part of their reservation, $40,000 of which was appropriated, and expected to be in the hands of the agents by November 1862. Meanwhile the reservation was freely occupied by white men, who dug gold, built towns, laid out roads, and sold whiskey upon it, contrary to law. Even the military guard was withdrawn, because the commander of the military district dared not subject a company to temptation by placing it on the border of a rich mining region, lest it should desert. The irritability of the Indians becoming more manifest, General Alvord determined upon the establishment of a permanent post at Lapwai, on the return of Maury's command from an expedition to Fort Hall, in the autumn of 1862.4

November came, and the Indians were gathering to the promised council when the commissioners appointed were forced to announce that no funds had come to hand, and to defer the conference until the following May. Even the well-disposed Nez Percés found the unaccountable delay anything but reassuring, and were only kept on friendly terms by the efforts of William Craig and Robert Newell, in whose probity they had the greatest confidence. At length the 15th of May, 1863, was fixed upon for the council. As a means to the peaceable ending of the conference, four companies of the 1st Oregon cavalry were stationed at Lapwai, and much display was made of the power and material of the military branch of the government, as well as its munificence in entertaining the whole Nez Percé nation, for which a village of tents with regularly laid out streets was spread upon a beautiful plat of ground about a mile from the fort.

Looking-glass had died in January, but Eagle-fromthe-light, Big Thunder, and Joseph, all chiefs opposed to another treaty, were present with their 1,200 followers, and Lawyer and his sub-chiefs with his people,

Fort Lapwai was built under the superintendence of D. W. Porter of the 1st Oregon cavalry. It was situated upon the right bank of Lapwai Creek, 3 miles from its confluence with the Clearwater. The reservation was one mile square.

numbering about 2,000. On the part of the United States, there were Superintendent Hale, agents Hutchins and Howe, and Robert Newell. When all else was ready, a delay of two weeks occurred, because the Indians would have no interpreter but Perrin B. Whitman, who was in the Willamette Valley and had to be sent for. So much time thus allowed for discussion gave opportunity for recalling all the grievances of the past, and prognosticating for the future. The Palouses, taking advantage of this period of idleness, invaded the Nez Percé camp, bent upon mischief, one of them going so far as to strike Commissioner Howe with a riding-whip, when they were ordered off the reservation by Colonel Steinberger, and Drake's company of cavalry assigned to the duty of keeping them away.5

About the last of the month the council was allowed to begin. The lands to be treated for embraced an area of 10,000 square miles, containing, besides the mines, much good agricultural land. It was at this conference that the disaffected chiefs put in their claims to certain parts of the former reservation as their peculiar domain. That spot where the agency was located, and which was claimed also in part by the representatives of the American Board of Foreign Missions, was alleged by Big Thunder to belong to him. Eagle-from-the-light laid claim to the country on White Bird Creek, a small branch of Salmon River, and adjacent to the Florence mines. Joseph declared his title to the valley of Wallowa Creek, a tributary

5 Rhinehart's Or. Cavalry, MS., 6-7.

6 Although a section of the organic act of Oregon gave a mile square of land to each of the missions in actual occupation at the time of the passage of the act, Aug. 1848, and the Lapwai mission had been abandoned in 1847, with no subsequent occupation, an attempt was made after the Indian agency buildings and mills had been erected on the land, and the country contiguous to the reservation was becoming settled, to establish a title to the Lapwai station under the organic act. The first claimants were Spalding and Eells, for the A. B. C. F. M., and the second was W. G. Langford, a lawyer, who purchased the pretended rights of the A. B. C. F. M. for a nominal sum, and attempted to extort from congress $120,000 for the improvements made by appropriations of that body. Lewiston Idaho Signal, April 12, 1873. The claim was not allowed.

NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE NEZ PERCÉS.

485

of the Grand Rond River; and each holding for himself and band declined to sell.

The lands reserved by the treaty of 1855 embraced all the country enclosed by a line beginning at the source of the south fork of the Palouse, extending south-westerly to the mouth of the Tucannon, up the Tucannon to its source in the Blue Mountains, along this range in a general southerly direction to a point on Grand Rond River, midway between the Grand Rond and Wallowa Creek, along the divide between the Wallowa Creek and Powder River, crossing Snake River at the mouth of Powder River, thence in an easterly direction to Salmon River fifty miles above the mouth of the Little Salmon, thence north to the Bitter Root Mountains, and thence west to the place of beginning, comprising an area which later constituted five counties.

The first proposition of the commissioners was that the Nez Percés should sell all their lands except five or six hundred square miles situated on the south side of the south fork of the Clearwater, and embracing the Kamiah prairie, to be surveyed into allotments, with the understanding that a patent was to issue to each individual holding land in severalty, with payment for improvements abandoned. But to this the nation would not agree. The next proposition was to enlarge this boundary so as to double the amount of land, embracing, as before, the Kamiah prairie, the agricultural lands to be surveyed, and the provisions of the treaty of 1855 to be continued to them. There was to be expended, besides, $50,000 in wagons, farm stock, and agricultural implements, $10,000 in mills, $10,000 in school-houses, $6,000 for teachers for the first year, and half that amount annually for fourteen years for the same object. Buildings for teaching blacksmithing and carpentering were to be furnished. Between $4,000 and $5,000 was to be paid for the horses furnished Governor Stevens and the volunteers during the war of 1855-6. The Indians might sell their

improvements to private individuals or the government; and the whole of the stipulations should be carried out within one year after the ratification of the treaty by the senate of the United States. This proposition was to be final.

Lawyer then made a speech containing a remarkable mixture of diplomacy and sarcasm-the sarcasm being a part of the diplomacy-giving evidence of those peculiar talents which enabled this chief always to outgeneral his rivals. He assured the commissioners that he and his chiefs and people fully understood the present position of the government toward the Nez Percés, who were a law-abiding people, while the government itself had broken its own law, the treaty of 1855. He had understood that there were two opinions in congress concerning the making of a new treaty. As to the old one, he was willing to adhere to that, as he had done heretofore, having always regarded himself sacredly bound by it, and the chiefs who refused to be governed by it as beyond the pale of the law, and not acknowledged by him to be chiefs. Although satisfied that the first treaty was preferable, he would like to hear what the United States proposed to give for the reservation lands, and that the government was disposed to be just.7

The object of this speech was fourfold: to show that he was in a position to object to the proffered treaty, to arraign the government of the United States, to make this the ground for securing additional benefits should he consent to the propositions of the government agents, and to proclaini as outlaws all the other chiefs who did not follow his direction, by which proclamation his alliance with the government would be strengthened, this being the foundation of his power with his own people. After this speech of Lawyer's, the rival chiefs, Big Thunder, Three Feathers, Eagle-from-the-light, and Joseph, who had held aloof from the conference, came into the council, 'Rhinehart's Or. Cavalry, MS., 6; Gr. Argus, June 2, 1863.

INDIAN DIPLOMACY.

487

when Lawyer with great adroitness appeared to side with them, and declared the Nez Percés would never sell their country, though they might be brought to consent to gold-mining upon it for a sufficient consideration. Some of the chiefs questioned the authority of the commissioners to make a treaty, and the Indians appeared to be drifting farther away from a friendly feeling as the negotiations continued. Superintendent Hale, affecting to resent the imputation upon his authority, replied that the doubt would terminate the council, and he had nothing further to submit.

The withdrawal of the commissioners changed the attitude of Lawyer, who intimated that in a few days he would offer a proposition of his own. On the 3d of June a grand council was again called, at which all the chiefs of both divisions of the Nez Percés were present except Eagle-from-the-light. The objections of Lawyer were answered, the grievances of the Indians explained away by the commissioners, and the thanks of the government tendered for the loyal services of the tribe in the past. They were assured that the government desired their welfare, and believed it would be promoted by locating on a reservation where they could be protected, and their land secured to them forever in severalty by a patent from the government; but if they were unable to come to any conclusion, the council would be immediately terminated.

On the evening of that day Lawyer offered to give up the land on which Lewiston was situated, with twelve miles around it, including the Lapwai agency and post, which was promptly rejected. There was now a lengthened consultation among the Indians; and again several meetings of the council were held, the non-treaty chiefs being present. They were told by Commissioner Hutchins that their sullen and unfriendly manner was the occasion of the disagreements among the Nez Percés, and that although they might