Page:The Indian Dispossessed.pdf/102

 of false rumors amongst them by renegades from other tribes, to the effect that they were being deluded with the idea that their 'treaty' was good, and would be carried out until the whites and soldiers were strong enough to take their lands by force."

The meddlers may have been "renegades"; but in making this prediction they were wizards, soothsayers.

Scarcely had the Nez Perces settled down under the treaty to learn the white man's way, when the discovery of gold brought a rush of miners and adventurers into the reservation itself. No effort seems to have been made to restrain them, and the provision in the covenant, "nor shall any white man . . . be permitted to reside upon said reservation," became a dead letter. Indeed, the whole energy of the interested white population was directed toward securing another curtailment of the Indians' country. Year by year the situation grew worse; the official story is briefly told by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in a report to the Secretary of the Interior:

"In defiance of law, and despite the protestations of the Indian agent, a town site was laid off in October, 1861, on the reservaton, and Lewiston, with a population of twelve hundred, sprung into existence. . ..

"By the spring of 1863 it was very evident that, from the change of circumstances and contact with the whites, a new treaty was required to properly