They Refused the Money and the Land

WENATCHEE, Jan. 2.—There is a history connected with the Wenatchee Lake Indian reservation, reference to which has been made in the Post-Intelligencer. In 1865 Governor Stevens, on behalf of the government, made a treaty with certain Indians, specified as Yakima Indians, giving them a township of land for the benefit and convenience of certain Indian fisheries which were then in existence up the Wenatchee River. This treaty or contract was forwarded to Washington City, together with a plat showing the location of the reservation, by Governor Stevens in that year, but it seems to have slumbered from that time to 1891, when ex-Agent Lynch, acting in the interest of the Yakima Indians, revived it by asking that the reservation be surveyed and formally laid off.

Inasmuch as there were no salmon to catch, and no Indians on or who had ever lived there, steps were taken by many of the settlers up the Wenatchee to prevent its being surveyed or ever laid off as a reservation, especially as it would be useless to the Yakima Indians, and its location would be in the midst of a much needed new country. Notwithstanding this, the department took the necessary steps to have it surveyed and laid off as the “Wenatchee Fishery Reservation,” in accordance with the contract and plat formally made by Governor Stevens. This was done in the fall of 1892. The reservation embraced a part of the lower end of Lake Wenatchee and ran down the river some six miles, so as to make one township of land.

At this time, and for the reasons that it was useless to the Indians and would still be in the way of a new county, a petition was drawn up by Judge Chase and presented to the president, asking that the reservation be bought by the government and the Indians paid a money consideration for the land, leaving a part of the public domain and the settlers thereon undisturbed. Acting under this petition, the president appointed commissioners to investigate the matter and report to the department. The report favored the purchase and also that an appropriation be made to pay the money. This had to be ratified by Congress, and then it was found that, inasmuch as many if not all of the Wenatchee Indians had helped build and use the fisheries of forty years ago, it seemed but right that they should share in the proceeds. Largely through the efforts of Judge Chase, in correspondence with the commissioner of Indian affairs, Congressman Wilson and Senator Squire, a bill was introduced in Congress providing that the Wenatchee Indians should stand on equal footing with the Yakimas in the distribution of the money.

The bill was passed, and an appropriation was made of $36,000, which is now to be paid the Indians in shares alike. In following the instructions of the department, Agent Erwin, of the Yakima reservation, met about twenty of the Wenatchee Indians at Wenatchee recently to inform them that the money would soon be paid over, and also that if any of them was without land he could select eighty acres of unoccupied government land, and he would set it apart for him free of expense; that all of them would receive some money, and those without land would receive land as well. But to the surprise of Erwin, the Indians, by the advice of one Harsenit, who is acting as chief, refused to accept either money or land. In justice to them it should be said that many of them believe that the reservation was not laid where it should have been; they claim that it should have been located from the mouth of the canyon down so as to include the Mission Creek country, and they fear that to accept money for the sale of the reservation at the lake would forfeit all their rights to their hoped-for Mission reservation, of which there is no record or knowledge in the department. It is clear that the only reservation which can or will be given is the one mentioned and now sold, and that the Indians’ rights in that respect are exhausted, and it would be to their interest to receive the money and allotments of land.