Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/153

 Lee Moorhouse and Aaron L. Lindsley will stand out in glorious renown as long as the state of Oregon has a history.

But if the statements of the Nez Perces are to be believed the government agents still consider it a safe and respectable business to rob an Indian — or a thousand Indians. At the present session of Congress these Indians have presented a petition through Senator Borah, of Idaho, showing that the Nez Perce Indians were a strong and powerful tribe of Indians occupying a large tract of territory amounting to many millions of acres in the states of Oregon, Washing- ton, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming ; in 1855 they ceded over 12,000,000 acres of their territory to the government, but retained the rights to game and fish thereon, they say:

"Again in 1863 a further cession of land was made but our rights to the game, fish, etc., were still retained ; finally in 1893, when we made the last cession of land, we were guaranteed all the treaty rights theretofore promised.

"We were not paid the full amounts promised to us in the treaties and agreements and we were not protected in our hunting and fishing rights.

"The game, fish and herbs, the use of the streams, springs and fountains, roads and highways, the use of the timber and camping privileges were consid- ered by us of much greater value than the money promised to us for the cession of the land.

"Our people are good, law-abiding, sober and industrious citizens and desire fair and honest treatment at the hands of the United States government and at the hands of the officers thereof.

"Many of our people are unjustly and wrongfully treated by the officers or agents of the Interior Department in the forcible deposits of our moneys in banks without our consent — the moneys that belong to individuals, derived from the sale of inherited land, of the collection of rents from their personal lands — and the withholding of the money from the individual, depriving him of the use thereof and imposing on him many hardships at great cost."

Contrary to the general belief the Nez Perces and the Yakimas have actively kept up their local church and school organizations, as well as sending delegates to conferences and church conventions, and have liberally patronized the great government school for Indians near Salem. This school has been of marked use- fulness to thousands of Indian boys and girls who have attended it. One young Indian man educated there — a full-blood Indian of the Puyallup tribe — is now cashier of the First National Bank of North Yakima, and many instances of oth- ers could be given who have succeeded in business, live stock, farming and trans- portation lines.

THE INDIAN AND THE LAND QUESTION

The land question was at the bottom of all the troubles with the Indians. And the land question will be at the bottom of all the trouble amcng the Americans. The Hudson's Bay Company did not seek to monopolize land for cultivation- or sale. It only sought to preserve the wilderness as a vast fur-bearing game pre- serve. This disposition of the land coincided exactly with the ideas of the In- dians, and as the compan.v brought goods and trinkets for exchange for his furs, the Indian was happy and welcomed that sort of a white man to his tepee and his