Brutal Assault on the Reservation
An Indigenous man is found critically injured near Union Gap after an alleged attack by drunken companions.
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.
Report was received in this city Tuesday that an Indian had been murdered by his drunken companions the night before at a point on the reservation just below Union Gap. Deputy Sheriff Simmons and Policeman Cramer visited the scene and found an Indian lying in dust a foot deep. He was unconscious, but still alive. He was carried to the river and the dust washed from his mouth and a wound in the forehead, the result of a blow which had crushed the skull. At last accounts the Indian was still in the land of the living, but it was not thought he could live much longer.
“Deputy Sheriff Simmons and Policeman Cramer visited the scene and found an Indian lying in dust a foot deep. He was unconscious, but still alive.”
This reporting highlights the dehumanizing language common in 1890s press regarding the Indigenous community, treating a violent crime on the reservation as a passing curiosity rather than a matter of grave civic concern. It echoes a long history of jurisdictional ambiguity and systemic neglect regarding safety and justice for the Yakama Nation that has persisted well into the modern era.
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