Nez Perce Country

6. The Gathering Storm

On July 22, 1859, a new agent, A. J. Cain, informed Lawyer and many headmen of both factions that the treaty they had made with Stevens in 1855 had finally been ratified and that they could now feel secure on their lands within the reservation boundaries. Despite his assurances, the Nez Perce lands were anything but secure. West of the reservation line the country was filling with land-hungry settlers and miners restless with rumors that the Bitterroot Mountains on the eastern side of the reservation were rich in minerals. One adventurer, Elias D. Pierce, who had been in the California gold rush and had been trading intermittently with the Nez Perce since 1852, had settled at the bustling new town of Walla Walla and, in 1858 and 1859, had visited Indian villages along the Clearwater and panned a little gold. At the time, he considered it too dangerous to pursue his quest, but early in 1860 he and a companion, Seth Ferrell, returned to the village of a friendly, pro-Lawyer headman near the mouth of the Clearwater’s north fork, where Lewis and Clark had built their canoes in 1805. On February 20, a little higher up on the Clearwater, they found enough gold to induce them to go back to Walla Walla for equipment and supplies. Cain, who was based there, learned of their plans and warned them to stay off the Nez Perce reservation . Ferrell dropped out, but Pierce brushed off the warning and with three other men returned to the Clearwater, where they were accosted by Lawyer and a number of his headmen, who questioned them about their intentions and then, seeing that they were not settlers after their lands, agreed to let them prospect. Some of Cain’s Chapter Six The Gathering Storm authorities appeared however, and once more Pierce returned to Walla Walla, this time to raise a party too large for the agent to stop. After telling Cain falsely that he would prospect outside the reservation ’s eastern boundary and would get there by a northern route that did not cross the reservation, Pierce started off again in August with ten men. Stealing onto the reservation, he ferried the Snake River at Timothy’s village at Alpowa and made his way to the upper north fork of the Clearwater, guided through the mountainous country , according to one story by Timothy’s nineteen-year-old daughter, Jane, who was married to the interpreter at Fort Walla Walla. On September 30 one of his men, W. F. Bassett, made a rich strike on Canal Gulch, a headwater of Oro Fino Creek, on the northern part of the reservation. The news was carried back to Walla Walla, and in December, before winter snows closed in the mountain, a group of forty prospectors reached Canal Gulch and began a settlement, which they named Pierce. With the coming of spring, Cain knew, more prospectors would be invading the reservation than either he or the army could contain. After discussions with his superiors, Cain concluded that to avoid a war he would have to get the Nez Perce to agree to amend the 1855 treaty, giving the prospectors the right of access to, and use of, the mining district. In April 1861, accompanied by Edward R. Geary, the superintendent of Indian Affairs for Oregon and Washington, he met with Lawyer and a large group of his followers at Lapwai. His task was easier than he expected. By then the frenzied rush of miners was underway. Since early February gold had been coming into Walla Walla from the mines, spreading excitement throughout the Northwest. In violation of the 1855 treaty, almost a thousand miners were already on the northern part of the reservation, with thousands more on their way. More settlements were springing up on the Indians’ lands and merchants, adventurers, and camp followers were pouring in to set up canvas-walled shops and saloons. Though some whites ran into groups of Nez Perce who angrily tried to bar their way, the Indians’ opposition was ineffective and was usually ended quickly by Lawyer or one of his headmen, who were beginning to 84฀ the gathering storm prosper by selling services, livestock, and food supplies to newcomers. At the crossing of the Snake at present-day Lewiston, one headman named Reuben had gone into partnership with William Craig and was operating a ferry and warehouse for the...