Page:Affidavit of Harriet Skitus regarding the treaties of 1855 and 1865. - NARA - 296356.tif/1

 Harriet Skitus being first duly sworn deposes and says:

That she is a full blooded Wasco Indian residing upon the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon; that she is 85 or more years of age; that she was present at The Dalles when the original treaty between the Confederated Tribes and bands of Middle Oregon and the Government was made; that the Indians spent many days in council with the representatives of the Government; that she heard all the discussions and negotiations; that the Indians refused to sign the proposed treaty until assured by Joel Palmer on behalf of the Government that they would be allowed to retain their fisheries and grazing lands on the mountains forever; that she was also present when one Huntington came to the Warm Springs Reservation to ask the Indians to sign another paper which he said was for their protection; that Huntington told them that this was an agreement that they would not leave the reservation without securing passes to show to the white men so that the white men would know where they came from and they would be safe; that nothing whatever was said about the Indians giving up their fishing rights and that they had no intention of so doing and that they did not know that they had done so until the statement appeared in the newspapers about a year after the treaty was signed; that Huntington said that if they signed he had some presents of stock and other things which he would bring to them the following year; that he took those things to Klamath and that he never returned and they never received the promised presents; that she had been familiar with the fishing grounds along the Columbia from Little Pine point to the mouth of the Deschutes river all her life; that the first person to settle at Little Pine point and fish there was Wasco Charlie; that it has always been a custom among the Warm Springs and Yakima Indians to visit bank and forth across the river and fish together; that it has been an Indian custom from time immemorial to recognize that when a man had established himself at any fishing point by fishing there for several years that he thereby established possessory rights to that point; that that point thereafter belonged to him and that it continued to belong to him until his death when he could will it to any one he chose or until he openly abandoned it.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 8th day of April, 1915, at Warm Spring Indian Agency, Oregon.