Frontier and pioneer life -- Northwestern States; Northwestern States -- Description and travel
Often when leaving his teepee for the hills in order to haul his
winter wood, he would go to the home of Miss F----, the missionary,
and tell her he was going away, and at the same time asking her to be
sure to care for his squaw and papooses if he did not return; for,
said he, "Bad Injun ketchy me some day; no liky me; you savy me liky
whity man."
So fair of mind was he, and so humanely progressive, that the
government had chosen him as one of the men before whom petty cases
among the tribe were taken. If he could not solve the problems, they
were then carried to the Agent; then on up if not there adjusted.
When the Presbyterian Missionary Board assisted these Christians to
build a neat house of worship it was, and still is, known far and near
as Billy George's Church.
CHIEF JOSEPH AND HIS LOST WALLOWA
Land where my fathers died.--_Smith_.
A Cornishman was once asked why there were no public houses (saloons)
in his town. He replied, "Once a man by the name of John Wesley
preached here, and there have been none since."
Once a man by the name of General O. O. Howard passed through eastern
Oregon and northern Idaho, and the country has not been the same
since. The occasion was the uprising of the Nez Perces Indians in
1877. Ridpath, the historian, tells of the long chase of the red men
and the weary pursuit of "sixteen hundred miles." It was truly a
Fabian retreat on the part of Chief Joseph and his band, but General
Howard was dealing mercifully with them; at a dozen places he could
have given battle, but he spared the useless slaughter, avoiding the
needless scaring of the white settlers and the complement of dire
scenes and death that would necessarily follow.
The story of Chief Joseph is one of the most interesting unwritten
chapters in the history of the great Northwest. The fact of the
capture of this wily Indian leader with most of his band is well
known. They were banished from the Alpine regions of eastern Oregon
and compelled to make their home across the marble cañon of the Snake
in the State of Idaho, far from their loved Wallowa.
The valley of Wallowa (an Indian name) is one of the most beautiful
spots imaginable. At its southern end stand pillared peaks, eternally
snow-crowned, rivaling the finest to be seen in Switzerland. Here lies
the limpid, glassy Lake Wallowa, near the busy town of Joseph, so
named in honor of the great chieftain. This emerald valley nestles in
the lap of the Blue Mountains, and was from time immemorial the
favorite home of the exiled natives. When Bonneville passed through
that remote region in the early thirties they were in the enjoyment of
that valley and the rugged recesses of the Imnaha between Oregon and
Walla Walla. The famous red fish, the yank, and others possibly
peculiar to the place were found in abundance in the lake. It was
their treasure house for finny food, and the hovering hills furnished
flesh of deer and bear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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