Contact: Whites and Indigenous in Washington Territory

Early Contact Period (1800-1836)

During the early 19th century, contact between Native peoples and whites in what would become Washington Territory was primarily through fur traders and explorers. This period saw relatively limited conflict, as the fur trade created economic relationships between Native groups and European/American traders. Important events were the Lewis and Clark expedition, John Jacob Astor's founding of Astoria, David Thompson's decent of the Columbia river, and the establishment of fur trading posts throughout the Columbia basin.

The Whitman Mission Era (1836-1847)

Marcus and Narcissa Whitman established a mission at Waiilatpu near present-day Walla Walla in 1836, intending to support and convert Native Americans but instead they facilitating increased settler migration. The mission became a stopping point for emigrants traveling the Oregon Trail, which brought increasing numbers of settlers through Cayuse territory.

Tensions escalated over the eleven years the mission operated. On November 29, 1847, a small group of Cayuse men killed Marcus and Narcissa Whitman along with eleven others, suspecting that Whitman had poisoned them. The attack occurred during a measles epidemic that devastated the Cayuse population while many white settlers survived, leading to suspicions about Whitman's role. The attackers killed 13 people total and captured 49 people, mostly women and children.

Americans used what became known as the Whitman Massacre to justify raids and to bring the perpetrators to trial in Oregon City in 1850. The attack led to a war of retaliation against the Cayuse and the extension of federal control over present-day Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of Montana.

The Treaty Period (1854-1856)

Washington Territory's first governor, Isaac Stevens, aggressively pursued treaties with Native tribes. Stevens ultimately negotiated eight treaties with tribes in what would become Washington. These included major treaties in 1854-1855: the Treaty of Medicine Creek (1854), and in 1855 the Treaties of Point Elliott, Point No Point, Neah Bay, and treaties with the Yakama and other inland tribes.

The U.S.-Indian treaties of 1854 through 1856 left native groups with only a fraction of their former homelands. The treaties called for tribes to be restricted to certain areas (reservations) and it was not uncommon for tribes with totally different languages and cultures to be grouped together. However, the three treaties signed by Washington tribes, resulting in the Yakama, Nez Perce, and Umatilla reservations, were not ratified by Congress until 1859.

Post-Treaty Conflicts (1855-1858)

The signing of treaties left great deal of room for confusion and discontent, and the treaties of 1854-1855 in Washington Territory did not prevent the hostilities of 1855-58. The Yakama War and other conflicts erupted almost immediately after treaty negotiations, as Native groups resisted the dramatic loss of territory and the government's failure to honor treaty terms. During 1855-1856, approximately 47 named blockhouses and forts were constructed, and by the end of 1856 treaties had been signed in which the Indians gave up large areas of land to bring about peace.

This period fundamentally transformed the relationship between Native peoples and the United States government in the Pacific Northwest, establishing the reservation system and patterns of conflict that would continue for decades.

Most of information on this site comes from the book Kamiakin the Last Hero of the Yakima by Jack Splawn 1914

European exploration of Western North America

1519: Hernan Cortes landed in present day Mexico with eleven ships, five hundred men, and the first thirteen horses in Western North America. Cortes formally claimed the land for the Spanish crown in 1521. In the wild, horse population grows exponentially at 15-20%/year. Starting with thirteen, in one hundred years, the population would be over one million.

1542: Spanish explorer, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, explored the West Coast of North America, reaching as far north as present-day Oregon.

1579: English explorer, Sir Francis Drake, sailed along the Pacific Coast, as far north as the Oregon Coast.

1607: Santa Fe (presently in New Mexico) founded by the Spanish. In 1680, the Pueblo Indians revolted and pushed the Spanish out. The Spanish regained control 1692.

1741: Vitus Jonassen Bering, a Danish cartographer in Russian service, explored North America and the Alaskan Coast.

1778: British explorer, Captain James Cook, during his third voyage, explored the Pacific Northwest Coast, including parts of what is now Oregon.

1787: Charles William Barkley, named the Straits of Juan de Fuca after the Greek navigator, who claimed to have explored the area in 1592 as part of a Spanish expedition.

1791: Francisco de Eliza, named the San Juan Islands to honor his patron sponsor, Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, the 2nd Count of Revillagigedo.

1792: George Vancouver, explored the West Coast of North America in search of a Northwest Passage. He named Puget Sound for his lieutenant Peter Puget.

1792: American sea captain, Robert Gray, discovered, navigated the entrance, traded for furs, and named the Columbia River, establishing a U.S. claim to the region.

1804-1806: The Lewis and Clark Expedition, commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, explored, mapped, and established further U.S. claims to the Oregon Territory.

1811: Fort Astoria, was founded, at the mouth of the Columbia River, by John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company, the first American settlement west of the Rocky Mountains. That same year, Fort Okanogan was built at the confluence of the Columbia and Okanogan Rivers. 

1811: David Thompson (1770-1857), Canadian explorer, geographer, and fur trader, sets off from Spokane House, the North West Company's trading post on the Spokane River. Thompson, a partner with the North West Company of Montreal, has recently pioneered a new trade route across Athabasca Pass in the Canadian Rockies, and is bound for Kettle Falls, where he will prepare to descend the Columbia to its mouth to determine if the Great River of the West is navigable to the sea. 

1813: During the War of 1812, the British claimed Fort Astoria, ending John Jacob Astor’s dream of a fur empire on the West Coast. The Northwest Fur Company followed by the Hudson Bay Company took over the fur trading business in the Columbia Basin.

1846-1848 American Mexican war. In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States claimed the states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and parts of Oklahoma, Kanas, Wyoming, and Colorado. The Texas border extended to the Rio Grande. This territory included the important population centers of San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Tucson, Santa Fe, and San Antonio.

1846: The Oregon Treaty, between the British and USA, settled the boundary dispute and joint occupation of the Pacific Northwest. The Hudson Bay Company was allowed continued usage of Fort Okanogan, which was mostly not staffed by 1850 and abandoned by 1860.

1847:Whitman massacre, On November 29, a small group of Cayuse Indians launched an assault on the Whitman Mission near Walla Walla. This mission sheltered 74 people, most of whom were emigrants seeking a new life in the frontier. Thirteen people died, 49 were captured by the Cayuse, and the remaining 12 escaped.  In response, the US Congress established federal control over the present-day states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming. The massacre became a pivotal moment in shaping the U.S. settlement of the Pacific Northwest.

1849: The start of a series of Gold Rush’s that shaped the west. These are major rushes, but there many smaller gold and silver rushes all of western states.

1.   Sacramento California 1849

2.   Fraser River Lillooet and Hope British Columbia 1850

3.   Colorado Gold fever 1858 “Pike’s Peak or Bust”

4.   Cariboo Mountains of British Columbia 1860

5.   Cripple Creek Co. 1890

6.   Klondike gold rush in Yukon district of Canada 1896

1853: Lieutenant George McClellan, (who later commanded the Army of the Potomac in the Civil War) arrived at Fort Vancouver at the request of Washington Territorial Governor, Issac Stevens, to find a route through the Cascades for the railroad. This expedition alarmed the indigenous people as the white people were coming in larger numbers and demanding land.

1854: Kamiakin, chief of the Yakima, and other important chiefs, organized a council of the Washington, Oregon, and Idaho indigenous tribes in the Grande Ronde Valley, in present day Oregon, where they agreed not to sell land or sign treaties with the whites.

1855: Governor Stevens, arranged a great council to take place in Walla Walla. The Nez Perce were led by Chief Lawyer, who told Stevens that there was a plot by the Cayuses to kill the whites. Chief Lawyer signed a treaty favorable to the Nez Perce and also offered Stevens the protection of the Nez Perce against the Cayuses, negating the earlier agreement made in the Grande Ronde between the tribes.

1855-1858 Indian Wars: Battles in the Indian Wars included many tribes (Yakama, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Snoqualmie) and large and small actions (Seattle, Walla Walla, Spokane Coeur d’Alene) and many smaller skirmishes and attacks on whites by Indians. The US Army was mobilized in to put down the revolt.

1858: The first Chinese worked on the Columbia, placer mining the sand bars. Over the following 25 years, the Chinese population on the river, from Rock Island, south of Wenatchee, to Similkameen River and Pend Oreille River in the north, grew to 1,500, about twice that of the white population. The Chinese played a key role in the development railroads, mines, fishery, farming, and business in the Western states.  They were also among the first to build ditches on tributaries of Columbia to feed water to the sluice boxes that separated sand for gold.

1869: First transcontinental RR completed when the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad connect in Utah.

1872: A large earthquake occurred, thought to have been centered near Chelan. The quake resulted in a landslide that blocked the Columbia River between Chelan and Entiat for a time and created a geyser near Beebe Springs.

1875: Methow Indians killed some Chinese on the Methow River followed by a general uprising. Indians continued to kill Chinese on the Columbia. South of Chelan, the Indians trapped as many as 300 Chinese on a ledge who were pushed or killed.  The Chinese left the river for a time but returned and continued working the river until the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

1876: The Battle of the Little Bighorn, fought on June 25, 1876, near the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory, pitted federal troops led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer (1839-76) against a band of Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. Tensions between the two groups had been rising since the discovery of gold on Native American lands. When a number of tribes missed a federal deadline to move to reservations, the U.S. Army, including Custer and his 7th Cavalry, was dispatched to confront them. Custer was unaware of the number of Indians fighting under the command of Sitting Bull (c.1831-90) at Little Bighorn, and his forces were outnumbered and quickly overwhelmed.

1877: Nez Perce Retreat: In the summer and early autumn of 1877 a band of Nez Perce — led by the Wallowa-band leader Chief Joseph and by battlefield leaders such as Looking Glass and White Bird — undertook a fighting retreat to join Sitting Bull in Canada. What began as a contested attempt to avoid forced removal from ancestral lands in northeastern Oregon turned, after a series of violent incidents and military responses, into a months-long flight across Idaho, over Lolo Pass into Montana, through Yellowstone country, and finally to a last stand on the north slope of the Bear Paw Mountains —

1879-1886: Chief Moses, of the Sinkiuse-Columbia Tribe, negotiated a large reservation, known as the Columbia or Moses Reservation, bordered on the West by Lake Chelan and the Cascade Crest, on the North by the Canadian border on the east by Okanogan River and on the south by the Columbia.  The reservation included all the Methow Valley, Lake Chelan and the Western shore of Okanogan River.  Hiram “Okanogan” Smith and other early settlers convinced the US government that there were valuable minerals along the Canadian border. In 1883, a 15-mile strip along the Canadian border was removed from the Columbia Reservation. By an act of Congress, the entire reservation was returned to the public domain in 1886.