The commissioners exhausted their store of logic in convincing their savage hearers that they needed the benefits of the culture which the white race could impart to them. Over and over again, the motives of the treaties and the treaties themselves were explained in the most painstaking manner. The fact was patent that the Indians meant to resist the invasion of their lands by the people of the United States. The Cayuses were against any sale. Owhi, chief of the Umatillas, and brother-in-law of Kamiakin, was opposed to it. Peupeumoxmox, usually so crafty and non-committal, in this matter was decided; Kamiakin would have nothing to do with it; Joseph and Looking Glass were unfriendly; and only Lawyer continued firm in keeping his word already pledged to Stevens.[1] But for him, and the numerical strength of the Nez Percés, equal, to that of all the other tribes present, no treaty could have been concluded with any of the tribes. His adherence to his determination greatly incensed the Cayuses against him, and some of his own nation almost equally, especially Joseph, who refused to sign the treaty unless it secured to him the valley which he claimed as the home of himself and his people.[2] Looking Glass, war chief
- ↑ 'I think it is doubtful,' says Kip, 'if Lawyer could have held out but for his pride in his small sum of book lore, which inclined him to cling to his friendship with the whites. In making a speech, he was able to refer to the discovery of the continent by the Spaniards, and the story of Columbus making the egg stand on end. He related how the red men had receded before the white men in a manner that was hardly calculated to pour oil upon the troubled waters; yet as his father had agreed with Lewis and Clarke to live in peace with the whites, he was in favor of making a treaty!'
- ↑ Concerning the exact locality claimed by Joseph at this time as his home, there has been much argument and investigation. At the beginning of this history, Joseph was living near Lapwai, but it is said he was only there for the purpose of attending Spalding's school; that his father was a Cayuse, who had two wives, one a Nez Percé, the mother of Joseph, and the other a Cayuse, the mother of Five Crows; that Joseph was born on Snake River, near the mouth of the Grand Rond where his father lived, and that after the Lapwai mission was abandoned he went back to the mouth of the Grand Rond, where he died in 1871. These facts are gathered from a letter of Indian Agent Jno. B. Monteith to H. Clay Wood, and is contained in a pamphlet published by the latter, called The Status of Young Joseph and his Band of Nez Percé Indians under the Treaties, etc., written to settle the
arguments do, in showing the desire of gain, and the suspicion of being cheated.
