Kate and Sue McBeth, Missionary Teachers to the Nez Perce

1875

As a result of the settlers' protest and pressure from Oregon's political leaders, the Grant Administration on June 10, 1875, did an about-face and rescinded the 1873 order that divided the Wallowa, giving Monteith the duty of informing Joseph that his people, along with all the other off-reservation, non-treaty bands, would have to go onto the reservation even though it had still not been surveyed into allotments. Refusing to do so, Joseph met again and again with the Wallowa settlers, trying to persuade them that his people had never sold their homeland, but to no avail. At times, he also met with the headmen and chiefs of the other non-treaty bands, including Eagle From The Light and Looking Glass, whose lands were on the reservation, and such off-reservation leaders as White Bird from the Salmon River country and Toohoolhoolzote, a tall, powerful shaman who headed a band in the mountainous country between the Snake and Salmon rivers east of the Wallowa. A few headmen and their war chiefs were all for joining other tribes in armed resistance against the whites, but the majority, including Joseph, refused to agree to war even though they would not go onto the reservation. Clinging to the hope that he could settle his own problem peaceably and arguing persistently that the Americans would destroy any band that took up arms, Joseph displeased some of the other off-reservation leaders. They suspected that he, like Lawyer, might become too defeatist and pro-white to be a reliable ally.

Meanwhile, the Wallowa Valley crisis mounted. The scares of an Indian war increased among the settlers, and several times they panicked and sent for troops, who hastened into the valley, found the scares unwarranted, and left after chiding the settlers. On some occasions, the military leaders who studied the conflict filed reports that were more sympathetic to the Indians than the settlers. In August 1875, Capt. Stephen C. Whipple, who was ordered to the valley by Gen. Oliver O. Howard, the new commander of the Department of the Columbia at Fort Vancouver, satisfied himself that Joseph was telling the truth when he said that his people had never sold their land. When Whipple wrote his report, Howard sent it on to the War Department with comments of his own: "I think it a great mistake to take from Joseph and his band of Nez Perces Indians that valley. . . . possibly Congress can be induced to let these really peaceable Indians have this poor valley for their own." Soon afterward, Howard sent his assistant adjutant general, Maj. Henry Clay Wood, to the valley to make a legal study of the causes of the unrest. After lengthy research, Wood reported, "in my opinion . . . the non-treaty Nez Perces cannot in law be regarded as bound by the treaty of 1863; and in so far as it attempts to deprive them of a right to occupancy of any land its provisions are null and void. The extinguishment of their title of occupancy contemplated by this treaty is imperfect and incomplete."

The danger of a new Indian war preyed on Howard's mind. A deeply religious and moralistic man, he was particularly moved by a letter from the Rev. A. L. Lindsley, a prominent Presbyterian minister in Portland who kept in touch with Monteith and was familiar with the Wallowa situation. The Joseph band's "title has never been rightfully extinguished," Lindsley wrote. "In fact, the fair construction of treaty stipulations confirms the Indian title. . . . The Government is bound by its own engagement to fulfill the original Treaty [of 1855], until it can procure an honorable discharge from its obligations." Lindsley, who like Monteith wanted the non-treaties to go onto the reservation under Presbyterian care, concluded by proposing that the government appoint a new commission to buy the Wallowa Valley from the Indians, which would make everything just and honorable. (pp. 116-118)