the route of the Great Northern Railway. His great-great-granddaughter Paulette Jordan received over 230,000 votes in her bid to become governor of Idaho in 2018 on a platform of expanding access to health care, quality education, land and water preservation and representation for all. Chief Kamiakin retains a revered place in the history of Washington as a leader who exemplified the best qualities of leadership.
--David
Kamiakin portrait drawing by Gustavus Sohon Courtesy Washington State Historical Society
Spokane Plains Battlefield drawing by Gustavus Sohon Courtesy Washington State University
Battle Monument and Alice Garry photo courtesy of Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane
Portrait of Paulette Jordan Courtesy Jordan for Governor Campaign