Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/9



THE QUARTERLY

of the

Oregon Historical Society

VOLUME XVI MARCH, 1915 NUMBER 1

The Quarterly disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to its pages

THE INDIAN WAR IN WASHINGTON TERRITORY*

By the Indian War in Washington Territory is meant the struggle that began between the Indians on the one side and the white people on the other side in the fall of 1855. The struggle that then ensued is sometimes called the Yakima War, from the fact that it had its inception among the Yakima Indians. It also extended into and over much of Oregon, but for the purposes of this address Washington only will be considered.

When white men first came to the country the Indians had most erroneous impressions and conceptions of them. They could estimate them only from what they knew among them- selves, and from what they saw of the white men. The immense size of their vessels ten to twenty times that of the largest canoes at once caused astonishment, which merged into awe at the wonderful things possessed and done by these strangers with white skins. Their clothing, their foods, their noisy but deadly weapons, their articles of trade were all new to the Red Men. They had never seen or heard of things of the kind. These white men to them were superior, almost supernatural beings. Their possessions were deemed of extraordinary value, compared with which those of the Indians were as of nothing. Avaricious traders took advantage of their favored situation to make bargains with the untutored

1 9th, 1914, at Portland, by Mr. Thomas W. Prosch of Seattle.
 * The annual address to the Oregon Historical Society, delivered December