The mails came by way of the Columbia River and Portland. Governor Stevens urged the Legislature to memorialize Congress to improve this poor service; also to provide for a surveyor general and for a continuation of the geographical surveys. Had the governor prepared his message from a Bible text that text would have been "ask and ye shall receive."

The message called attention to the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, the governor considering it important that the claims of this organization be defined and its title to land extinguished. With regard to the older Hudson's Bay Company, "great difficulty it is apprehended cannot occur. Their right

to trade with the Indians is not recognized, and will no longer be allowed. Under instructions from the Secretary of State I have already addressed a note to them on this subject, and have allowed them until the 1st of July, next, to wind up their affairs. After that time the laws regulating intercourse with the Indians will be rigidly enforced."

Congress, having made liberal appropriations of land for the establishment of schools, the governor suggested memorializing that body for a grant of land for a University. “Let every youth, however limited his opportunities, find his place in the school, the college, the university, if God has given him the necessary gifts." Here is the beginning of Washington's fine institutions of higher learning. Governor Stevens had already bought a large number of books for the territorial library and now asked the legislators to provide for their care. In framing statutes for the new territory the governor suggested using the laws of Oregon, in so far as this was practical. The need of laws for the new territory was given first consideration by the Legislature's appointment of Judges Edward Lander, Victor Monroe and William Strong as an advisory commission in framing these laws. With the assistance of these jurists Washington was enabled to profit by the experience of the Oregon Provisional Government and most of the laws adopted by this first Legislature stood the test of time and practical application.

In order to provide for greater representation and a more just system of local government, the Legislature created the eight counties of Whatcom, Sawamish--later changed to Kitsap-Skamania, Wahkiakum, Clallam, Chehalis, Cowlitz and Walla Walla, the later including all the territory east of the Cascade Mountains, a large part of the present State of Idaho and a strip along the western edge of Montana. Provision was made for locating roads from Steilacoom by way of Seattle to Bellingham Bay; from Steilacoom to the Columbia River and from Olympia to Willapa Harbor. At the suggestion of the Legislature Governor Stevens left Olympia March 25th for Washington, D. C., to prosecute the building of the Northern railroad.

That this first legislative assembly contained men of radically progressive ideas is shown by the fact that woman suffrage was defeated by but one vote. Professor Meany hints that this measure might have become law had it provided for giving the vote to Indian women married to white men. This it did not do, one of the legislators had an Indian wife and the bill was defeated. Prohibition of the liquor traffic also was defeated.

While the legislators were framing laws the people were thrown into wild excitment by the discovery of gold at Steilacoom. On April 8th A. J. Bolon reported the discovery. Dr. P. M. Muse had panned out some beautiful specimens of the yellow metal and everybody who could get away hastened to the

new "diggings" on the Steilacoom beach, which for a few days, was turned into a typical gold camp, with claims staked and mining companies organized. Doctor Muse had found a pocket from which he took about $25 worth of gold. That was the end of it.

A strange coincidence is related of Pacific County's representatives. J. L. Brown, one of the nominees, died before the election. Jehu Scudder was elected but died before the Legislature met. Henry Feister, Scudder's successor, arrived in Olympia on the morning of March 30th, was sworn in and died that evening while seated in the bar room of the Washington Hotel. Another fatality was to mark the closing scenes of the session. Of this sad event, A. A. Denny, King County's representative, has left the following account:

“I had made arrangements for a large canoe and crew of Indians to take me home on the morning after adjournment, and was hurrying to the boat, when a 'committee from headquarters' gave chase. Headquarters was the place where the 'boys' were having a high old time. I was captured and taken back to headquarters. I was offered a glass of whisky, and upon declining, the crowd yelled: "Make him drink! Make him drink!'

"They grabbed me by the collar, and I settled back for what I supposed was going to be a nasty fight, when Elwood Evans spoke up as follows:

"No, boys, don't make him drink. I propose that we drink to the health of the only member of the Legislature who consistently lives up to the principles of the Maine liquor law.'

"This seemed to satisfy the crowd. They drank most heartily to my health, and I made my escape to the waiting canoe. As I hastened along I noticed my good friend, George N. McConaha, president of the first Council, running like a deer with another 'headquarters committee' at his heels. They caught him, and the last time I saw my friend the committee was marching him back to headquarters. Now Mr. McConaha was a man of superior parts, and one I always held in the highest esteem. He had previously been addicted to the liquor habit, and I never saw a man make more heroic efforts than he did to overcome that habit. So you can imagine with what feelings of sorrow I pushed off he Olympia beach with my canoe.

"On his return Mr. McConaha's canoe was overturned in a storm off the southern shore of Vashon Island, and he was drowned. The delay and the liquor at the 'headquarters' may have had nothing to do with his death, but there are many people who will always believe that he would have continued in a long life of usefulness if he had not been overtaken by that unfortunate committee." In May two large canoes of well armed northern Indians appeared in Bellingham Bay, ransacked the homes of some of the settlers, who had taken to the woods upon the approach of the hostiles, and killed David Melville and George Brown. Few and far between were the settlements of the lower Sound country at this time and constant fear of attack by these bloodthirsty northern tribes, who always beheaded their victims and carried the gruesome trophies back to their northern villages, served to retard the development of the country. In August Col. I. B. Ebey, collector of customs received instructions to remove the customs house from Olympia to Port Townsend. The same month Ward & Hays placed their new flour mill at Tumwater in operation. Its capacity was twenty bushels of wheat an hour. About this time Silas Galliher and the first of the year's immigrants arrived over the Nachess Pass road.

CHAPTER XIV

GOVERNOR STEVENS BEGINS TREATY-MAKING WITH INDIANS IN ORDER TO EXTINGUISH THEIR TITLE TO LANDS-FIRST CONFERENCE AT MEDICINE CREEK-LESCHI TEARS UP CHIEFTAIN'S CERTIFICATE AND GRINDS FRAGMENTS INTO EARTH WITH HEEL-DID HE SIGN THE TREATY?-SECOND TREATY MADE NEAR MUKILTEO— JAMES G. SWAN DESCRIBES THE "WAH-WAH"-SOUTHWESTERN INDIANS GROW

INSOLENT-GOVERNOR GOES EAST OF MOUNTAINS-SIGNS OF INDIAN WAR DEVELOP AS GOVERNOR AND HIS HELPERS EXERT PRESSURE TO BRING INDIANS TO TERMS.

In his first message to the first Legislature, Governor Stevens pointed out the necessity of extinguishing the Indian title to lands. Congress had declared in favor of this, but had failed to appropriate money. To procure this money was one of the aims for which the governor journeyed to the national capitol in the spring of 1854. The efforts of Stevens and Delegate Lancaster obtained from Congress provision for the appointment of a surveyor-general; better mail service; money to build a wagon road from Fort Benton to Walla Walla and to make a treaty with the Blackfoot tribe of Indians. In the refusal of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis to recommend further work on the Northern railroad is to be seen the surface indications of one of the numerous plots leading up to the Civil war. Stevens, not to be thwarted, completed the railroad work with his own money and the assistance of volunteers-the Government later reimbursing him.

December 4, 1854, the Legislature assembled in its second session. The governor's message said the time had arrived for the settlement of the Indian land question and with his customary energy the governor plunged into the work. Beginning with the tribes nearest Olympia and longest in touch with white settlements, the governor, December 26th, held a council on the She-nah-nam, or Medicine Creek with the delegates of the Nisqually, Puyallup, Steilacoom, Squawksin, S'Homamish, Steh-chess, T'Peeksin, Squi-aitl, and Sa-heh-wamish tribes and bands of Indians, occupying the lands lying round the head of Puget's Sound and the adjacent inlets.

Under the terms of this treaty the Indians agreed to accept $32,500, to be paid in annual installments, three small reservations, one an island in the Sound, one of 1,280 acres of high land and one of the same size near the mouth of the Puyallup River. In return they were to surrender their title to the whole of the country. The treaty was signed by sixty-two Indians and witnessed by the signatures of nineteen white men, among them being M. T. Simmons, Indian agent; James Doty, secretary to the commission; C. H. Mason, secretary of the territory; Benjamin F. Shaw, interpreter, George Gibbs and the governor's young son. Hazard Stevens.

At this time tribal government was a thing of the past with the Nisqually Indians. They had no recognized chief and the tribe had broken up into small bands. Without some recognized authority with which to negotiate, Stevens found his hands tied. To supply this authority he issued a certificate of chieftainship to Quiemuth, at the same time making Quiemuth's brother, Leschi, a subchief.

Few things in the history of the State of Washington have occasioned so much controversy among historians as have Governor Stevens' Indian treaties. Defenders of the governor say the instructions of the Federal Government placed restrictions upon his action; that too much was expected and too many burdens laid upon his shoulders. His critics accuse him of impatience, of a disregard for the rights of natives and of drinking to excess. Chief among the governor's defenders stands his son, Gen. Hazard Stevens. The original records of the Medicine Creek treaty are lost from the Government archives. Arrayed against Gen. Hazard Stevens are some of the pioneers, who accuse the governor of unjust treatment of the Indians and because of that unjust treatment of being the cause of the Indian outbreak of 1855-56.

Three days were spent in negotiating the first treaty. Leschi, who seems to have led the forces opposed to the treaty, objected to the land selected for the reservation and told the governor his people wanted bottom land upon which they could learn to farm, and some prairie land for pasturage. The Nisquallies, or that band of that nation led by Leschi, were closely connected by blood relationship with the Klickitat tribe. They were "horse" and not "canoe," Indians and were not content to be confined upon small, rough and heavy timbered lands. They wanted to retain the homes in which they had lived for years. This request the governor refused to grant; Leschi tore up the chieftain's certificate given to him. by the governor, stamped its pieces into the earth and left the council ground.

Leschi's name is the third of those signed to the treaty. Whether or not that signature is genuine has a large bearing on subsequent events. L. F. Thompson, living near the council grounds at the time the treaty was made, says:

"After the treaty was over the Indians came to me and said that Leschi would not sign the treaty for the Nisquallies and Puyallups. They were the Indians Leschi represented. But M. T. Simmons told Leschi that if he did not sign it he would sign it for him. From what the Indians told me at the time and from what the whites told me, I am positive that Leschi never signed the treaty."

Thompson's opinion is held by a large number of other pioneers. Hon. James Wickersham, in a paper prepared for the Washington State Historical Society sums up the question with these words:

"Let us pass, however, for the sake of the argument, that they (the Indians) did sign the treaty. Did they understand it? Did it contain the contract agreed upon? Were they over-persuaded by their guardian? Were they deceived and mistaken? If so, it is not their contract and should be set aside as being obtained through fraud and intimidation.

"Let us continue our evidence on these points and call the interpreter at the Medicine Creek treaty, Col. B. F. Shaw, of Clark County, now a member of the State Senate. On the 11th of March, 1893, Colonel Shaw made a statement in writing which I have in my possession touching these matters, and from it I make the following suggestive quotations. He said: 'Leschi and Quiemuth did

sign the treaty. The fault was in the treaty. They said: "Can you get the Indians to sign the treaty?" I answered: "Yes, I can get the Indians to sign their death warrant." Their idea was that in a few years the Indians would die out and the reservations would be large enough.

"My opinion is that the treaties were humbugs-premature, and that the Indians did not understand them, although we endeavored to do it; they did not. realize it. When they got home they were dissatisfied. Two or three days after the treaty was made I rode over to Nisqually and met Leschi and Stahi, and they were very much dissatisfied and they complained very much. I told them that if anything was wrong it would be fixed by the Government. They were very much excited and accused me of deceiving them. I denied it and told them that

I had told them just what the governor had said. They tried to get a new treaty. They asked me to report their dissatisfaction to the governor. I told the governor, but the treaty was sent to Washington. The governor promised to get them other reservations. The trouble seemed to die out slowly until after the Walla Walla treaty; then there was dissatisfaction. Over-persuasion and persistency brought about the Walla Walla treaty. The governor was a persistent man. It did not seem to dawn upon Leschi what the treaty was, what it meant. He was called a tyee, etc., and flattered.'

"Now, this is the evidence of the interpreter, the mind through which the contracting parties made the treaty-the contract. The treaty or contract was prepared and given to the interpreter. 'Can you get the Indians to sign this treaty?' 'Yes, I can get the Indians to sign their death warrant.' In this question and answer you have the whole injustice of the Medicine Creek Treaty laid bare. It was a contract obtained through over-persuasion and deceit; through promises not in the record; by imposition upon minds unaccustomed to written contracts; a contract obtained from the weak by the strong; from the ward by the guardian; from the child by the parent, and wholly without consideration— unfair, unjust, ungenerous and illegal. Any American court of justice would have set such a contract aside as fraudulent and void because of the imposition upon the weak by the strong, and for failure of agreement of minds and considerations."

Judge Wickersham's indictment of the Medicine Creek Treaty might, with equal force be brought against all the treaties made between the Federal Government and the native tribes. The powerful eastern and central-western tribes possessed a semblance of national unity; they were governed by chiefs who exercised an authority recognized by the tribal members, and in this the Government sought to establish justification for driving hard diplomatic bargains.

The Western Washington treaties cannot be justified upon even this pretext-the native race here had not advanced to the dignity of even a tribal government. The little government they recognized was of the most primitive character—a kind of patriarchal form yet in the making. The so-called nations were sub-divided into so many small bands that Governor Stevens found it necessary to organize tribes and appoint chiefs before he could carry out his treaty plans. The Chinook jargon, "an unintelligible language" of about 300 words, was used in the council negotiations and discussions. In the use of even this poor language vehicle, interpreters were necessary. The Indians, having signed an agreement for the sale of their lands, naturally expected pay