The Enigma of the Moses Reservation
A critical look at the federal policy keeping prime Washington farmland locked away from development while the Indigenous people it was intended for remain elsewhere.
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 country along the mouth of the Chelan is embraced in the Moses reservation, which extends north to the British line. So long as the reservation is held for the exclusive use and benefit of the Indians, there can be no material development of that portion of this fertile region. It is true the country is not used by Moses nor any of his little band. He, as well as the majority of his subjects, spend the most of their time in Yakima county, wholly removed from the land awarded them by the Howard-Moses treaty. Moses has no use for the reservation and does not want to live on it. Why is it held from cultivation and settlement by the whites is an enigma that can only be solved on the ground that those in authority are ignorant of the true state of facts. It is reasonable to suppose that the existing state of affairs has long since been communicated to the authorities at Washington; but no steps have been taken to alter the condition of things. It is highly probable that the Moses reservation will ere long pass from his possession, and be thrown open to settlement by the whites.
“Why is it held from cultivation and settlement by the whites is an enigma that can only be solved on the ground that those in authority are ignorant of the true state of facts.”
This article highlights the era's aggressive settler-colonial push to dispossess Indigenous nations of their lands under the guise of 'improvement.' The language used mirrors the 19th-century rhetorical justification for the Dawes Act and the systematic breaking up of reservations, which remains a central point of historical grievance and modern legal land-rights discourse in Washington.
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