The Race That Wasn't: A 'Compulsory' Chase on the Snoqualmie Road
In September 1876, a traveler near Fall City was forced into a high-speed gallop by five Indigenous men who claimed they only wanted to test their horses' speed against his.
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.
A COMPULSORY RACE.—A young man with Mr. Bow, at the Union Livery Stable, who has been up upon the Snoqualmie looking after the interests of his place there, and who returned last evening, informs us that he had a lively ride Wednesday afternoon on his way down. He was riding along at a moderate pace about ten miles this side of Fall City, when five Indians appeared behind him mounted on cavalcade, and when within a short distance commenced yelling fearfully and whipping up their horses, at which his fleet-footed steed took fright and became unmanageable. She struck out at full speed, and after a hot chase of two miles, the 'Rocky sons of the forest' were left far behind. The fellows, probably, only wanted a little fun at his expense, and were anxious to try the speed of their horses against the more stalwart beast of the 'Boston.' This is probably one of the tricks they have been perpetrating on the mail carrier, and at which he fell somewhat alarmed. They ran a compulsory race with the fellow whether he wants to or not, as they frighten his horse, and make him go as fast as an old fellow was after him, and as a natural consequence the rider must go too.
This 1876 account reveals the tense, often violent undercurrents of early Seattle settlement life, where interactions between settlers and Indigenous peoples were frequently framed through a lens of suspicion and racial caricature. The term 'compulsory race' highlights how settler narratives often interpreted Indigenous agency or cultural practices as malicious pranks or threats, reflecting the broader displacement and conflict occurring across Washington Territory during this era.
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