Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/356



22

on securing their alliance depended the fate of the treaty, if indeed they escaped becoming involved in war on ac count of it, as at some points in the discussion seemed im minent. Even among the Nez Percés themselves there was discord. Looking Glass, from the time he appeared at the council, had been insolent in his behavior, and the little force of fifty troopers were kept ready for action in case of an outbreak. Joseph, who pretended to a more distinguished line of ancestry than Lawyer, and who thought he should have been high chief in his place, as he probably would have been but for the interference of the white admirers of Lawyer, determinedly refused to sign the treaty.

The proposition in the treaty most difficult to gain ac ceptance was a common reservation for all the tribes pres ent in the Nez Percés country. Finding that this feature of the treaty would defeat it if further insisted upon, the commissioners finally proposed separate reservations in all the tribal lands, to which proposition there was a general and apparently a cordial assent. Kamiakin only would agree to nothing. When pressed by Stevens to express his views, he exclaimed, "What have I to say?" and relapsed into sullen silence. Two days afterwards, on the eleventh of June, he signed the treaty along with all the other chiefs, giving as a reason for his change of purpose that he did it for the good of his people. Joseph, some years later, denied having signed this treaty, and pretended to the ownership of the Wallowa valley in Oregon, a claim not justified by the facts, 12 but asserted by his son, Young Joseph, and made the basis of a bloody war in 1877.

The Nez Percés received for their lands outside an ample reservation, two hundred thousand dollars in annuities; the Cayuses and Walla W T allas were united and given a reservation in the beautiful Umatilla valley, and received one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The Yakimas received the same as the Nez Percés, and were allowed the

12 Woods Status of Young Joseph, etc., p. 36.