The Forgotten Battle at the Mouth of the Okanogan
A newly unearthed cannonball recalls a bloody 19th-century massacre between Hudson’s Bay Company traders and local Indigenous tribes.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The reluctance exhibited by the Indians to part with that part of the great Okanogan reservation lying at the mouth of the Okanogan river was owing to the fact that a great burying place was located on the river bottom, on the site of the present town of Swansea. It is said by the old Indians living along the Columbia that many years ago, when old Fort Okanogan was destroyed by the Indians and the Hudson Bay Company employees massacred, the Indians thought that they had settled the hated King George men forever. When news reached Victoria, orders were sent to Alexander Ross at Vancouver to take instant measures to punish the Indians. Ross gathered a party of voyageurs and a flotilla of batteaux carrying brass four-pounders. They arrived at the mouth of the Okanogan where a swarm of Indians issued from their hiding place. In answer to the clouds of arrows, a well-directed fire of musketry and cannon fire turned the tide. Ross, in his report, says with brevity: 'I met the Indians at the Okanogan and buried 113 on the spot where they fell. Those that were not buried floated down the river.' While working on the grade at Swansea on Saturday last, a much-rusted sphere of iron was turned up on the sidehill facing the site of the battle. This bit of old iron, undoubtedly a cannonball, is in the possession of Mr. A. E. Baird, who intends to present it to the State Historical Society.
“I met the Indians at the Okanogan and buried 113 on the spot where they fell. Those that were not buried floated down the river.”
The town of 'Swansea' mentioned here was a short-lived development near the modern site of Brewster. This story captures the brutal reality of the fur trade era and the dispossession that defined Washington's territorial history.
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