great a distance as would previously have occupied several weeks. As far as possible, I discontinued the small and ineffective posts and concentrated the troops in larger garrisons where they would have better advantages in the way of instruction and discipline, and could be maintained at less expense. Fort Canby at the mouth of the Columbia River, Forts Walla Walla, Spokane, Cœur d'Alene, and Sherman, were made the principal posts of the department, with troops stationed for immediate use in the sections of country most liable to Indian hostility, while Vancouver Barracks served as a station for a strong reserve force for the entire department. This last-named post was particularly adapted to the purpose mentioned, owing to its near proximity to Portland, Oregon, which, from its railroad connection and river and ocean service, was accessible from all sections of the country. In 1884, in spite of its great commercial importance, and the large number of thriving towns that had grown up on its shores, Puget Sound was still in a defenseless condition. The government had reserved important sites for batteries and defensive works at the entrance of the sound, and during the year mentioned I ordered a board of experienced artillery officers to report as to their relative importance, and the proper armament, garrison, and work necessary to place them in proper condition for use. Having occasion to mount one battery of artillery, I secured several Hotchkiss revolving cannon, invented by an American and manufactured in Paris, France, and the result of the practice with these was most satisfactory. Although the fact of a cannon being fired from the shoulder of an artillerist seemed somewhat novel, yet experience proved these guns to be the most destructive that had up to that time been used in the United States army. It is singular that many American inventors have to go to Europe to have their inventions adopted. Here was a case of an American officer on the Pacific Coast making application for a certain class of artillery guns; they were manufactured in Paris, bought by our government, shipped across the Atlantic, then across the continent and placed in service on the Columbia River. Instruction in signaling and the familiarizing the troops with the use of the latest modern appliances received attention at all the posts in the department, and experiments were made with the heliostat with most gratifying results. From Vancouver Barracks to the summit of Mount Hood, fifty miles in an air line, these flashes of the heliostat could be distinctly seen with the naked eye. Owing to the rapid settlement of the country the lower Columbia Indians were in many cases unjustly deprived of their cultivated grounds, their salmon fisheries, and other means of support, and I had great difficulty in preventing active hostilities between them and the settlers. The Indians were finally pacified, however, and numbers of them were assisted by the military in locating their claims to homesteads under the laws of Congress. In the Territory of Washington there were in 1884 fifteen Indian reservations, inhabited by over ten thousand six hundred Indians. The total amount of land comprised within these reservations was over six hundred thousand acres, and consisted largely of the best agricultural, grazing, timber and mineral lands in the Territory. In many places the Indians were engaged in cultivating the soil with good results, the system of allotting a suitable quantity of land to them in severalty having a most excellent effect. CHAPTER XXXII. CHIEF MOSES AND HIS TRIBE. THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE-CHIEF MOSES AND THE MOSES RESERVATION-CAUSES OF DISSATIS- TION ON THEIR FINAL RETURN FROM THE INDIAN TERRITORY. ONTROVERSIES arose in 1878 between the Indians of the upper Columbia and the white people of Yakima County and vicinity. These troubles eventually resulted in the arrest of Chief Moses, who was a prominent character, although many of the Indians did not recognize him as having any authority over them. Chief Moses was kept in prison for some time, but this did not allay the restlessness of his followers, and additional troops were sent to the Yakima Valley. In 1879 Moses, with a number of other Indians, was sent to Washington, where he made a treaty with the Secretary of the Interior by which a tract of land was set apart for the use of himself and his people. This reservation was bounded on the east by the Okinakane River, on the south by the Columbia and Lake Chelan, on the west by the forty-fourth parallel, and extended to the Canadian boundary on the north. The country in question embraced approximately four thousand two hundred square miles, known as the Moses reservation, and was worth many millions of dollars. Certain white men afterward declared that they had discovered mines and occupied ranches on this reservation long before it was transferred to the Indians. This region was rich in agricultural, pastoral and mineral resources and contained rich deposits of gold and silver. The benefits intended to be secured by this treaty did not last very long, as Moses and the other Indians soon complained that its various provisions were not carried out by the government, while, on the other hand, citizens who had made their homes in the reservation before it became such, remonstrated strongly against a treaty by which they were deprived of their property and rights. These settlers had discovered, had claimed according to law, and had actually worked valuable mines located in Stevens County. There had even been voting precincts established, and elections had been held within its boundaries. In spite of these facts, when the Moses reservation was set apart by executive order all these people were peremptorily told that they must leave that part of the country, although some of them had lived there for many years. They, however, did not all obey the order. The Indians grew more and more dissatisfied, and Moses demanded that if the white people would not leave, they should at least ac knowledge their holdings to be on an Indian reservation and ask his permission to work their mines. An executive order restoring a strip of land fifteen miles wide south of the Canadian boundary was also much resented by the Indians. At last there were rumors that a general war council of the Indians had been called, whereupon Colonel Merriam, a very intelligent and judicious officer of the Second United States Infantry, the commander at Fort Spokane, was assigned the duty of adjusting the causes of dispute. This he endeavored to do by rigidly excluding white settlers from any part of the Moses reservation south of the fifteen-mile limit of the strip WATCHING THE COMING OF THE WHITE MAN above mentioned, that had been restored to the public domain by executive order. Indians who had farms on this strip were recognized by him as having the same rights on unreserved public land as the white people had. In May, 1883, Captain Baldwin, one of the most judicious and competent officers I had in that department, was ordered to proceed to the Moses and Colville reservations, and investigate the reported dissatisfaction of the Indians located there. On the Colville reservation he succeeded in meeting Tonasket, head chief of the Okinagans, and found him an intelligent, industrious Indian, much respected by all his people as well as by the white settlers. He said that neither he nor his band desired to have trouble with the white people, but on the contrary wished to live in peace with them if possible. He complained that their agent had not visited them for several years. These Indians greatly desired a gristmill, as they were obliged to take their grain thirty miles into British Columbia in order to have it ground, and even then the miller claimed onehalf of it for toll. They were also anxious for a sawmill and other appliances used by civilized people. After Captain Baldwin's conversation with Tonasket, Sarsopkin, a chief of the Okinagans on the Moses reservation, came to him to have a talk. This Indian and his followers were the ones who really had to suffer from the restoration of the fifteen-mile strip, as they had lived within its boundaries and cultivated the farms there for many years. Sarsopkin expressed a strong desire to remain in the place which had been his home for generations, but disclaimed all idea of using force to maintain his rights. His people were farmers and, for Indians and considering the fact that they had received no aid or encouragement from the government, were in an advanced stage of civilization. CAPTAIN BALDWIN. All the Indians who were approached on the subject, united in expressing the same views; and all complained very bitterly because Moses was recognized by the government as their chief. Both Tonasket and Sarsopkin asked: "Why does the government place over us, who make our living by farming, a man who never works, but gambles, drinks and races horses with the money he collects from the white men who graze cattle on our reservation? We want a chief who works, and sets a good example for our young men." Nearly all the Indians expressed a desire to have the white people come among them and work the mines, but emphatically expressed their determination not to allow them to usurp the farming and pasture lands. They reasoned in this way: "When the white men come and get the money out of the rocks they will give it to us for what we can grow from the ground, and for our cattle and horses, and in this way we will get rich like the white men." Regardless of these friendly protestations on the part of many Indians, the hostile feeling between the two races increased until it became so violent that a serious Indian war was threatened. The white people. seemed determined to exterminate the Indians, and the Indians to annihilate the white settlers or drive them out of the country. Realizing the |